OPINION: Miami tries to stay afloat as college basketball changes

These are the Miami Hurricanes so let's put what is going on with the basketball program at The U right now in storm terms.

The roof has been blown off the building and it has taken on massive amounts of water. That water won't stop raining down from the skies. The lightning is vicious, the thunder deafening. There is anxiety and certainly some fear about what the future might look like.

Can the Hurricanes recover from this avalanche with a 71-year-old coach who has every reason to be totally disgusted with the hand he has been dealt since 2018?

There are no guarantees right now. Jim Larranaga has absolutely no idea what his roster will even look like next season. That's true.

"There is no time off," Larranaga told CaneSport this week. "I am spending most of my time on the phone and on Zoom meetings. Whether at home or in the office, I am on the phone, busy working to build back the program we had for seven years. I was extremely pleased with what we accomplished. Some things you can control. Some things are out of your control."

Everything going on is definitely out of Larranaga's control. But don't panic. Most coaches around the country are in the same boat now as open transfers have set off a tidal wave of movement that could approach 2,000 player transactions by the time it is over.

It's hit refresh on a transfer portal that has more than 1,000 kids in it and might grow to 2,000, then hit refresh again. It's Zoom meeting after Zoom meeting. Then a news flash will come in about another kid in the portal and that will set off a bunch of phone calls to try to get into that mix.

There was a time when Larranaga would have been like a kid in a candy store mining for transfers like this. Transfers were his ticket to greatness for his first seven years at Miami.

But right now, in this complete state of chaos and uncertainty, it is pretty clear early in our conversation with the coach that he is struggling to get himself to embrace the wreckage that he sees around him and in the game right now.

For Larranaga, this all is the continuation of a brutal three-year stretch that is compromising the ending to his spectacular career as a head basketball coach.

Somehow, some way, it must find a way to conclude better than this. It has to. Right?

A nationwide FBI investigation that never should have included Larranaga or Miami in 2018 has long since stripped away what would have been the foundation of today's Hurricane program.

The most ridiculous wave of injuries you will ever see, which left this year's Hurricanes with just six scholarship players in the final stretch of the ACC schedule, utterly destroyed what was expected to be a pretty good season when it started.

Those injuries, and the rehabilitation struggles that ensued, ripped apart the very core of the program. Frustration become more prevalent than points. Nerves became frayed. Character began to be tested and there were several casualties along the way as the losses stacked upon themselves.

Rapid fire.

Versatile forward Sam Waardenburg was sidelined for the season in pre-season drills by a left-foot injury. Chris Lykes, the pre-season All-ACC point guard, sprained his ankle in the third game of the season and mysteriously missed the entire year. Now he is in the transfer portal. Veteran center Rodney Miller was also lost for the remainder of the season in late December due to a right knee injury.

Many of the guys who were actually playing were also hurt and unable to practice at times like forwards Earl Timberlake and Kam McGusty and guard Harlond Beverly. Timberlake finally had to shut it down after playing in just seven games and returned home to Washington for medical treatment. Then he decided to put himself into the transfer portal while he was there.

Adversity brings out the best and worst of people. Matt Cross, another well-regarded freshman, couldn't conform to the principles of the program and was sent home for good by Larranaga.

So yeah the roof is gone and the flood has long since risen. Larranaga is standing in the middle of this long and nasty storm that just won't go away, simply trying to keep his head above water.

And now he has to deal with a college basketball world and culture that he has never seen in his last 35 years as a coach.

Miami, one of only seven programs in the country that didn't have anybody transfer out last year, is sitting with just six scholarship players it believes will come back to play next season. The recruiting class will bring in three new freshmen faces. So that means Larranaga could be looking to take three to five guys in the portal since Waardenburg doesn't count against the 13 scholarship limit and McGusty would not either if he decides to come back.

"Whenever I look at things I look at the same point of view. You have to have a positive attitude, be proactive and develop a long range plan and short range plan," Larranaga said. "Right now with the basketball culture, the rules are changing dramatically."

Stay positive. OK. But let's not kid anybody. Staying positive is no easy chore for Larranaga right now.

When 2018 arrived, his seventh year at Miami, Larranaga had it all going on.

