WELCOME BACK: Miami coach Jim Larranaga returns this week to Washington, where he orchestrated one of the most memorable Cinderella runs in NCAA Tournament history in 2007, leading George Mason to the Final Four (inset). (Reuters; Getty Images)
On The bus that was about to take him from Coral Gables to the airport for the flight to Washington and a Sweet 16 showdown with Marquette and maybe beyond, Miami coach Jim Larranaga wasn’t only taking a fun bunch of driven college basketball players with him, he was taking the voice of the late Jack Curran, too, a legendary New York voice he will never stop hearing.
“The last time I spoke to him about the team was after the Duke game, I called him, we lost by three points at Duke,” Larranaga said. “He said, ‘Larry, you didn’t play any defense.’ I said, ‘Mr. Curran, Duke’s pretty good.’ He said, ‘Didn’t you tell your players [Ryan] Kelly can shoot? I was yelling at the TV, ‘Kelly can shoot!’ Kelly was killing you.’ It was a great conversation. He had me laughing the whole time.”
Larranaga is New York all the way, from 1501 Metropolitan Ave. in the Parkchester section of The Bronx, living out his dream of doing for others in basketball what Curran had done for him, all the way back to Archbishop Molloy High School. Seven years ago, Curran beamed with pride as Larranaga wrote his Cinderella story, taking George Mason to the Final Four in 2006. “He would say, ‘You guys are pretty smart,’ ” Larranaga recalled. ‘“I like smart teams. Smart teams can win.”’
Curran liked this Miami team, too. “He would love the competitiveness of our guards and he liked the size and versatility of our team,” Larranaga said.
Larranaga likes his team plenty, likes how it has overcome injuries and adversity. “Life is 10 percent what happens to you,” he tells you, “and 90 percent how you handle it.”
So you ask him: Could this be a Team of Destiny?
“William Jennings Bryan says, ‘Destiny is not a matter of chance. It’s a matter of choice.’ It’s not something you wait to have happen. It’s something you go out and earn.”
They’ve earned this right to a magical journey and laughed every step of the way. I asked Larranaga what his wife thought about his Ali Shuffle in the locker room after the ’Canes had survived Illinois.
“My wife watched it repeatedly,” he said. “She absolutely loved the players’ reaction. She said, ‘They’re jumping for joy. That’s what it’s all about.’ ”
The funniest thing he heard about it came from a grad assistant named Chris Alvarez, who asked Larranaga: “Coach, did you know it went viral?”
“I said, ‘What the hell does that mean?’ ” Larranaga said.
“It’s all over the Internet,” he was told.
“I said, ‘You’re kidding,’ ” Larranaga said. “If you can’t find anything more entertaining than me doing the Ali Shuffle…”
Larranaga, 63 years young, is as fierce a competitor now as he was back in the East Quadrant, where the best basketball could be found, where the opposition could have been Dean Meminger or John Roche or Dave Wohl or Gary Brokaw.
“Parkchester was divided into four quadrants — North, South, East and West,” Larranaga said. “Each one had its own park.”
He looks for every edge, whether it be through statistical analysis or seeking advice three times a week from renowned sports psychologist Dr. Bob Rotella. Every day brings a quote of the day the players have to memorize. What was yesterday’s quote of the day?
“Defend the drive, block them out, rebound,” Larranaga said.
Asked why, he said, “Marquette is the No. 1 offensive rebounding team in the Big East.”
These are heady times in Miami with the Heat and the Hurricanes. Larranaga talked about getting texts from Pat Riley and Erik Spoelstra and a tweet from LeBron James after beating Illinois. And Larranaga reflected back on a talk Chris Bosh gave the ’Canes two summers ago right after Larranaga took over. Bosh had been working out with some of the team and told Larranaga: “I’d never get a good workout when we scrimmaged.”
So Bosh became the only person outside the program asked by Larranaga to speak to the team. “He gave the best five-minute, 10-minute talk I ever heard,” Larranaga said. “He talked about how badly he wanted to win a championship, and the regrets he had playing the way he played in the sixth game against Dallas. He wasn’t gonna let that happen again. He let it be known to these guys if they want their dreams to come true, they better start working a lot harder.”
Larranaga and his team have made school history and now they are shooting for more. Shooting for the Final Four.
Said Larranaga, “It would be the culmination of a tremendous amount of hard work, coming together and creating memories that last a lifetime.”
Jack Curran would be so proud.