College Basketball

Jim Larrañaga is back in the Final Four and soaking in the moment

Updated Mar. 27, 2023 2:50 p.m. ET

KANSAS CITY – As Jim Larrañaga was milling about the floor waiting to cut down the nets following the Midwest Regional final on Sunday evening, the veteran head coach's wife, Liz, ran up to him and tapped him on the shoulder.

She pointed upward to the speakers high above T-Mobile Center, which were appropriately blaring Queen's "We are the Champions," and asked if her husband liked the song.

Larrañaga, who two days prior had recounted his fondness for playing The Commodores around the house as the inspiration for his dance moves following Miami's Sweet 16 upset of No. 1 seed Houston, craned his neck to listen.

As the 73-year-old started to recognize the song during the familiar refrain, a sly smile ran up the left side of his face while he locked eyes with the rock of the family — the one who had been there from the very beginning of his coaching career, while he was running freshmen practices back in 1971 at a Dayton program still three decades away from being put on the map by their most famous basketball-playing alum.

A nod ensued, the pair's smiles the only bit of confirmation needed to answer the original question.

It wasn't just that Larrañaga enjoyed the tune in that special moment with his spouse but rather the symbolism of it combined with a familiar set of emotions flooding back 17 years after he first helped the Cinderella slipper fit at George Mason to reach college basketball's ultimate destination. Now, here he was again following his fifth-seeded Hurricanes' 88-81 comeback to deny No. 2 Texas a Final Four appearance in its home state and give birth to his own program's first when it reaches Houston next week.

"It's the same exhilaration, just the jubilant attitude, the effort, because you just love when your players accomplish a goal they set out before the season," said Larrañaga, who instantly recalled that Miami's NCAA Tournament dates aligned on the calendar nearly perfectly all these years later with the Patriots' mesmerizing trek.

"I'm a great believer in the seven habits of highly effective people. … Habit two is 'begin with the end in mind.' And what we said the first day of practice, we've got to start visualizing right now what we want to accomplish and be working toward that every single day. And that's what these guys have done."

They did so despite trailing for all but seven minutes, inexplicably shooting better than 50% all game — they finished at 59% — but slowly losing ground amid a barrage of 3-pointers that ran the deficit to much as 13, a figure that might have well as been double that given the noise being made from the overwhelmingly burnt orange crowd in Kansas City.

By the time Miami had even attempted its first shot beyond the arc with 7:34 left in the first half, the Longhorns had already knocked down five to that point. The Big 12 Tournament champions — who won that title in the same building — ended up with 10-of-25 from 3 to negate a lopsided effort in the paint due to the absence of big man Dylan Disu.

"None of us wanted to go home," remarked fifth-year senior Jordan Miller one of several teammates on the floor for last year's six-point blown halftime lead to Kansas in Elite Eight a year ago. "Another big factor I would say is we know we're pretty good offensively, but what's going to decide a game for us comes down to how many stops we can get. Even though we shot that good of a percentage, they were scoring, too, and we knew we couldn't just keep scoring back and forth because they had the lead. So we had to dig deep, find a way to get stops."

Dig deep they did.

Just after Texas pushed toward its largest lead of the game with Tyrese Hunter's driving layup with just over 13 minutes remaining, Miami's suddenly active hands finally started forcing off-balanced looks. Every loose ball became a battle, every trip up the court brought about irritating harassment.

Texas' shots stopped falling, and the turnovers began to pile up, eventually numbering 14.

The offense, however, never stopped coming. Leading the way on the other end of the court was a pair of familiar faces, as sophomore Wooga Poplar's dunk got the Miami bench off their feet to spark a 35-17 closing run to end the game.

ACC Player of the Year Isaiah Wong poured in 12 of his 14 points after the break and saw his lone assist cap off the comeback with 5:26 to play, thanks to a perfectly placed alley-oop was thrown down in a thunderous and-one by Norchad Omier.

The Nicaraguan big man, who finished with 11 points and came up just shy of a double-double with nine rebounds, even managed to contribute in the huddle while dealing with foul trouble down the stretch, too – barking out orders to teammates using Larrañaga's designated stool for timeouts.

