He isn’t my first choice (Travis Ford-UMass), but he is a very good choice nonetheless.
It is starting to look more and more like former Wall-of-Fame Providence Guard Jimmy Larranaga may be coming home to coach the Friars.
He isn’t my first choice (Travis Ford-UMass), but he is a very good choice nonetheless.
March 31st, 2008 at 12:24 pm
“Coming home” to his second home, anyway. Larranaga grew up in the Bronx (as did yours truly), and attended Archbishop Malloy H.S. in Queens (alma mater of my father; Larranaga one year his junior), so, beyond his four years at PC, I don’t know that there’s a whole lot of “home” in Providence for Jimmy L. He’s definitely a New Yorker. And now that he’s spent 12 years at GMU, Rhodie may be a third home by now!
All that finger-poking aside, I love Larranaga, and think he’s a good short-term choice to get the Friars back on the map. He brings instant name recognition and respectability to the program. He can recruit the heck out of NYC and the VA/DC area, where he’s been a long-time head coach as well as an assistant (at UVA).
His age (59 later this year) is a double-edge sword, if he were to land in Providence. He’s probably got no more than 10 years left, so he’d need to begin grooming potential follow-on assistants for the HC job almost immediately, to plan for any long-term success - or else PC is right back to where it is now: “blow it up and start all over” mode. On the positive side, if he does take the job, you know he’s unlikely to pull a Barnes/Gillen, and use the PC job as a stepping sonte to take a job in the ACC - Larranaga had a great shot in 2006 to go a lot of places (Seton Hall was widely-reported to have come calling, and possibly Temple and/or NC State might’ve been in the mix), and got a new contract at Mason. I think if he were to go anywhere else, it’d be PC and that’s it.
March 31st, 2008 at 12:28 pm
I agree with Borg’s assessment - this is probably the only job he’d ever take and he’ll pull a Tom Brennan (former UVM coach) and coach there until he retires from coaching, should he take the job.
I am hoping you guys get him!
March 31st, 2008 at 1:16 pm
TO bne honest Scott, all of the Big East AND New England/New York should be hoping we get him.
I’m a firm believer that a rising tide lifts all boats, so what is good for the Big East is good for New England hoops . . .