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Is Miami the model all of the ACC should follow?
Years ago, this would have been laughable. Miami was a renegade school, with football players who got off the plane in Army fatigues and a basketball team playing at an indoor amphitheater. Then the U joined the ACC.
Fast forward 15-plus years and Jim Larrañaga, a veteran coach, has led the resurgence of the Hurricanes hoops program with a formula that sounds like the old “U” but is actually perfect for the future of college free agency.
Though Larrañaga may be 73, he relates to his players like he’s 43 or 33. So he wants to play the fast, open style that kids who dream of making the NBA prefer. And it didn’t take Miami long to get into NIL money and the transfer portal, a big piece of the 2023 Final Four-bound Canes.
Sure, ACC player of the Year Isaiah Wong is the 3-year junior leader of a fleet and talented team. But second-best player Jordan Miller is a transfer from George Mason, where Larrañaga used to coach. A third starter, Nijel Pak, took a reported six figures of NIL money to transfer from Kansas State.
In fact, the core of The U’s rotation is split between kids who started there and others who transferred in. And that is where college basketball and especially football are going with no new rules of amateurism to guide them.
The unknowns playing in the Final Four have the popularity weekend of their lives. More once-relegated schools will now cut into the brand awareness of the so-called Blue Bloods. Because everyone likes a winner, bought or not.
And what was not to LOVE about Miami rallying from 13 points down in the second half to outrun, out jump and finally outscore favored Texas, a No. 2 seed compared to Miami’s 5 seed for the ACC’s regular-season winner?
The Longhorns were shooting 50-plus percent from the floor and 3-point line for most of the game. And that basically woke up the black-clad ‘Canes who began stealing the ball, rebounding and scoring as Texas went ice cold.
It was a game between great college players but only one, Miami’s Miller, is listed on any NBA mock draft board. That’s okay. NIL money to stay or go elsewhere will keep more players from gambling on the NBA Draft and instead become rich and famous while staying in school.
This is happening all over the country. Every school raising NIL money believes it is doing it legally, because no one has said otherwise.
So the blueblood brands of the sport better keep pace with those that have less brand recognition but are getting their arms around more NIL money.
ACC schools: Miami’s way may be the best way in this NIL age.
Featured image via Associated Press/Jeff Roberson
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The skeletal remains of failed Fortune 500 companies that ignored the likes of Amazon (for example) is testament to board room arrogance of staying the course business practices because “it’s always been done this way in this company” and not recognizing the need to change or tried to change too late. Generally speaking the first stage of any organizational failure is complacency with past successes which eventually morphs into entitlement before succumbing into the arrogance and superiority of “our” methods. Where is UNC on that path in March, 2023?
The combination of NIL and the portal are ruining college sports.
Jim Larranaga on NIL: “TV makes money, right? The shoe companies make money. The universities make money. The athletic directors..they benefit from their relationship with the shoe companies. And the coaches make a hell of a living.
Well, what’s wrong with that filtering down?”
I’m not opposed to NIL, but it will be problematic*. Combine NIL (court ordered) with the NCAA rule change allowing transfers to play the next year is a disaster. If you like pro sports then you may like the college scene since they both now feature $$$ for the play.
College sports were always paying the players with tuition free education, plus free room and board (for the major sports). So, we now have paid players with zero loyalty to a school pr program. Just another set of pro’s.
*any bookie can now pay a player for doing an add, and no one will know if the player missed the big shot/shaved points/threw a game because the only way that can be policed is through the money.