The Miami Hurricanes are leading 24-23 over the Valparaiso Crusaders at halftime in the first round of this year's NIT. In what's been an offensive struggle for both teams, neither team could muster up much offense in the first 20 minutes.
Early on, the Hurricanes took an 11-5 lead thanks to a trio of three-pointers. After that hot start, though, Miami would proceed to score just 13 points over the remaining 17 minutes of the half. Unfortunately for the Crusaders, they couldn't get much going on offense either, so they still trail despite the strong defense.
Valparaiso's Ryan Broekhoff leads all scorers so far with 10 points, but he's also just 3-of-10 shooting from the field and 1-of-6 shooting from three-point distance. No player for Miami has taken more than four shots in the first half in what's been a balanced attack and Rion Brown leads the way for the Hurricanes with six points.
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