HURRICANES HOOPS HIT NEW HEIGHTS

BY MIKE SHUTE

UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI MEN AND WOMEN MAKE HISTORY IN 2023 NCAA BASKETBALL TOURNAMENTS

The adjectives can go on and on, but the 202223 college basketball season at the University of Miami saw both Hurricanes men’s and women’s teams advance to uncharted waters. And the school can parlay that into future success not just on the field of play, but also off.

The Miami men, led by 73-year-old head coach Jim Larrañaga, advanced to the first Final Four in program history, falling in the national semifinal to eventual champion Connecticut. The ‘Canes, seeded No. 5 in the Midwest Region, knocked off three higher seeds to capture the regional title. The Miami women, under the guidance of 55-year-old Katie Meier, reached the Elite Eight for the first time in program history. Like the men, the Hurricanes women were also eliminated from their tournament by the eventual champion, losing to LSU in the regional final. Miami was seeded No. 9 and along the way, beat top-seeded Indiana in the Hoosiers home arena on a basket by grad student forward Destiny Harden with just 3 seconds left in the game.

Larrañaga, who completed his 12th season as the men’s head coach in Coral Gables in 2022-23 and his 39th overall, has been helping the Hurricanes steadily rise. He’s led Miami to 255 wins in his time at the helm. The recently concluded season (29-8 overall, 15-5 ACC) marked Miami’s sixth NCAA Tournament appearance under his watch and came a year after he guided the team to its first-ever Elite Eight appearance in the 2022 tournament.

“For us, to beat Drake and Indiana and Houston, a number-one seed, and Texas, a numbertwo seed, and to accomplish what we did, getting to the Final Four or the first time in the school’s history, is something to be very proud of,” said Larrañaga, a day after his team fell to eventual national champion Connecticut at the Final Four in Houston. “I’ve told our players, I’ve told our fans, this is a lifelong memory. You will never forget this.”

Meier, who completed her 18th season as Miami’s head coach and 22nd overall in 2022-23, has guided Miami to the NCAA Tournament 10 times in the last 13 seasons. She has collected 346 wins in Coral Gables. Her team ended this past season with a 22-13 overall record and went 11-7 in the ACC.

Hurricanes women made their first Sweet 16 since 1992. In the next round, they overcame foul trouble and a furious comeback by Villanova to reach the Elite Eight for the first time in program history before getting bounced by LSU. It marked the second straight year Meier’s team was eliminated by the eventual champion (South Carolina in 2022). They finished the season ranked No. 18 in the final USA Today Coaches Poll.

“When we were at South Carolina and they were clearly the best team in the country last year, and you think, well that’s a tough draw. And this year, you look at Indiana, they could’ve won it and they were a legit No. 1 seed,” Meier explained in an early April press conference after the season ended. “So, the difference in that is, we beat the one this year on their home court. In women’s basketball, it’s a lot different being in the Sweet 16 when you do that. I don’t think the average fan knows the difference there. You’re in the tournament, it’s supposed to be neutral sites and boom, you get put in South Carolina, and boom, you get put in Indiana. … We know that formula and we know that we can take down any team on a neutral court with our defense.”

Primetime Players

Both teams were powered by star players with pro aspirations.

Isaiah Wong, who was the 2022-23 Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year and an AllAmerican selection by several outlets, led the Hurricanes men’s team in scoring, assists, free throws made and attempted, and steals. The guard, who has announced his intentions to enter the 2023 NBA Draft in late June, is just the second player in school history to be a threetime All-ACC selection and finished his ‘Canes career ranked No. 4 in program history in scoring (1,866 points).

“We are so grateful to Isaiah for all he contributed to the University of Miami, both as a basketball player and as a human being,” Larrañaga said. “It is rare to find someone like Isaiah, who was not just a star on the court during his four years at The U, but also an incredibly hard worker who improved each season, while treating people the right way.”

Destiny Harden heard her name called at the 2023 WNBA Draft back on April 11, taken in the third round by the Phoenix Mercury. She became the seventh player in women’s program history to become a WNBA Draft choice. A second-team All-ACC selection this past season, she averaged 11.9 points and a team-high 5.9 rebounds per game.

