Miami’s Jim Larranaga continues to reap the rewards of producing the finest season ever for the Hurricanes’ basketball program.
He was announced as the Associated Press College Basketball Coach of the Year Tuesday after receiving 29 votes from the 65-member panel that ranks the AP’s weekly poll.
That is 10 more than Jim Crews of Saint Louis, who was the runner-up. Gonzaga’s Mark Few received 11 votes for third.
The balloting was completed on Selection Sunday, March 17.
Not surprisingly, Larranaga is the first coach from the Florida school to win the award, though, interestingly, former Hurricanes coach Frank Haith won the award last year in his first season at Missouri.
“I want to thank the players, especially our senior class for the leadership they provided, and our underclassmen for their tremendous energy and intensity and enthusiasm they brought to our program this year,” Larranaga said in a statement released by the school.
The Hurricanes won 29 of 36 games, a program record for wins in a season, and captured the Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season and tournament titles this year in Larranaga’s second season.
They also matched their deepest run in the NCAA Tournament, advancing to the regional semifinals before losing to Marquette.
During the season, they beat Duke by 27 points and North Carolina by 26, becoming the first ACC team to beat both the perennial league powers by over 25 points in the same season.
Their 90-63 win over Duke in Coral Gables was coach Mike Krzyzewski’s sixth-worst defeat in his long tenure with the Blue Devils.
The Hurricanes also won two other meetings with the Tar Heels, including the championship game of the ACC tourney, and lost a rematch with the Blue Devils in Durham by just three points.
In addition to his predecessor at Miami, Haith, Larranaga joins Notre Dame’s Mike Brey, Syracuse’s Jim Boheim, Kansas’ Bill Self, and North Carolina’s Roy Williams as recent winners of the award.
UCLA’s John Wooden was the first winner back in 1967. He won it three of the first four years and five of the first seven years it was awarded.
Oddly, despite four national titles, Duke’s Krzyzewski has never won the award.
In addition to the AP national honor, Larranaga earlier was selected by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association as the Henry Iba National Coach of the Year and was named the ACC Coach of the Year by his fellow coaches, the Atlantic Coast Media Association, Sports Illustrated, and ESPN.
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