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Miami’s Jim Larrañaga joins growing list of coaches who have seen enough of this new era
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It’s said that bad news comes in threes. If that’s the case, consider the cycle complete for the ACC.
First Tony Bennett.
Then Dave Clawson.
Now Jim Larrañaga.
Within the span of 3 months, 3 of the conference’s most respected, most successful, longest-tenured coaches in their sport have all decided to walk away. The latest coming with more than half his team’s season still to play.
Though each of their circumstances and the wording they used to explain their decisions are different, their reasons for leaving the coaching profession are remarkably similar.
“I’m no longer the best coach to lead this program in this current environment,””” Bennett said upon his abrupt resignation just 2 weeks before Virginia’s season-opening basketball game in October.
“I just looked at where the industry is right now and I just felt like it was time,””” echoed Clawson, who stepped down after 11 seasons as Wake Forest’s football coach just 2 weeks ago.
Larrañaga became the latest to join the chorus and the exodus when he cited the “system … or lack of a system” for his decision to end his tenure as the most successful coach in Miami history.
“I didn’t know how to navigate through this,” he said at a farewell press conference Thursday.
It’s not as if the 75-year-old Larrañaga has lost touch with the young players he coaches. One look at the video of him dancing with them in the locker room during Miami’s surprise run to the 2023 Final Four will tell you otherwise. It’s not as if the game has passed him by, just it hadn’t for Bennett and Clawson.
It’s just that the rules of engagement have changed since restrictions on transfers were lifted and it became legal for athletes to be compensated for their name, image and likeness.
NIL has become as important if not more than Xs and Os. And some old dogs – along with a growing number of younger ones – have simply worn themselves down attempting to understand and negotiate their way through that new reality.
The end for Larrañaga came following an overtime loss to Mount St. Mary’s on Saturday. The Hurricanes’ 8th loss in their last 9 games, however, was only the final straw in a process he saw coming as long as 2 seasons ago.
Even as he celebrated the crowning achievement of a career successful enough for him to have become a finalist for induction into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.
“What shocked me beyond belief was after we made it to the Final Four, just 18 months ago, 8 of my players said they decided to put their name in the portal and were going to leave,” said Larrañaga, who also took George Mason to a Final Four in 2006. “They told me they loved it at Miami, but they wanted to seek a better deal. It created a situation where you have to ask yourself as a coach, what is this all about?”
It’s a question coaches across the country are asking themselves.
Some like Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney, who only this month began taking in transfers after spending the past 4 years avoiding them like a 3rd-and-long, are trying their best to adjust and adapt.
Others are simply raising the white flag and retiring to the broadcast booth or the beach and letting someone else deal with the headaches.
That exodus is a big part of the problem facing ACC’s basketball product these days.
Only one conference team, No. 4 Duke, is ranked among this week’s Associated Press Top 25. And only 3 others – Pitt (33rd), North Carolina (38th) and Clemson (39th) – received votes.
It’s a sad state of affairs for a league whose current membership has accounted for 6 of the past 15 national championships. More than any other conference since 2009.
But it’s hard to maintain that level of excellence when the likes of Hall of Famers Mike Krzyzewski, Roy Williams and Jim Boeheim are being replaced by inexperienced replacements with no previous head coaching experience.
Throw Bennett and Larrañaga along with Notre Dame’s Mike Brey into the mix, and the coaching void becomes even greater. With Larrañaga stepping down, there are only 2 active ACC coaches who have taken teams to a Final Four. And both NC State’s Kevin Keatts and UNC’s Hubert Davis needed near-miracles to get there after disappointing regular seasons.
Although the conference has been among the hardest hit, the growing trend of experienced, championship-caliber coaches calling it quits is not just an ACC problem.
Or a basketball problem.
Larrañaga is only the latest to realize that his old-school methods are no longer conducive to success in the current system of college athletics. Or as he put it, the lack of a system.
And he won’t be the last.
Award-winning columnist Brett Friedlander has covered the ACC and college basketball since the 1980s.
