CORAL GABLES, Fla. (AP) — Jim Larrañaga insists he still loves the University of Miami, still loves the game of basketball, still loves mentoring players, still loves coaching.

What You Need To Know

  • The decision by Larrañaga ends a 14-year run as coach of the Hurricanes — and, presumably, a 41-year college head-coaching career that saw him win 744 games

  • The Hurricanes are 4-8 this season and only 5-19 in their last 24 games, a stunning freefall for a program that went to the Final Four just two seasons ago

  • Larrañaga cited NIL as a source of frustration and one of the reasons for stepping down

He doesn’t love what college basketball has become. And with that, he’s leaving.

The 75-year-old Larrañaga stepped down Thursday, effective immediately, and will be replaced by associate head coach Bill Courtney — one of his best friends for the past three decades — for the remainder of the season.

“I’m exhausted,” Larrañaga said. “I’ve tried every which way to keep this going.”

Larrañaga joins a long line of prominent college basketball coaches — Virginia’s Tony Bennett and Villanova’s Jay Wright among them — who have left their jobs in recent years citing the changes in the game and the challenge of coaching in the Name, Image and Likeness era of college sports.

For Larrañaga, those changes began presenting themselves when he had eight players — all of whom said they were happy at Miami — enter the transfer portal after the Hurricanes went to the Final Four in 2023.

“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,” Larrañaga said. “And the answer is it’s become professional.”

The decision by Larrañaga ends a 14-year run as coach of the Hurricanes — and, presumably, a 41-year college head-coaching career that saw him win 744 games at Miami, American International, George Mason and Bowling Green. He took Miami to the Final Four in 2023 and took George Mason to the Final Four in 2006.

The Hurricanes are 4-8 this season and only 5-19 in their last 24 games, a stunning freefall for a program that went to the Final Four just two seasons ago. Injuries and roster turnover have taken a clear toll, and Larrañaga is one of many coaches who has expressed some level of frustration with the lack of regulation and transparency that comes with NIL.

“I owe my professional career to him,” said George Washington coach Chris Caputo, a longtime Miami assistant under Larrañaga. “I learned so much and I certainly wouldn’t be where I am without him and his family. As it relates to Miami, with all respect to the people there before him, he took what was essentially an irrelevant program and turned it into a Sweet 16, Elite Eight and Final Four program. At Miami, that was unheard of. He raised the bar for basketball at the University of Miami from here on out.”

Larrañaga was under contract into 2027 and had some school officials try to get him to rethink the decision in recent days. Larrañaga said he came to the decision over the weekend, reconsidered at the school’s request, and finalized the decision Monday.

“It seems clear to me that coaching in 2024 is a much different profession than it was just a few short years ago,” Miami athletic director Dan Radakovich said.

Larrañaga is the second prominent coach to step down unexpectedly this season in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Bennett did the same at Virginia back in October, less than three weeks before the Cavaliers played their season-opener.