Larranaga steps down in 14th season at Miami

Miami and men’s basketball coach Jim Larranaga are in talks about him stepping down immediately, sources confirmed to ESPN on Thursday.

Larranaga, who turned 75 in October, took over at Miami in 2011. In his 14 seasons at the helm, he led the Hurricanes to six NCAA tournaments and four Sweet 16 appearances — including a Final Four run in 2023. Miami went 11-6 in NCAA tournament games during Larranaga’s tenure and won two ACC regular-season championships.

Veteran assistant Bill Courtney is expected to become the interim coach, per a source.

The 2022-23 season was the best in program history, as the Hurricanes won the ACC regular-season title and reached the program’s first Final Four — one year after going to the program’s first Elite Eight. Miami earned a 5-seed in the NCAA tournament, but then knocked off No. 4 seed Indiana, No. 1 seed Houston and No. 2 seed Texas en route to the Final Four, where it lost to eventual national champion UConn.

Since that Final Four appearance, though, it has struggled. The Hurricanes entered last season ranked No. 13 in the preseason AP poll but missed the postseason entirely after going 15-17. They lost their final 10 games of the campaign.

Miami is just 4-8 this season, with losses in eight of its past nine games, including home defeats to Charleston Southern and Mount St. Mary’s. Jalil Bethea, who became the program’s highest-ranked recruit in nearly 40 years when he committed in September 2023, has started just one game.

Before taking over at Miami in 2011, Larranaga was the head coach at George Mason for 14 seasons. He guided the Patriots to a Final Four appearance in 2006 as a No. 11 seed — beating the likes of Michigan State, North Carolina and UConn along the way. He won four CAA regular-season championships and three conference tournament titles at George Mason, making five trips to the NCAA tournament.

The New York native also spent time as the head coach at Bowling Green and served as an assistant coach at Davidson and Virginia, where he coached three-time national player of the year Ralph Sampson.

Larranaga becomes the sixth longtime ACC coach to step down since April 2021, following North Carolina’s Roy Williams, Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, Notre Dame’s Mike Brey, Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim and Virginia’s Tony Bennett.

The Miami Herald first reported that Larranaga plans to step down as early as Thursday.