Getty Image
Miami basketball coach Jim Larranaga stepped down 12 games into the Hurricanes‘ 2024-25 season. The legendary head coach recently led the program to Elite Eight and Final Four runs. He’s unfortunately been unable to rediscover that success over the last two seasons.
Amid a 4-8 start in non-conference action, Larranaga opted to resign. His plans for the future aren’t certain, but it seems he’s grown frustrated with what the college game has developed into. The head coach blasted the transfer portal in his exit presser.
“I’m exhausted,” he said after the news went public. “I’ve tried every which way to keep this going. 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 players, eight of them decided they were going to put their name in the portal and leave.”
Jim Larrañaga explaining why he’s stepping away from UM basketball program. Makes it clear he loves Miami and the school, but the new landscape of college basketball with the portal has become too much:
“I’m exhausted.”
(🎥 @MiamiHurricanes) pic.twitter.com/QAAXho5F1r
— Will Manso (@WillManso) December 26, 2024
Jim Larranaga led Miami to the Elite Eight in the 2021-22 season. A year later, the Hurricanes were in the Final Four. Then, there was a mass exodus.
NIL offers lured a large part of the roster away, something the head coach didn’t expect to see given the team’s recent success. He had to start from scratch after developing a Top 10 lineup. It became too 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.”
-Jim Larranaga
Before coming to Miami, Larranaga led George Mason to the Final Four in 2006. He ends his college career with 11 NCAA Tournament appearances and 716 wins.
He’s not the first basketball coach to step down this season with changes to the sport’s landscape making roster management more difficult. Virginia head coach Tony Bennett surprisingly retired just weeks prior to the 2024-25 season, noting NIL and the transfer portal in his reasoning.
The Hurricanes will now enter ACC play under new leadership. They’ll look to identify a new coach with a different outlook on the current NIL era in the near future. Jim Larranaga didn’t believe he could succeed in this new age. He’s just the latest critic of the shifting college sports environment.