Miami coach Jim Larranaga can be excused if he isn’t in a holiday mood with his Hurricanes on a break for final exams.
As if things couldn’t be worse with his team having lost four games in a row after getting off to a 5-0 start, it was announced Wednesday (Dec. 12) that redshirt freshman forward Deng Gak would be out for the rest of the season after sustaining a left knee injury that requires surgery.
The expectation is that he will be out for about six months.
Gak was not a big scorer and had started only one of Miami’s first eight games, but he was coming along and had provided some key contributions in the early going. He averaged 2.5 points and 4.1 rebounds while averaging 14.6 minutes a game on the court.
At 6-feet-10, he gave the Hurricanes an inside presence at the defensive end, a critical need for the Hurricanes with the status of forward Dewan Hernandez still undecided. Gak, who started against Yale before sitting out the loss to Penn, was third on the team in blocked shots with nine.
Hernandez has not been available since the preseason exhibition game. Shortly before the season opener on Nov. 9 against Lehigh, it was announced that Hernandez’ eligibility was being looked into.
It had nothing to do with his decision to enter and then withdraw his name from the NBA draft after averaging 11.4 points and 6.7 rebounds a game for last season’s 22-10 team. According to reports, his name supposedly was mentioned in an email that came up during the FBI’s investigation into the college basketball-shoe companies scandal.
It indicated that some money was going to go to Hernandez, though there is no evidence he received any payments or even knew of the offer.
Hernandez’ absence threw an even bigger load on senior center Ebuku Izundu, who has responded with averages of 12.0 points and 8.8 rebounds a game with a pair of double-doubles. But Izundu still has foul issues at times (his 31 personals are the most on the team).
Without Gak, Larranaga is left with few options to give Izundu some help, none of them particularly good ones:
- Play guard Anthony Lawrence at the 4. He is more effective on the wing, but the 6-7 senior is second on the team in rebounding (6.1 average) in addition to scoring at 12.7 ppg. He also is second to Izundu in blocked shots (10). He is one of the more athletic and versatile players on the team.
- Try to get more inside work out of sophomore Sam Waardenburg, who also is more effective/comfortable on the wing. He is 6-10 but carries only 216 pounds on his frame.
- Push junior forward Rodney Miller Jr. into action. Miller, a 7-0, 255-pound junior, has yet to play this season and has played in only 30 games in two seasons. He has 32 points, 16 rebounds, and two blocked shots in his career.
Larranaga has done a remarkable job of making Miami relevant not only in the Atlantic Coast Conference but the national scene has well. He has had three early entrants to the NBA draft (guards Shane Larkin, Bruce Brown, and Lonnie Walker IV), an indication of the talent he has been able to woo to Coral Gables.
In his seven seasons in Coral Gables, his teams have won Atlantic Coast Conference regular-season and tournament titles, missed a postseason tourney only once with four NCAA tourney appearances and two NITs, and failed to reach the 20-win level only once, missing with just 17 wins in his third season.
In addition, the Hurricanes have won at least two games in the NCAA tourney twice and reached the championship game of the NIT in 2015 where they lost by two points in overtime to Stanford.
He owns an 11-10 combined record against the likes of Duke and North Carolina and is 8-7 against his chief rival, Florida State. Throw out those numbers and Duke and North Carolina are a combined 31-5 against Miami, Florida State 33-27.
Those accomplishments may be mild when put up against those of traditional college basketball powers like the Blue Devils and Tar Heels among others, but you have to look at them in context.
Before Larranaga’s arrival for the 2011-12 season, Miami had played in only six NCAA tournaments and 10 NITs overall and had recorded only six 20-win seasons since the program was revived in the 1985-86 season.
Now, however, Larranaga is facing his biggest challenge yet. The Hurricanes end a 15-day layoff for final exams when they host Houston Baptist on Dec. 19. Games against Florida Atlantic and Campbell fill out the month before they begin ACC play at home against North Carolina State on Jan. 3.
