Miami men’s basketball coach Jim Larrañaga’s time with the Hurricanes appears to be coming to an end.
According to the Miami Herald, Larrañaga, 75, is expected to resign and an announcement could come as early as Thursday afternoon. According to ESPN, the interim coach will be Bill Courtneylongtime assistant and former head coach at Cornell.
The Hurricanes are 4-8 so far this season after going 15-17 during the 2023-24 season.
The downturn came after Miami made a surprise run to the Final Four in 2023. The Hurricanes went 29-8 and won the Midwest Region as the No. 5 seed with wins over the No. 1 seed. No. 1 Houston and No. 2 seed Texas. Miami fell to eventual national champion UConn in the Final Four. The 72-59 loss was the closest game UConn played in the entire NCAA tournament that season.
Miami looked far from a Final Four team during the early stages of the 2024-25 season. The Hurricanes started the season 3-0 before losing seven straight games. Those losses included losses to Drake, VCU and Charleston Southern as well as losses to power conference teams like Arkansas, Clemson and No. 1 Tennessee. The Hurricanes ended the streak with a 94-75 win over Presbyterian, but opened their Christmas break with a 78-74 overtime loss to Mount St. Mary’s on Dec. 21.
Miami blew a 10-point second-half lead against the Mountaineers before being outscored 12-8 in overtime.
The 2023 Final Four appearance was the first in school history for the Hurricanes and came one season after Miami reached the Elite Eight as a No. 10 seed after beating Auburn n #2 in the second round of the tournament.
The longtime coach has been in Miami for 14 seasons. He came to the Hurricanes from George Mason. He spent 14 seasons at George Mason after 11 seasons at Bowling Green.
Larrañaga was at the helm at George Mason when the Patriots made one of the most improbable Final Four runs in modern college basketball history in 2006. George Mason beat three of the top seven seeds before defeat No. 1 Connecticut in the Elite Eight. The Patriots lost 73-58 to eventual national champion Florida in the national semifinals.
George Mason made the NCAA Tournament five times during Larrañaga’s time with the team. Miami also made the NCAA tournament five times during his tenure.
Overall, Larrañaga’s teams are 716-483 since the start of his head coaching career during the 1986-87 season. He posted a winning record at all three schools and George Mason and Miami won over 60% of their games under his watch.
When he officially resigns, Larrañaga will be the second ACC coach to leave his post before the calendar flips to 2025. Virginia’s Tony Bennett resigned in October and said he was “no longer the best coach to lead this program in today’s environment. .” Bennett’s Cavaliers won the 2019 national title a year after losing as a No. 1 seed in the first round of the tournament.
