Jim Larranaga explains how loss to Alabama helped turn Miami’s season around

Jim Larranaga has the Miami Hurricanes 1 win away from reaching the Final Four for the first time in program history.

Yes, they have a monumental task ahead of them, as they’ll have to take down No. 1 seed Kansas to advance. But, for this year’s Hurricanes, that’s not out of the question.

During an appearance on ESPN’s College GameDay on Sunday, Larranaga credited a loss against Alabama (96-64 on Nov. 28) for helping spark his team’s turnaround (via On3 Sports):

“My staff and I sat down last summer and looked at all the ACC rosters and realized how much bigger, thicker, and heavier our opponents were,” Larranaga said. “So we decided with Sam Waardenburg being our five man, a stretch five, we could stretch the floor. We’ve got really good guards in Charlie Moore, Kam McGusty, Isaiah Wong, and Jordan Miller and play a five out offense. But in order to make that work defensively, we put in the scramble defense and tried to create more turnovers. It took us a while to do it, but after that Alabama loss, the guys really came together.”

Clearly, the lopsided loss to the Tide helped. Can the Hurricanes advance to the Final Four? We’ll find out at 2:20 p.m. ET on CBS.