Life can’t get it much better for Miami Men’s head basketball coach, Jim Larrañaga. As the respected leader of the Hurricane program for over 11 years now, Larrañaga has brought stability and (occasional) excellence to Miami.
On top of that, I don’t mean to digress: He lives in Miami! Eternal sunshine and beautiful weather by the beach year-round! It genuinely hurts to be this jealous.
Another place where you might be envious of Larrañaga is his program’s ongoing success during this year’s March Madness. After dismantling No. 2 Auburn (+6.5 favorites) 79-61 and humiliating their prized talisman in the process, you can forgive Larrañaga if he’s proud of his players.
It’s not often you win wire to wire over a No. 2 seed.
Miami is the 2nd double-digit seed over the last 15 NCAA Tournaments to defeat a Top-2 seed without trailing, joining (15) Middle Tennessee in 2016 vs (2) Michigan State. pic.twitter.com/QU1qfHWY1b
— ESPN Stats & Info (@ESPNStatsInfo) March 21, 2022
Next weekend will have been the first time Miami’s played in a Sweet Sixteen since 2016. We’ll cut their coach some appropriate slack.
But with Larrañaga clearly riding on cloud nine after his team’s statement victory, no one was safe from his crosshairs. Not even dancing Auburn legend Charles Barkley.
You see, Barkley had asserted that he’d take his shirt off in the event of a Tiger victory over Larrañaga’s Hurricanes during his studio show. In his postgame comments, it was a moment that the coach was all too happy to share how unhappy he’d be to see Barkley like that.
Jim Larranaga in his opening statement: "I was tuned into the games before us and I listened to Charles Barkley tell the CBS crew that if Auburn won, he would take off his shirt. And I thought to myself, 'Man, no one wants to see that Charles.'"
— Grace Raynor (@gmraynor) March 21, 2022
Ouch. I might suggest a rebuttal if I was in Barkley’s shoes, but that might be opening a larger can of worms and a string of insults down the line.
Larrañaga: 1.
Barkley: 0.
Miami: To the Sweet Sixteen.
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