Jim Larranaga on UM season: ‘Far, far more difficult than I could possibly have imagined’

Admitting that “this season has been far, far more difficult than I could possibly have imagined,” University of Miami men’s basketball coach Jim Larranaga leads the Hurricanes into Wednesday’s home finale vs. Boston College desperate to end a seven-game losing streak.

A year after their historic run to the Final Four, the Hurricanes are 15-14 and second to last in the Atlantic Coast Conference standings at 6-12. Their only chance of reaching the NCAA Tournament is by winning the ACC tournament next week.

“Because of our preseason expectation, being ranked nationally, being picked very high in the ACC preseason poll, it created a lot of expectation and I think our players actually just assumed that that would just come automatically,” Larranaga said. “And obviously, nothing is won on paper. You have to play the games.”

Making things more complicated, the Hurricanes have dealt with a string of injuries to key players, particularly starting guards Nijel Pack and Wooga Poplar.

“My most important responsibility is to be a leader, to set the stage for what the players should be able to accomplish; and the challenge this year was to try to do that when we were constantly missing key players at both practice and games,” Larranaga said.

Pack and Norchad Omier are “great college basketball players, terrific young men” and their leadership is vital, the coach said, but they have been limited in how they could lead the team this season.

“In Nijel’s case, he’s missed so many practices and so many games with injuries, and even when he was practicing and playing, he wasn’t nearly 100 percent,” Larranaga said.

“Norchad is someone who is new to the game. He’s not someone who grew up in this environment, who is a natural leader. Even from a language standpoint, his first language is Spanish, not English. So sometimes his ability to communicate with me and the team is challenging. He’s a great young man and doing the best he absolutely can; but understanding that he has some limitations.”

Despite the losing skid, Larranaga remains optimistic for Wednesday and next week because the full team was healthy as of Monday afternoon. All the starters, including Pack and Poplar, played in a Saturday intrasquad scrimmage, and scored 58 points in the first half.

“When we’re healthy, and they get the chance to practice together, and they do the things that we plan on doing, then we’re a much different team,” Larranaga said. “We are healthy today. Will we be healthy on Wednesday? I don’t know. We’ll have to wait and see.”

UM lost the road game to Boston College 85-77 on Feb. 17. In that game, Mason Madsen had a career-high 25 points and seven three-pointers. Quentin Post, the 7-foot Eagles center, scored 23 on 7-of-13 shooting and hit a trio of threes. Miami was led by Omier and Matt Cleveland with 20 points apiece.

“It was a heck of a game, very close throughout,” Larranaga said. “We had a five point lead with five minutes to go and just didn’t hold on. Everything starts with Quentin Post, who is seven foot, 250 or 260 pounds and can shoot the three, dominate inside. He had 30 points against Pittsburgh the other day. He is certainly one of the very best players in our league and in the country. So our defensive gameplan has to begin with how we guard him.”

After Wednesday’s game the Hurricanes conclude the regular season with a road game Saturday against Florida State (4 p.m., ESPN2).