Jim Larranaga stepping down at Miami: Hurricanes coach leaving post amid 4-8 start to season, per reports

Miami men’s basketball coach Jim Larranaga is expected to step down from his role as head coach amid the Hurricanes’ worst start to a season in more than three decades, according to the Miami Herald. Larranaga, 75, is less than two years removed from coaching Miami to its first-ever Final Four appearance but has the team off to a 4-8 start after a 15-17 season last year. 

A press conference is scheduled for Thursday where Larranaga is expected to announce his retirement, sources confirmed to CBS Sports college basketball analyst Jon Rothstein. Assistant Bill Courtney is expected to be named interim coach, according to multiple reports. 

The Hurricanes lost to Mount St. Mary’s in overtime last week, dooming it to a 4-18 record in their last 22 games dating back to last season. The 2023-24 season crashed and burned with 10 consecutive losses to end the season, prompting an offseason roster overhaul that has seemingly only made matters worse.

Larranaga is the winningest coach in program history and in the midst of his 14th season coaching Miami, where he has accrued a 274-174 overall record. His head-coaching resume dates back to the 1980s where he first became head coach at Bowling Green.

After leaving Bowling Green in 1997, Larranaga became the head coach at George Mason where he later famously led the Patriots to a magical Final Four run in 2006 in one of the most memorable Cinderella runs in March Madness history. 

He was hired as Miami’s coach in 2011 and continued his run of historic accomplishments, leading the Hurricanes to four second-round appearances, their first-ever Elite Eight appearances in 2022 and 2023 and a Final Four in 2023. 

Across more than three decades of head coaching experience at the college level, Larranaga will step aside in a move that will likely end his head coaching career with 716 wins to 483 losses. He had winning records at each of his four college stops, which includes a stint in the 1970s with American International, and finishes with a winning percentage just shy of 60%.

The move also will mark just the latest major coaching move in the ACC following in the footsteps of Mike Krzyzewski, Roy Williams, Jim Boeheim, Mike Brey and Tony Bennett, who all retired the last three years.