In his first season in Coral Gables in 2011-12, Larranaga led the team to a 9–7 record in-conference. It marked the school's first ever winning record in the ACC.

In his second season, Larranaga led the Hurricanes to the ACC regular-season title. It was the first time in 11 years, and only the fourth time in 32 years, that a team from North Carolina had not won at least a share of the title. His team beat top-ranked Duke 90-63 that season. That win was Miami's first-ever defeat of a top-ranked team, and the largest margin of defeat ever for a No. 1 team.

Miami also won the ACC tournament that year with a 10-point victory over the ACC's other signature team, North Carolina. Larranaga was voted the Associated Press' college basketball coach of the year. Miami made it to the Sweet 16 in the NCAA tournament before running out of gas.

The Canes made the Sweet 16 again in 2015-16 after finishing second in the conference. They won more than 20 games and made the NCAA tournament the next two seasons also.

But then the FBI attached Larranaga and Miami into its probe on illicit recruiting activities in college basketball and it cost the Hurricanes two recruiting classes. The insinuation was like being put on probation even though Larranaga was totally exonerated. Nobody ever apologized. The program has yet to recover.

The recent injuries have only magnified the talent and depth issues that were a byproduct of that misfortune.

"So we were one of those seven programs that didn't lose anybody last year," Larrranaga said. "We felt like our program was in good shape. The players were all excited about the upcoming season. They wanted to be here and help us compete for an ACC championship and a postseason berth. We went into the season very much in that way."

A few short months later, Larranaga finds himself in a world he can't recognize, coming off a 10-17 season, 4-15 in the ACC.

You would think that the opportunity to attack the transfer portal would have him reinvigorated. He can turn things around quickly if he is successful convincing quality players to come to Miami. That is very true.

But with every team in college basketball also averaging something like five roster openings due to transfers, with campus visits disallowed due to Coronavirus, Larranaga has very minimal control over what the future holds and that is unsettling.

Yeah he can attack the transfer portal like everybody else and he is doing that. But he has no idea what results that will bear. There is no time to build relationships with players or their families. He can't show off Miami's beautiful Coral Gables campus to anybody in person.

"What I am seeing when I look at the portal is many of the best players," Larranaga said. "Guys who have started and averaged double figures. The guys we are looking at have had hugely successful careers.

"But I spoke to a young man yesterday afternoon who had entered the portal earlier in the day and he had already spoken to 14 schools and they were all the top programs in the country. Our plan and hope is that we can get some of them. But while we are recruiting them, so is everybody else."

The recruitment is all done by Zoom. Then the prospects compare presentations with other Zoom meetings.

Who ever imagined college basketball conducting business like this, with kids jumping from school to school and coaches unable to properly evaluate and recruit them?

Legendary North Carolina Coach Roy Williams opted for retirement Wednesday.

No joke.

But Larranaga has no such plans. He is fighting the fight.

While he can't be having the time of his life, Larranaga wakes up in the morning with a phone to his ear and goes to sleep late at night with it still by his side. That's his life right now. No time off. No Final Four trips. Recruiting with a level of stress that can't be great for him.

After the past three tough seasons and considering his age, it is probably getting to the point where his career might soon be on the line. Fair or unfair? That doesn't really matter. He is 71 and his last three ACC seasons have been 5-13, 7-13 and 4-15. It's a bottom line business. That has not changed under a pandemic.

So positivity doesn't come easy and neither does the recruiting right now. The kids don't care about the FBI nonsense. They couldn't care less about all of the injuries.

Larranaga CAN sell a track record with transfers.

"We have done very well with guys who have transferred in here," Larranaga said. "Shane Larkin came from DePaul, Angel Rodriguez from Kansas State, Sheldon McClellan from Texas and Kamari Murphy from Oklahoma State. They felt they could really do something here and had tremendous success.

"That 2013 championship team had Larkin, Kenny Kadji who transferred from Florida and Trey McKinney-Jones, who played at Missouri-Kansas City. From my point of view, if a young man thinks that transferring will help his career, I don't think there is something wrong with that. But right now it's becoming the rage. They think they can be recruited by the best programs in the country. They think the grass is greener. This is the new normal."

