One of the perks of being Barry Larkin’s kid is that you get batting tips from the likes of Ken Griffey Jr., Pete Rose and Tony Perez.
As a youngster, University of Miami sophomore point guard Shane Larkin annually accompanied his dad to spring training with the Cincinnati Reds, shagging fly balls, fielding grounders with his father’s glove and learning to hit from some of the game’s greatest players.
Larkin became close to Perez, a Hall of Famer who now serves as special assistant to Marlins executive Larry Beinfest, and adopted his batting style — complete with a leg kick.
But Larkin’s love affair with baseball came to an unhappy end on a Little League field in Orlando when he was 7.
“I went up to hit one day and my coach is like, ‘Whoever taught you how to swing like that didn’t know what they were talking about,’ ” Larkin said. “It really killed my love for the game. After that season, I never went back.”
Barry Larkin, a 12-time All-Star with the Reds and a 2012 inductee into the Baseball Hall of Fame, recalls being “incredibly disappointed at the time.”
“He wanted to be a baseball player like his dad when he was little,” the elder Larkin said this week from his home in Orlando. “And I really wanted him to play baseball. But, hey, he turned into the starting point guard at the University of Miami, which isn’t too bad, either.”
Baseball’s loss has certainly been the Hurricanes’ gain.
Going into Friday’s game against Charlotte (9-0) at the Bank United Center, Larkin leads the surging Hurricanes (5-1) in scoring (16.4 ppg) and assists (3.8 apg). UM has won four consecutive games, including an upset of No. 13 Michigan State two weeks ago, and is receiving votes in both the Associated Press and USA Today polls.
An All-ACC Freshman selection last season, Larkin’s game has taken a giant step as a sophomore. After averaging 7.4 points in 2011-12, Larkin has more than doubled that number. He’s scored at least 13 points in each of UM’s six games, including a career-high 27 against Jacksonville on Nov. 16.
Instead of passing up shots to feed others as he did last season, Larkin has looked to score more this year. He’s been efficient, too. Larkin is shooting an impressive .565 percent from the field and .520 from three-point range.
“When you come in as a freshman, especially with a veteran team like we had last year, you’re kind of just trying to fit in and you don’t want to step on anybody’s toes,” coach Jim Larranaga said. “You have a natural tendency to defer to the upperclassmen.”
Larkin is only 5-foot-11 and 176 pounds but he’s one of the quickest players in the ACC, which makes him a pest both offensively and defensively. Last season, he finished fifth in the conference with 1.6 steals per game.
“He’s a terrific defender, he has great hands and vision, he’s good in transition and he’s tough,” said Seth Greenberg , the former Virginia Tech coach now working as an ESPN college basketball analyst. “I love Shane Larkin’s game.”
Larkin almost never played at Miami. He originally enrolled at DePaul, but asked for a waiver from his scholarship because of an undisclosed medical condition that required him to be closer to home. The NCAA accepted an appeal from Larkin, allowing him to play immediately at Miami without sitting out a season.
Among those regularly watching Larkin at UM’s home games is his father, who is a baseball analyst for ESPN.
“I know he wanted me to play baseball,” Shane said. “He still tells me I could hit 30 home runs and steal 50 bases. But it was not the game I fell in love with.”
That game is basketball and Shane is adding to the family lore in the sport. His uncle, Byron, is one of the most decorated players in Xavier University history and remains one of the 25 top scorers in NCAA Division I history.
“Shane has always wanted to make his own way,” Barry Larkin said. “He’s always been very conscious of people believing that his success was predicated on his last name. That’s one of the reasons our family moved from Cincinnati to Florida. I wanted my kids to have their own blank canvas and create their own identity.”
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