Maybe it’s as college basketball simple as this: Jim Larranaga and the University of Miami are meant for each other.
Maybe a veteran coach — Larranaga is 63 years old and in the middle of a second, and rather remarkable, season with the Hurricanes — and a heretofore mostly nondescript program were just supposed to get together and do something spectacular.
It was more than a quarter of a century ago when Larranaga, who was leaving an assistantship at Virginia in the mighty Atlantic Coast Conference, set a goal for himself. He put it in writing. He wanted to be an ACC head coach someday.
Now, finally, he is, and his Hurricanes are ranked No. 8 in the country. They own a sparkly 18-3 overall record, and are a breathtaking 9-0 in the conference going into Saturday’s game against North Carolina in their sold-out BankUnited Center home. It is the third such sellout of the season, and UM at this point must be grateful there’s such a thing as a Wikipedia page.
Huh?
Larranaga had met Miami businessman Jorge Mas while working at a Michael Jordan fantasy camp. It was Mas who called Larranaga when the Miami job opened upon Frank Haith’s departure for Missouri, and it was Mas who asked him to send UM his résumé. Larranaga, though, happened to be in Erie, Pa., at the time, watching his son, Jay, coach a game in the NBA’s Developmental League.
“I don’t travel with my résumé,” Larranaga told Mas.
Jay had an idea. He told his father to cut-and-paste his online Wikipedia biography and submit it as an introduction. Larranaga, who was 14 years into a gig as head coach at George Mason and had taken the Patriots on a Cinderella run to the Final Four in 2006, did exactly that.
Mas saw to it that the document got to the necessary sets of eyes – from Board of Trustees members to athletic director to university president – and soon enough Larranaga was invited to Boston for an interview he didn’t think went particularly well.
He was wrong. Not long thereafter, the hire was made.
Sitting on a black sectional sofa in his BankUnited Center office amid pictures describing his personal and professional lives, Larranaga recalled thinking about the UM process as it began to unfold.
“Our university president at George Mason, Dr. Allen Merton, was retiring,” Larranaga said. “I was very close to him, and I remember considering that maybe it was a sign for me.”
There were other factors.
“We own a home in Sarasota,” Larranaga said. “My father was born and raised in Key West, and my grandfather is from Cuba.”
And, of course, there was the goal set long ago to consider as well.
It’s one thing to win at Bowling Green, where Coach L., as almost everybody in the building and around campus calls him, spent 11 years. It’s something noteworthy to do what he did at George Mason. But the Mid-American and Colonial conferences are called mid-majors for the simple reason that they aren’t majors. The ACC is. It’s the major-est of all.
“I’ve always felt it’s the highest level of college basketball,” Larranaga said. “You’re coaching against the best coaches and the best players in the country. I also felt Florida was a very fertile recruiting ground.
“I loved George Mason. I still love it. I could have stayed and enjoyed it, but I think we had accomplished about as much as we could there.”
He stopped for a few seconds, and delivered the key line.
“In my mind, this was my last chance,” Larranaga said. “If I passed on the offer, I don’t think I’d ever have been a head coach in the ACC.”
The Miami brass didn’t sugarcoat the sales pitch. Everybody told him he’d have to be the face of a program that seldom had generated much interest.
“They said same things I’d heard at Bowling Green and George Mason, and we got to the point where we were packing them in at both places,” Larranaga said.
Now, it’s happening at Miami.
There was the 20-13 record with a 9-7 mark in the ACC in Larranaga’s first season with the ‘Canes last year, which has turned out to be nothing more than an appetizer.
A sellout crowd watched UM hand Duke, top-ranked at the time, a 90-63 pounding last month. Another sellout crowd watched the Hurricanes rout Florida State in their next game.
The BankUnited Center is no longer an echo chamber, but a raucous — maybe even an intimidating — venue in which opponents had best beware of their surroundings. Boston College was the latest victim, though the Eagles didn’t attract a full house.
North Carolina will. Miami carries a 10-game winning streak into the meeting with the Tar Heels, who, in reversal of fortune, are the ones with work to do if they are to avoid occupying a place on the dreaded NCAA Tournament bubble.
The Hurricanes, meanwhile, are flying high. They have a solid group of seniors – Durand Scott, Reggie Johnson, Kenny Kadji, Julian Gamble and Trey McKinney Jones – playing most of the minutes and doing most of the scoring along with sophomore Shane Larkin and junior Rion Brown.
“The experience factor is huge. We have a strong core,” Larranaga said.
Miami doesn’t fluster easily (see: a recent road win at North Carolina State in what Larranaga termed “an epic” game that turned on Johnson’s buzzer-beating rebound tip-in). But the ‘Canes have become everyone’s target now, and Larranaga knows what that means.
“If there was someone during the first round of conference games who wasn’t totally ready to play us because they didn’t think we were that good?” he said. “In the second round, that won’t happen.”
He’s 63 years old, and right where he always dreamed of being.
“I’m going to coach as long as I can, physically,” Larranaga said. “My health is good. I’m as passionate about the game as I’ve ever been. My wife and I were just talking about how much we’re enjoying Miami.”
What’s not to enjoy? Not only is Larranaga in the ACC, he’s on top of it.
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