Transfers this year are not limited to five visits. They can schedule an unlimited number of Zoom sessions.

The Hurricanes are after several of them.

Toledo point guard Marreon Jackson would be a great replacement for Lykes. He was the Mid-American Conference Player of the Year, averaging 18 points a game. He also averaged six assists and has made more than 300 three-pointers in his career.

Alexis Yetna from South Florida averaged 11.4 points and 8.9 rebounds last season. In the 2018-19 season, he was on the cusp of averaging a double-double as he scored 12.3 points and pulled in 9.6 boards per game. He would be a nice get for Larranaga.

Jordan Miller averaged 15.8 points and 6.1 rebounds for George Mason, where Larranaga was once the head coach.

Omar Payne became the fifth player to leave Florida this off-season. The 6-10 forward from Kissimmee averaged just 3.8 points and 3.2 rebounds this season but is a big role player who would get immediate playing time in Coral Gables.

Jayden Gardner earned first team All AAC honors this year at East Carolina after averaging 18.3 points and 8.3 rebounds.

Georgia forward Toumani Camara, who averaged 12.8 points and 7.7 rebounds, entered the portal Thursday afternoon. The Miami Herald reported that he is believed to be considering Miami as a destination.

Land just those six guys, or even three of them, and the outlook gets rosy pretty quickly. There are riches in the portal if you can weed through the trash and find them and win the ensuing battle. After an abysmal season, for example, Kentucky hit it big last week by landing a proven scoring machine in Davison’s Kellan Grady. Grady has scored more than 2,000 points and been named two time Atlantic 10 First-team.

"This season did not turn out as we envisioned because of the series of injuries that kept us from having the depth of talent we recruited," Larranaga said. "Now we have to rebuild."

The departure of prized freshmen Earl Timberlake and Matt Cross really stung because it decimated yet a third straight recruiting class. Timberlake grew frustrated over the way things went with his injuries both before and during the season. He came to Miami thinking he would be one and done and headed to the NBA. Obviously he didn't come close to making that happen.

Cross never really bought into Larranaga's style of coaching and the coach had to ask him to leave, a stunning move considering all of the problems the team was enduring. Larranaga didn't compromise his principles. "There is no criticism here, there is instruction," Larranaga said. "If they have their way of doing it and not our way of doing it then maybe we aren't the right program for you."

Lykes departure was probably the most shocking. Word is that Larranaga was not happy when Lykes passed on a meeting with him and said he was going pro. Then when he found out he didn't have pro options, he asked to return. Larranaga reportedly refused to take him back. Lykes ended up in the transfer portal.

"Guys used to stay at a school for four years," Larranaga said. "The great players stayed in college for a long time. That has changed. Kids change high schools and AAU teams all the time. Change is normal now. This is an endless series of changes.

"I don't think it is good. I don't think it's exciting. I don't think it's frustrating. It is the business. It is the business of basketball today. You must understand the rules you are supposed to follow. If we replace a good player - like Angel Rodriguez with Bruce Brown - we still get a chance to compete at the highest level. If we can't find someone as good, we are not going to be as good. Right now everybody is in that boat. This is not something that is going away. The new rules. We have to learn to recruit under the new rules."

You talk to Larranaga for a bit and you walk away with the impression that he is giving himself pep talks for all of this madness.

"I am concerned about basketball culture," he admitted. "The learning of why you go to college has been minimized. Kids in the basketball world all believe they can play in the NBA and become millionaires overnight. If that doesn't work out, they figure they will transfer and choose another school where they expect it to work.

"I wish there were more emphasis on choosing a school because there is a balance between basketball and education. The seven seniors that were in our program this year are all scheduled to get their degrees in May. Our program is very successful in providing an opportunity to get a fantastic education and also compete at the highest level in the best basketball conference in the country. This is a great opportunity. They should not take that lightly."

A bunch of Zoom calls lied ahead. In a sense, maybe Larranaga was practicing his pitch as he uttered those words.

"We are Building Back Better," he said as he departed. "Isn't that a popular expression in politics?

"I think I'll borrow that from President Biden. We are going to build back better."