You won’t find many purer expressions of winning basketball than this.
If you’ve followed college basketball for a while, you know that there are endless stories that come out of the NCAA tournament. Just consider: Duke-UNLV, 1991. Duke-Kentucky 1992. Georgetown-Villanova 1985. NC State-Houston 1983. Texas Western-Kentucky 1966. Chris Webber time out. The Flintstones. UMBC-Virginia 2018.
Anyone who watches will have stories and memories, but one of the greatest memories of all is the magnificent job Jim Larranaga did with George Mason in 2006 when the Patriots knocked off UConn in the Elite Eight in overtime, 86-84.
George Mason was less in every aspect of the game: they were smaller, slower and played in a backwater conference, compared to UConn out of the Big East. Yet the Patriot kept pushing UConn.
And despite falling behind by 12 in the first half, GMU never gave up. Tony Skinn - who led Mason into Cameron recently to play Duke - said that Larranaga told his team that CAA (Colonial Athletic Association) - stood for Connecticut Assassination Association.
It wasn’t a fluke really - before George Mason took care of UConn, the Patriots knocked off #6 Michigan State, #3 UNC and #7 Wichita State.
They were too small and not athletic enough to beat any of those teams, yet they did.
It was one of the greatest coaching accomplishments of the century.
Larranaga announced his retirement as Miami’s basketball coach on Thursday, citing the changing nature of college basketball. He’s not wrong, it is changing, and fast.
What won't change, and what can’t, is the amazing run he led George Mason on in 2006. That was one of the finest coaching jobs in NCAA tournament history and will long be remembered. It’s also a major piece of an argument for Larranaga to enter the Basketball Hall of Fame someday.
