Miami basketball coach Jim Larrañaga dropped a stunner Thursday within college basketball with his retirement after a 4-8 start to the 2024-25 season.
It’s a decision by the 75-year-old coach that continues the trend of legendary college basketball coaches to hang the clipboard up, so to speak, as the current environment of college athletics continues to shift to a more “professional” daily operation.
Larrañaga ends his tenure in Coral Gables, Florida with a 274-174 overall record, and a Final Four appearance, the only such appearance in Miami basketball history.
REQUIRED READING: Legendary Hurricanes basketball coach Jim Larrañaga reportedly stepping down mid-season
As noted by The Athletic’s Brendan Marks, Larrañaga’s decision to retire makes him the sixth ACC coach to depart the conference (and college basketball) since 2020. UNC’s Roy Williams, Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, Syracuse’s Jim Boehim, Notre Dame’s Mike Brey and Virginia’s Tony Bennett are the others.
The Hurricanes went to the Elite Eight and Final Four under Larrañaga in 2022 and 2023 respectively, which also marked the first for both in program history.
Miami, which is coming off a loss to Mount St. Mary’s on Dec. 21, returns to action on New Year’s Day at Boston College. Associate head coach Bill Courtney will serve as the Hurricanes interim head coach for the remainder of the season.
With that, what you need to know on why Larrañaga decided to retire in the middle of the current college basketball season:
Why did Jim Larrañaga retire from Miami basketball?
Larrañaga pointed to the changing climate of college basketball (and college athletics) with name, image and likeness (NIL) and the transfer portal for the reasons why he is retiring from coaching.
The 75-year-old coach said multiple times during his news conference that he began reflecting on the thought of retirement because of NIL and the transfer portal after Miami lost in the Final Four to UConn in 2023.
“I’ve tried every which way to keep this going and I know I’m going to be asked a lot of questions, but I want to answer them before I’m even asked. What shocked me beyond belief was after we made it to 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 name in the portal and leave,” Larrañaga said Thursday.
“I said, ‘Don’t you like it (here)?’ (They said) ‘No, I love it. 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? And the answer is, it’s become professional.”
Larrañaga said that it was this past Saturday, when Miami lost a buy game at home to Mount St. Mary’s, that he realized it might be time to retire. But as he was trying to explain his decision, he reaffirmed it was because of “an accumulation of so many events that have occurred from right after the Final Four.”
“If you even back up a year. We got to the Elite Eight and we did not have a single player with an NIL deal. It hadn’t really taken place. And then the next year there were 15 guys on the team, only four of them had NIL deals,” Larrañaga said. “The thought and the commitment was really to the team and we had terrific players who were all about trying to accomplish the goals that we set out for ourselves.”
He added: “… So when we went from having no guy on NIL to four guys on NIL to everybody on NIL and not getting better, I was like, ‘That’s my responsibility. I’m the head coach. I’m in charge of this. How do I make it better?’ And last year was a disaster. I felt like not only am I disappointed in myself, I set a certain level of expectation for the program and I have all the support that it should take, we should be competing for an ACC championship or even a national championship on a fairly consistent basis.
“And I thought we were doing that and we were moving closer and closer to being able to do it. And then this happened. So going into this year, I’ve just felt like, okay, we need to get back to where we were and I’ve got a great group of kids”
Larrañaga, who said he is “all for transferring,” continued to talk about the negative impact the transfer portal has on the program and how it has not allowed him to “lay the foundation” for what he believes to be important for a winning culture and program. The reason being for this is players can enter the portal after each season — or in the middle of one, such as Tennessee’s Cam Carr.
“It’s not their problem, it’s the system now or the lack of a system,” Larrañaga said. “I didn’t know how to navigate through this.”
He added: “I felt, if I can’t do this as well as I’d like, or I feel the university deserves because of the tremendous support that we get, then maybe there’s someone out there that can.”
Jim Larrañaga record at Miami
In 14 seasons leading the Hurricanes, Larrañaga compiled an overall record of 274-174. The farthest Miami made it in the six NCAA tournament appearances under Larrañaga came in the 2022-23, when the Hurricanes made it to the Final Four.
Here’s a year-by-year breakdown of how Miami has fared under Larrañaga:
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2011-12: 20-13
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2012-13: 29-7
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2013-14: 17-6
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2014-15: 25-13
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2015-16: 27-8
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2016-17: 21-12
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2017-18: 22-10
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2018-19: 14-18
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2019-20: 15-16
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2020-21: 10-17
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2021-22: 26-11
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2022-23: 29-8
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2023-24: 15-17
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2024-25: 4-8 (to date)
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Why did Jim Larrañaga decide to retire from Miami basketball mid-season?
