Takeaways from Jim Larranaga Post-Game Presser after win over LIU
CORAL GABLES, Fla. — The No. 15 Miami Hurricanes won 97-49 over LIU on Wednesday.
Here is what head coach Jim Larranaga said in his postgame press conference:
OPENING STATEMENT…
“We got off to a great start. It was 21-zip, our defense was stifling and we tried to maintain that and we did a pretty good job throughout the first half. Second half, I had to call timeout because we weren’t as sharp coming out of halftime, but we regrouped and ended up with a nice 97-49 victory.”
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TAKEAWAYS FROM THE GAME AGAINST OVERMATCHED OPPONENT…
“We’ve spent so much time trying to improve our transition defense. They scored three points in transition on fast breaks. When we look at the tape, we’ll figure out if it really was us. Did people really do a good job or did they just slow down? They scored three points in transition on fastbreaks, but we defended, we rebounded. We outrebounded them 45-32, but yeah they were a little bit overmatched tonight. I don’t know how they’ll be in their own league. But they’re a guard dominant team. Rod Strickland was a great player. His sons are very good players and we needed to defend their guards and we did that. They only made 3 out of 23 attempts from 3 and that’ll certainly help on 3-point percentage. And all these numbers are very important in Kenpom. It’s ridiculous, but if you can have good numbers, it represents, ‘OK, you must be good.'”
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ON ROTATION WITH FORWARDS…
“With AJ and Norchad, they’re going to play a fair amount of men’s together. Right at this moment and things will change as you progress, but Michael Nwoko subs in for Norchad Omier and AJ Casey subs in for Matthew Cleveland. AJ and Norchad are going to play together. So they’re going to be times when Matthew’s out there with Michael and one of them will rest. So we’ll see. I like that AJ rebounded, he had seven rebounds, that’s what we’re looking for.”
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ON THE BENCH PLAYING TIME…
“I kept emphasizing to them, what players tend to think is it’s all about playing time. If you give me playing time, then I’ll show you how good I am. It’s really about performance–play really well and then you’ll earn playing time. We try to give them enough playing time for them to show what they’re capable of. Christian Watson played 15 minutes, Michael Nwoko 13, Kyshawn George, half the game. AJ Casey, 13 minutes. Jakai, ten. Those four guys–Kyshawn, Chris, AJ and Michael–I don’t think they realize it, but our success is going to be on how well they play. The five starters play very well. They play well together. They compete with the other team pretty well. There’s going to be times they have bad games, but the real key is what is our bench going to do?”
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ON KYSHAWN GEORGE…
“He’s a very skillful player, a very smart basketball player, very good passer, very good shooter, but he has to learn how to play faster. Right now he’s in his comfort zone, not running too fast, not doing anything in a hurry. I don’t want him in a hurry, but I want him to be as quick as he can be. The one layup he got at the end of the game I called time out and ran that for him and I said, ‘Look, just run by the guy. There will be no one near the basket. Everybody out, just run by the guy.’ What did he do? He shot a layup. He could have done it three other times on his own without me telling him. Then he slowed down. So he’s got to get better at it.”
On if that’s from his experience in Europe?
“Yes. He was so young, playing with older guys. They probably yelled at him if he dribbled too much.”
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ON FORCING 16 TURNOVERS…
“We use an expression, ‘ One man guards the ball and four men help them guard the ball,’ and tonight we did that for an extended period of time, especially to start the game. We didn’t let them get easy shots. Because when one of the LIU players beat one of our guys, they started to beat one of our guys, there was someone there to help them and that really was the difference.”
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ON MEMORIES OF ROD STRICKLAND…
“You guys are all too young to remember Clair Bee, who was a legend in New York City. He coached at LIU for a very long time was very, very long. In 2006 I won the Clair Bee National Coach of the Year Award so they even named an award after him. And LIU for a very long time was very, very good. In the late-60s, when I was playing college basketball, LIU was still very good. When Rod Strickland went to high school he went to Truman High and played for a guy named Steve Lappas, who coached at Villanova, UMass, Manhattan and I went up to to see him, he was from my neighborhood in The Bronx and I recruited him, I think just one day. I asked Rod if he remembered it and he said he did not. Not surprising because he was such a high-level recruit. When I was at UVA, we were a great team, but he probably had dozens of coaches coming in every day because of course back then there was no limit to how much you could recruit. He ended up going to DePaul and was a great player at DePaul, then in the NBA, he’s still one of the top assist-getters in the top 20 in the history. Then he’s been coaching at different places. He worked for John Calipari, worked in the state at South Florida for Orlando Antigua and now he’s at LIU. He’s only in his second year and he’s got his sons playing for him. If you look at their schedule, it’s ridiculous. They’ve got 18 road games. Hopefully they’re making a lot of money.”
Trinton is the owner of CanesToday. He writes for all sports, with a focus on football and recruiting, he is a freshman in high school and wants to graduate from the University of Miami
