Jim Larrañaga is an essay in habit and consistency. He just returned Thursday afternoon from having the same lunch that consists of the same walk across the University of Miami campus and same order of Angel Food smoothie.
He eats cereal, Frosted Flakes or Honey Nut Cheerios, for breakfast. He orders the No. 1 meal from McDonald’s, nothing else, and his regular pregame meal always consists of chicken breast with blue cheese.
“Sometimes he doesn’t use the blue cheese,’’ said his long-time assistant, Bill Courtney.
For games, Larrañaga is a full ensemble of constancy from the time he arrives right down to what he puts in his pants pockets. In one pocket, there’s a card with a name and photo of the referees and opposing coaches, just to remind him who’s who.
The other pocket has 10 cough drops.
“As I finish one, I reach for another,’’ he said. “I try to keep my voicebox moist. If I don’t, I get very hoarse the next day.”
It would be trite to say consistency in life leads to consistency in basketball, but that’s the model to follow. It’s working this year, too. Miami is 14-0 at home. It sits third in the Atlantic Coast Conference, a half-game behind Pitt and Virginia with four games left starting Saturday against Wake Forest in Coral Gables.
All this means Larrañaga’s program isn’t just assembling the best season among South Florida teams. It has something equally rare: A measure of sustained success, too, after last season’s Elite Eight finish in the NCAA Tournament.
The quick answer for how the football school became a basketball success is offense. Miami is high in the efficiency metrics, has four proven career scores and what it loses in size — 6-foot-7, 248-pound Norchard Omier is the only appreciable big man — it counters with speed and passing the ball.
“The best compliment I can pay my players is they share the ball,’’ Larrañaga said. “It doesn’t matter who scores as much as we score.”
It hasn’t been without potholes, as Miami has lost six-point leads in the final minutes a couple of times. But that’s all part of the learning, as Larrañaga explains it, and there is something gratifying and perhaps a little cleansing about the manner he teaches winning.
At 73, he rarely is a sideline show. He can do it if needed. He once threw a tantrum at a Miami game back in 2015, even throwing off his jacket for the second time in his career, just to wake up his team. Mostly he’s the studied professor of basketball in a manner that his friend, the golf psychologist Bob Rotella, tells him to “train, then trust.”
“Train them in practice, but then once the game begins, trust they’ll make good decisions,’’ he said. “If I’m a wild man, that doesn’t help them.”
He’s constantly giving talks, offering movie lines or introducing ways for his team to become a team. Early on this season he made each player introduce himself to the team and say something no one else knew about him.
“People were saying things you couldn’t believe,’’ said guard Nijel Pack, who played at Kansas State last season.
On Thursday, Larrañaga showed off another staple of his trade. Miami had the same practice preparing for Wake Forest that it had last Thursday before Clemson and the Thursday before that against Louisville.
“Same shooting drills, same ball-handling, same defensive and offensive drills,’’ he said before the practice. “I want players in a very good routine.”
Larrañaga’s regimented ways are so known inside his office that any deviation is noted. Courtney gave Larrañaga a McDonald’s gift card because of his penchant for the No. 1 meal. He then was surprised to learn his boss started to eat Five Guy’s burgers. He got him a card there.
“He used it up in two weeks,’' Courtney said.
Change, you see, can come. But Larrañaga approaches his world with order and regimen.
