Larranaga to the U
by mplode on Apr 22, 2011 12:12 PM EDT
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Print60 year old Jim Larranaga ends his 14 year stint with George Mason to take the Miami job.
Is this stage one of his retirement journey to Del Boca Vista? Miami gets a guy who has taken George Mason to the NCAAs three times in the last six seasons, including the final four run in 2006. George Mason won the CAA regular season this year and beat Villanova in the first round of the NCAAs before getting blitzed by Ohio State in the second round.
He seems like a good hire for Miami, besides the looming age issue. His teams tend to have low OR% and DTO%, they tend to have high DR% and a good Def FG%. They also do not foul a lot. George Mason didn't shoot a ton of threes and played at a slow-ish tempo under Larranaga.
The biggest changes, one would assume, is the change in philosophy on offensive rebounding and volume of 3 pointers taken in moving from Frank Haith to Larranaga.
Honestly, I'm surprised he would leave George Mason at this stage in his career. I guess he is following the natural life cycle of a New Yorker and yearns to spend his waning years in Florida. In my opinion, Miami did well for how late in the game this was and how shocking it probably was that Haith was hired away.
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I like it
He comes cheap too:
George Mason athletic director Tom O’Connor confirmed the move to the Washington Post and Associated Press. He said Larranaga called him Friday morning to tell him the news. He said UM offered a financial package George Mason couldn’t match. Larranaga, 61, was making $525,000 base annual salary with incentives up to $700,000 and the UM deal is believed to be in the $1 million per-year range.
Miami has a similar challenge to us in that they need a complete defensive overhaul. If Larranaga can make that happen—his record is decent if inconsistent—he can get to the NCAAs with Scott and Johnson.
Good Hire
They’ll probably be hiring again in 5 years, though. This boils down to perfect timing. 2006 is getting further and further away. This allows JL to cash in on that success, have a chance coaching in a major conference and, if things don’t go as well as hoped, ease into retirement.
I weep
Got my MBA from GMU and still live only 2 miles away. Always enjoyed having a team I could pull for in the NCAA Tourney (oh, the irony).
Want to write any “profiles of a possible savior” pieces for GMU? Doubt there are a lot of options left for them at this point.
This is an interesting hire
Larrrrrrannnagga is a decent coach and will likely make Miami competitive, but I’m not sure how much he can elevate the program or what his recruiting will look like. The other consideration is that you are basically saying that in 5-8 years you will be doing this again. At a place like Miami, that is likely to be the case anyways..so maybe that isn’t as big of a deal.
It is better than hiring a total unknown (the coach from UW-Milwaukee) and I think is a better hire than Amaker or Mike Davis.
"make Miami competitive"
…ehh, I believe this when I see it. The U has always sucked at Basketball and probably won’t experience a huge bump due to this. BTW- Bishop Daniels. I don’t follow recruiting much but it seems like he could be a sweet coup in the ‘11 cycle. Versatile and big- doesn’t do anything spectacular but everything is solid- seen him play at the Telep Challenge a few times.
by Sportin'L.A.Gear on Apr 25, 2011 8:57 AM EDT reply actions
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