The ACC’s basketball coaching brain drain is only getting worse

Jim Larrañaga's abrupt retirement from Miami has removed yet another Final Four-caliber coach from a league that's suddenly remarkably short on them

It’s not quite as hackneyed as the Friday news dump – when an unsavory development is announced minutes before the end of the final work day before the weekend – but as far as muffling a story’s reach goes, you can do a whole lot worse than the day after Christmas.

It’s with that backdrop that one of the most accomplished coaches in men’s college basketball called it a career.

On Thursday, as the chestnuts were still roasting over the last embers of an open fire, Miami’s Jim Larrañaga abruptly announced his retirement, ending a run as a head coach that went nearly 40 years across three different schools, including 14 at his most recent employer.

Though he never quite had the cachet of a Mike Krzyzewski or a Roy Williams within the ACC, Larrañaga had a resume that few in the conference or anywhere across the country could match. He won 716 games and led not one but two programs to their first ever Final Four – Miami in 2023 and, more famously, George Mason in 2006.

His program’s trajectory fell off since that second and ultimately final Final Four trip, with the Hurricanes going 15-17 in 2023-24 and starting this season 4-8, which most recently included a loss to Mount St. Mary’s. While the timing of his exit is undeniably odd, it was becoming clear that Miami’s best days under Larrañaga were clearly behind it.

While explaining his decision, the 75-year-old Larrañaga turned to a familiar rationale, citing the effect of name, image and likeness rules – the same ones that helped him take a high-priced roster to the Final Four two years ago – on the sport. The job he had for decades was simply no longer the same.

“What shocked me beyond belief was after we made it to the Final Four just 18 months ago, the very first time I met with the players, eight of them decided they were going to put their name in the portal and leave,” Larrañaga said. “I said, ‘Don’t you like it here?’ (They said) ‘No, I love it. I love Miami. It’s great.’ But the opportunity to make money someplace else created a situation that you have to begin to ask yourself, as a coach, what is this all about? And the answer is, it’s become professional.”

Larrañaga is hardly the first college basketball coach in recent years to blame his departure on NIL, but the fact he’s leaving the sport does come with an unmistakable significance – not just for him and the program he led, but an entire conference.

The ACC is bleeding coaches

To say ACC men’s basketball is undergoing a transition is more than a bit of an understatement.