Hurricanes lost back-to-back games, here’s who coach Jim Larranaga called for advice
Miami Hurricanes coach Jim Larranaga, feeling his team lacked “juice” in back-to-back losses after winning 12 of the previous 14 games, did what he often does when his teams hit speed bumps: He called Dr. Bob Rotella, his longtime friend and noted sports psychologist.
“My first phone call Sunday was to Bob Rotella,” Larranaga said Monday morning. “Our team has drained itself of a lot of energy and we need to be revitalized. We need something inspirational, motivational that gets us going. Somebody to catch fire.”
Rotella advised Larranaga to do something he and his staff were already considering doing, which is let the players offer input as to how to get over this mini slump.
“He said, `Ask your players what they need, let them make some of the decisions moving forward, do they need to go harder at practice? Lighter? More shooting? Whatever it might be, get the pulse of your players and figure out where their mindset is,’’’ Larranaga said.
Miami knocked off team after team in January, including then-No. 2 Duke on the road, and the Hurricanes spent the month atop the ACC standings. But they were 0-2 the first week of February with losses to Notre Dame and Virginia. Their record dipped to 16-7 overall and 8-4 in the ACC, which puts them in a tie with North Carolina for fourth place.
“We got off to such a great start, were sitting in first place for a good while and now we’re not,” Larranaga said. “That becomes a mental problem and emotional problem players have to deal with.”
He said fatigue could also be a factor, as his starting five play the majority of the game.
“They’re getting worn down because they’re not the biggest, strongest most physical guys to begin with,” the coach said. “When I saw Sam Waardenburg going against (Virginia’s 7-1, 242-pound center) Francisco Caffaro I was like, `He’s trying to guard the Jolly Green Giant, the guy is humongous.’ That’s challenging for all of our guys.”
Larranaga said the team could use more consistent sparks from bench players such as Anthony Walker, Bensley Joseph and Wooga Poplar.
Despite the two losses last week, Larranaga is trying to keep things in perspective.
He pointed out that all the ACC teams are closely matched and rattled off all the close conference games UM has played thus far this season. The Canes trailed Clemson by nine and rallied to win. They trailed Syracuse by 18 and won. They had close wins over N.C. State and Wake Forest, beat Duke by just two and lost to Florida State by one point both times. The victory at Virginia Tech came on Charlie Moore’s halfcourt heave.
But they couldn’t get in a groove against Virginia last Saturday.
“This past week I did not feel like we had the necessary energy, the juice, to play the best defense that we could play and we rely very heavily on our defense causing turnovers so we can get into the open court,” Larranaga said.
“The Virginia game we just could not force enough turnovers and we couldn’t make threes. The game sometimes is so simple. Had we made threes…we were 0-for-10 to start the game. It’s much different if we’re 3-for-10, which is still 10 percent below our average. We had a bad shooting night.”
The Hurricanes are back home Wednesday at 7 p.m. against Georgia Tech. The last time they played the Yellow Jackets (10-12) was 10 days ago in Atlanta and Miami won 73-62 after staving off a late Georgia Tech run.