UM coach Jim Larranaga steps down two years after Final Four run, saying he’s ‘exhausted’
Less than two years after leading the University of Miami to its first Final Four in school history, basketball coach Jim Larranaga announced his decision to retire on Thursday afternoon in a news conference that felt like a funeral.
Larranaga, who turned 75 in October, has been coaching for five decades and was under contract through the 2026-27 season. He lamented how the sport has changed with NIL and the transfer portal, saying he was “exhausted” and felt he was no longer fit to continue in the profession he loved so much.
“At this point, after 53 years, I just didn’t feel that I could successfully navigate this whole new world that I was dealing with because my conversations were ridiculous with an agent saying to me, `Well, you can get involved [with a prospective player] if you’re willing to go to $1.1 million, and that would be the norm.”
The Hurricanes dropped to 4-8 this season with an overtime loss to Mount St. Mary’s last week and have lost 18 of their past 22 games dating to last season. Miami ended the 2023 season with a 10-game losing skid and things were not getting much better with his overhauled 2024 roster, which included 10 new faces.
UM Athletic Director Dan Radakovich stressed that it was entirely Larranaga’s decision to quit and that he tried to talk him into staying when the coach called him on Sunday, gave him a day to mull it over, but Larranaga felt it was time. His wife, Liz, who was in tears Thursday, also failed to change his mind.
Associate head coach Bill Courtney, who worked with Larranaga for 28 years from their days at Bowling Green and George Mason, will take over as interim coach through the end of the season.
Larranaga explained that he made the decision on Saturday night, after the latest loss. But it was an accumulation of a year and a half of frustration watching the drastic change in the landscape of college basketball.
He said he has long been in favor of paying college athletes for the hours they put into their sport but feels the lack of rules and transparency and lying by athletes and agents made it impossible for him to coach with the passion, integrity, and family atmosphere that were hallmarks of his career.
“What shocked me beyond belief was after we made the Final Four just 18 months ago, the very first time I met with the players, eight of them decided they were going to put their names in the portal and leave.
“I said, `Don’t you like it here?’ They’d say, `I love Miami, it’s great.’ But the opportunity to make money someplace else created a situation that you have to begin to ask yourself, as a coach, what is this all about?’’
He added that he tried “every which way” to make things work, but “last year was a disaster”, and this year was not going well, either. He felt the new players were not buying in as transfers had in years prior.
“I felt like in these last two seasons, I’m not earning my salary,” he said. “I’m supposed to be able to do a really good job because I’m being rewarded for all the previous success that I’ve had, and when I’m not able to do that, I say to myself, `You have to step aside and let someone have the job who is better equipped to handle this new world than I am.’’’
He was in his 14th season at Miami and compiled a 274-174 record. The winningest coach in program history, he led the Hurricanes to six NCAA Tournament appearances, including four trips to the Sweet 16.
He guided the Hurricanes to their first Elite Eight (2022), first Final Four (2023), first ACC Tournament title (2013) and first two ACC regular season crowns (2013 and 2023).
Over his career, Larranaga was named the Associated Press, Naismith, USBWA and Henry Iba National Coach of the Year, twice was both the ACC and USBWA District Coach of the Year and was the 2013 NABC District Coach of the Year.
He becomes the latest in his generation of coaches to step away, following the retirements of legendary coaches Mike Krzyzewski (Duke), Roy Williams (North Carolina), Jay Wright (Villanova), Jim Boeheim (Syracuse) and, most recently, Tony Bennett (Virginia).
Known for his locker room dances and entertaining stories, Larranaga was not doing much smiling of late as he tried to reassemble a team with a collection of transfers and talented freshmen who were not meeting expectations.
He sat dejectedly on his office sofa after the loss to Mount St. Mary’s and repeated what he has been saying all season, that his team has scorers but was not defending and rebounding well enough. All eight post-loss interviews have been similar, with Larranaga conceding that the team was not coming together as he had hoped.
Critics grew louder on social media in recent weeks, suggesting it was time for him to retire.
“I love the game, I love coaching it, I love practice every day,” Larranaga said. “I love working with the players. But because I love the game and the University that much, I felt like, `Are you going to give everything you have, the commitment it deserves physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually? Quick frankly, I’ve tried to do that through my life and time here, but I’m exhausted.”
Although the team had been struggling, the news came unexpectedly.
“I literally just found out about this walking over here,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said after shootaround on Thursday. “I’m shocked still about it. Coach Larranaga is a friend of mine. I think so highly of him. The way that he’s able to build a program that has a sense of community and we all rallied around the basketball program. I live in Coral Gables, so I’ve been part of this movement. You could just feel it the last several years. It’s been a lot of fun. He wins wherever he goes, but he does it in a way that it’s a fun brand of basketball. Fans get behind it, the players love playing in his system. I’m just stunned by the news.”
ACC commissioner Jim Phillips said: “Jim Larrañaga is a tremendous man who has left a mark as not only the most accomplished coach in Miami basketball history, but as one of the premier coaches in ACC history. His coaching record speaks for itself with over 700 career wins, but he always has led his program with the utmost integrity and class. He elevated the Miami program to new levels during his tenure, including a Final Four, and made lifelong impacts on his student-athletes through his lessons on the court and in life outside of the game. Our league has been better because of him and we will miss his presence and voice.”
Larranaga, who considers himself a professor of basketball and life, said he will continue to be involved with the university. He would love to teach a class, and ended his remarks with a poem by L.P. Jacks, a philosopher from the 1930s.
“The master in the art of living draws no distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure,” the poem began. “That’s basically been my life,” Larranaga said. “I love coaching. I want to stay heavily involved in the university and do whatever I can to get the basketball program back on its right footing.”
This story was originally published December 26, 2024 at 10:42 AM.