Jim Larranaga satisfied with Miami’s hustle against Duke

On Monday night, the Duke Blue Devils stood very little chance against the Miami Hurricanes falling hard 81-59 on the road. Miami’s offense was in its typical high-powered form. Still, it was their execution on defense and rebounding that stole the show. After the game, Hurricanes head coach Jim Larranaga explained his level of satisfaction with his squad’s hustle against Duke.

“The activity was tremendous,” said Larranaga. “We made a point of saying we have to be impactful on the ball screens; we were. We have to clog the lane, which we did. And then, we have to rebound a miss or force a turnover, and we did both; we forced the turnovers, but we also outrebounded them.

“Rebounding is about going after the basketball, boxing out. It’s about position, and it’s about aggressiveness. What I told the players, very, very specifically; I asked them a very simple question. What are you going to do to help your team when you don’t have the ball? You have the ball in your hands, are you gonna play defense, rebound, run the court, share the ball and, move the basketball, cut hard? And we did all those things.”

Despite Duke having a much taller front court which has two seven-footers in the starting lineup, Miami outrebounded their ACC foe 38 to 31. And the Hurricanes didn’t stop there as they were able to force the Blue Devils into 21 total turnovers. Miami’s win against Duke was an all-around complete game. And with the NCAA tournament just around the corner, this is exactly the performance Larranaga likes to see out of his ball club.

Larranaga jokes about his 40-inch vertical, importance of rebounding

The Hurricanes got off to a hot start on offense and never let up, but head coach Jim Larranaga wanted his team’s focus to be on rebounding, which he explained to his squad in an interesting way prior to their matchup.

“What is funny my message to them, I told you what I said. I brought a basketball in, I rarely do that, and I threw if off the board and I rebounded it. You don’t know I have like a 40-inch vertical,” Larranaga laughed and said.

The Hurricanes did win the rebounding battle Monday 38-31 over Duke and also gave them fits on the offensive end of the floor all night. The Hurricanes forced the Blue Devils into 21 turnovers, including 13 steals and four blocked shots. Larranaga elaborated on the importance of effort as it relates to getting hands on the basketball.

“So I was just demonstrating to them my mindset was we gotta go after every basketball,” Larranaga said. “And quite frankly, defense is effort. You have to be able to go after loose balls, you saw the ones that were on the ground. Both teams fighting for it, diving for it, jump balls.”

The Hurricanes played excellent team basketball overall versus Duke, racking up 21 assists, which Larranaga believes paired with stellar rebounding is the Hurricanes’ recipe for success.