NCAA Basketball: Best head coaching hire from each of last 25 seasons
By Joey Loose
2011: Jim Larranaga (Miami FL)
Looking back, 2011 was a flurry of very successful mid-major head coaching hires, highlighted by Porter Moser at Loyola-Chicago. This was also the year that Providence brought in Ed Cooley, and no matter how those Friars feel now they appreciate the last decade-plus that they experienced. We’re not talking Archie Miller or Matt Langel or any of those other hot hires, we’re looking down at Miami.
Larranaga was already an established name in college basketball, having been an assistant for Virginia during the dominant era with Ralph Sampson on campus. He had already served long stints as head coach at Bowling Green and at George Mason, leading those Patriots to a truly unexpected run to the Final Four as an 11-seed in 2006. Five years later, Larranaga was off to the ACC and Miami got themselves quite the coach.
The Hurricanes won the ACC regular season title and advanced to the Sweet Sixteen in Larranaga’s second season, but this isn’t the highlight. Miami made another second weekend run three years later, but the real progress has come in the last two seasons. The Hurricanes advanced to their first ever Elite Eight last season before taking it a step further with their first Final Four run this past month, with Larranaga’s tenure basically rewriting the history books for Miami basketball.