“Destiny’s never going to let you down,” Meier said about Harden when speaking to the media prior to her team’s win over Villanova. “She is reliable, dependable and honorable… I’m blessed to have her on the team.”

But the Hurricanes hoops success wasn’t just limited to the court for both teams.

Five members of the Hurricanes women’s program – Haley and Hanna Cavinder, Karla Erjavec, Kyla Oldacre and Jasmyne Roberts – landed spots on the All-ACC Academic Team.

Filippos Gkogkos, a member of the men’s team who is double-majoring in business analytics and finance, was named the Elite 90 Award winner for the 2023 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship. The award recognizes a student-athlete who not only has reached the highest level of competition by reaching the national championship level but also who has achieved the highest academic standards by earning the top cumulative GPA among those athletes participating at the finals site of each of the NCAA’s championships. Gkogkos’s GPA is 3.541.

Final Four Influence

As if Miami wasn’t already a preferred destination for college-bound students, its athletic success is sure to increase the university’s profile and make it even more appealing to those applying to colleges and universities in the coming year.

According to an April 2018, story in Forbes, 75% of schools that make it to the NCAA Men’s Final Four see a larger-than-normal surge in applications received in the following admission season. In that story, they detailed that the schools that made the NCAA Men’s Final Four in the five seasons between 2009 and 2013 received 12.9% more applicants the next year compared to the nationwide average of 4.2% during that period.

Meanwhile, for women’s teams that reached the Final Four, the Forbes article’s research covered the seasons from 2009 through 2015 and saw that those schools saw applications rise by 6.8%. And with the huge television ratings that the women’s tournament received for this past tournament, that can only keep the pace rising and help any of the schools that had notable success – Miami included.

reached the 2006 Final Four and received an estimated $677 million in free media attention and advertising during its surprising run. Afterward, the school’s overall admissions increased by 350%, its out-of-state applicants increased by 40% and there was a 25% increase in alumni activity.

It brings to mind the old adage, “Success breeds success.”

“One of the things that the Final Four run does, it creates a vision, a crystal-clear picture of what other student-athletes know we can accomplish,” Larrañaga said. “We’re not saying, ‘Oh, we’re dreaming about getting to the Final Four.’ We can say, ‘We were in the Final Four, now we’re trying to win a national championship.’ And I think every high school player who followed March Madness, every college basketball player who is thinking about entering his name into the transfer portal, I’m absolutely certain Miami will come up in their conversations.”

Looking Forward

As the Miami hoops teams marched through the tournament, the excitement continued to grow on the campus and in the surrounding community with watch parties at the home of Miami basketball, the Watsco Center.

The two coaches – both of whom have already been elected to the University of Miami Sports Hall of Fame – hope that the momentum carries over into next season and beyond.

Logically, increasing applicants increases the number of high-quality students who are interested in the school. It also means that the school could increase its admitted-student totals and, in turn, increase revenue. Basically, getting to the Final Four is great advertising, the ultimate in mass marketing.

One specific example has the current Miami men’s coach right smack in the middle of it. According to a story on highereddive.com, George Mason University’s men’s team (led by Larrañaga)

This phenomenon of a significant bump in applications following athletic success isn’t something new and, in fact, the University of Miami was at the center of this concept when it first became noticed. It’s been called the “Flutie Effect,” named for former Boston College quarterback Doug Flutie whose Hail Mary pass defeated the Hurricanes in a nationally televised football game in November of 1984. In the ensuing admission year following that game, applications to BC surged, unfortunately for Miami fans, at the Hurricanes expense.

“Everyone that came to the watch party needs to come back when we start next season,” Larrañaga urged upon returning back to campus after the Hurricanes loss to UConn. “We’ve laid a foundation that is very strong. We are the only school in the country to be in the Elite Eight two years in a row (in 2023) ... We’re building a tradition. We’ve done that with the help of our student body, the students who came out and cheered us on, the community of Coral Gables that was here every night, our season-ticket holders, our alumni, our faculty, our administration, everybody is behind this team.”

“I do think that what we’ve done in this run has shown what Miami basketball is all about, Meier said after her team’s loss to LSU. “I think we’ve shown absolutely raw emotion. No one steals our joy, never can, never will. You’re always going to see a joyful, intense team… I am certainly not going to worry about the future. I think it looks pretty darned good.” l