Not that the head coach seemed to mind, using the extra minute with his assistants to tab Miller as Omier's replacement at the five and using the team's designated small lineup for the first time all season.

"He's the most underrated player in the country because he's good at everything," Larrañaga said of Miller, fittingly a transfer from George Mason. "He can rebound. He defends all different-sized guys. Today, he was switching ball screens at the end and keeping the guy in front of him. Last week, he guarded Indiana's center Trayce Jackson-Davis, did a fantastic job on him. He can shoot the 3. He's great at driving. Straight line drive, dribble drives. He makes all of his free throws. He is a great, great player. Simple."

What hasn't been quite as simple is the way Larrañaga has rebuilt the Hurricanes over the past several seasons and fully convinced his superiors that basketball is just as worthy an investment as the (historically at least) far more successful football.

"The university made a decision last year to really provide the resources that we need to be successful," Larrañaga said. "We're an ACC school, but there's a difference between being competitive and really being supported."

A new weight room and training room are on the way for basketball and a multimillion-dollar football building is expected to transform the Coral Gables campus over the coming years and provide a similar boost for the fortunes of football coach Mario Cristobal.

Administrators have been trying to make gains at the margins as well in hopes that last year's Elite Eight run was just the start of sustained excellence. Though the basketball team has almost always chartered flights for away games, it was typically a smaller regional jet that featured economy-only seating for a team with several players 7-foot or taller. This season, the team's plane was upgraded to a larger 70-seater for a traveling party less than half that, complete with enough first-class seats for all the players.

Numerous players reaffirmed that the bonds they made off the court paid dividends in such a close game against the Longhorns. Pack cited NBA2K23's release in September as something that allowed many of the team to understand his rhythms with the ball better.

Watching old movies also became a constant go-to during away trips to get everybody together no matter what was going on. Lately the group has been binging Marvel superhero films.

"Having the opportunity to kind of right your wrongs almost and get past something that stumped you previously is a great feeling," Miller said, referencing how they aimed to get over the hump of the Elite Eight that they failed to a year ago. "What I'm most proud of is the will and the togetherness of this team. We just all bought into staying together, keeping that hope alive."

Just as Miami is looking to keep rolling going into their meeting with UConn down in Houston, the night also brought an end to the Longhorns' incredible season-long comeback from an incredible amount of adversity on the 40 Acres that began with head coach Chris Beard being fired early in the campaign.

Interim coach Rodney Terry was handed the reigns of a talented group and seemed to press the right buttons to position Texas in the second weekend of the Big Dance for the first time since 2008 and put them on the brink of the first Final Four appearance by any in-state team since Butler in 2010.

Whether it was enough of a run in the end for the native Texan, who grew up a short drive away from the site of the national title game at NRG Stadium and played in Austin at Division II St. Edwards, remains to be seen – especially considering athletic director Chris Del Conte is known for a desire to land a big-name coach.

"It just hurts for the brothers next to me. I'm not playing with them no more. That hurts," said forward Timmy Allen, who finished with a team-high 17. "We really grinded. We were in the trenches every day. No matter what anybody said or what opinion they had about us, what opinion they had about our team. We just went to work and put our heads down."

"I'm just so proud of this group that I got a chance I was blessed to work with this year," an emotional Terry said. "These guys more than any group I've worked with in 32 years of coaching have really embodied in terms of staying the course and being a team. These guys were incredible teammates all year. They were so unselfish as a team, and they gave us everything they had. They really did."

It just wasn't enough for the fairytale ending, something instead reserved for Terry's opposite number to relish in once again.

Seventeen years later, enjoying every note of the sweetest song anybody gets to hear after an incredible game of basketball.

Bryan Fischer is a college football writer for FOX Sports. He has been covering college athletics for nearly two decades at outlets such as NBC Sports, CBS Sports, Yahoo! Sports and NFL.com among others. Follow him on Twitter at @BryanDFischer.

Read more: