College sports have undergone dramatic changes after court rulings.
Coaches are looking at a completely different game than when they started their careers.
And a Florida college coach made one scary confession about the state of the NCAA.
University of Miami basketball coach abruptly retires and cites NCAA changes
University of Miami Hurricanes men’s head basketball coach Jim Larranaga abruptly retired after a rough 4-8 start to the season.
The Hurricanes have struggled this season and are staring at a rough road as conference play in the ACC begins.
Larranaga, the winningest basketball coach in Miami history, missed the NCAA tournament last season and barring a miracle in the ACC tournament will miss it again this year.
The 75-year-old coach claimed he was “exhausted” because of the changes that had come to college basketball.
“I loved the game and I love the university that much, I felt like, OK, there’s one thing you gotta constantly ask yourself: Are you going to give everything you have the commitment that it deserves? 100% of yourself physically, mentally, emotionally; but I’m exhausted,” Larranaga said.
He took Miami to the first Final Four in school history in 2023, but the aftermath was not what he expected.
“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 gonna put their name in the portal and leave,” Larranaga recalled.
The advent of the transfer portal and name, image, and likeness (NIL) meant he had to fight to keep his roster together.
“I said, ‘Don’t you like it here?’ ‘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,” Larranaga explained.
A changing of the guard in college coaches in the NIL era
The transfer portal and unlimited transfers leaves coaches in the position of having to re-recruit their rosters every season to keep players from leaving.
Larranaga began his head coaching career in Division One during the 1986-87 season at Bowling Green.
He said that he still loved college basketball but that the game today is one he does not recognize.
“At this point, after 53 years, I just didn’t feel that I could successfully navigate this whole new world that I was dealing with because my conversations were ridiculous with an agent saying to me, ‘Well, you can get involved [with a prospective player] if you’re willing to go to $1.1 million,’ and that would be the norm,” Larranaga stated.
University of Virginia head basketball coach Tony Bennett announced he was retiring three weeks before the season began.
Bennett said that changes with NIL and the transfer portal have been for the worst for college basketball.
The landscape of college sports has changed and the coaches who are rooted in the old way of doing things are moving on.
DeSantis Daily will keep you up-to-date on any new developments in this story.
