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

The Miami Hurricanes got their third straight win in ACC play on Monday defeating Duke by a whopping score of 81-59 at home. 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.

“That’s the whole key, if we can get 16 assists or more we’re going to have a great shot. If we out-rebound the opponent we’ve got a great shot as well. You combine those and you get both you, win the battle on the boards and you get 21 assists, you got a darn good chance of winning that ball game,” Larranaga said.

Miami got off to a hot start in the first and second half, racing out to a 13-1 lead to start the game followed by a 9-0 run to start the second half after already being up 40-26 at the break. Four of the Hurricanes’ five starters scored in double figures, including center Norchad Omier, who led the team with 17 points and 10 rebounds recording his 11th double-double of the season.

The Hurricanes face Louisville in their next matchup on Saturday at 7:00 p.m. ET in a game airing on ACC Network.