ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASKETBALL TIPOFF MEDIA DAY

October 12, 2022

Jim Larranaga

Jordan Miller

Isaiah Wong

Miami Hurricanes

Press Conference

Q. Coach Larranaga, before this group last year, you informed us that you had made 81 of 87 free throws or something of that nature. How is your free-throw shooting this year?

JIM LARRANAGA: (Laughs).

Well, before I answer the question, I want to congratulate you, Doug Dowdy, on the four gold medals in the swim competition that you faced.

Was that in Roanoke or was that national?

Q. Roanoke.

JIM LARRANAGA: Roanoke. I thought it might be a national gold medal competition.

In my most recent free throw challenge, one of my freshman, Danilo Jovanovich, wanted to compete and I needed to warm up, so I warmed up and made 39 straight free throws, and then he decided that we weren't going to have a competition.

Q. How would you do against the other coaches?

JIM LARRANAGA: Well, in this league, we've got some great former basketball players. Hubert Davis and Jeff Capel. A lot of these guys can really shoot, so I don't know how I would do.

Q. Isaiah, you seem to have a certain steeliness and style by which you play, never high, never low, just locked into the moment. Where does that come from?

ISAIAH WONG: For me, I just feel like it comes from where I came from, where I live, and like my family, I've always been with my brothers and my mom, so I feel like that still came into me.

I always feel like in games, I just try to keep composure and just try to keep my confidence up. I feel like if I overreact, it's going to backfire at the end. But I feel like just keeping composure and just staying to myself, it just keeps me consistent throughout the game.

Q. Jordan, having played with Isaiah all of last year, what he described about himself, does that bring you comfort, consistency in your play?

JORDAN MILLER: Yes, Zai is very calm and composed. He's played a lot of college basketball, and I think it shows. Yeah, it just helps us, me and the whole team, honestly.

Q. Coming off a really strong season last year, how long do you hang on to the memories of what was such a special year before you transitioned into next season?

JIM LARRANAGA: Well, as far as I'm concerned, we celebrated our performance in the NCAA Tournament when we were in Chicago. We came back, and as soon as we landed, my staff and I were focused on preparing for this season.

We've got a great group of guys, led by these two great young gentlemen, who are tremendous competitors. Isaiah Wong has had a tremendous college career, and his best is yet to come. I think he's going to have an incredible senior year.

Jordan made such a great transition, smooth into our program and added so much, and he's playing a such a high level, I think these two guys are definitely deserving of all-conference honors.

Q. Coach Larranaga, Charlie Moore and Kameron McGusty, two phenomenal players who left, graduated. How will this team look different and how can you replace the loss of those two phenomenal players?

JIM LARRANAGA: If I heard you correctly, you're asking how are we going to replace Charlie Moore?

Well, we had three great seniors who are gone starters, from Charlie Moore, Kam McGusty, and Sam Waardenburg, and you're never going to replace them with guys who are identical to them, but we have a great core of players who return, and we have six new players, two transfers, Nijel Pack and Norchad Omier, and for incoming freshmen, Christian Watson, Danilo Jovanovich, AJ Casey, and Favour Aire, and the combination of those six guys to go along with the seven veterans, we feel like we can build upon last year and have a good combination of strengths both at the offensive and defensive end of the floor.

Q. You talk about never having that same type of athlete because you're never going to be able to replace them. Your student crowds last year were probably some of the strongest you've ever had in your time at Miami. Granted, the student body changes from year to year. How do you keep that momentum with the students?

JIM LARRANAGA: Yeah, it's a great question about how do you involve your students in games, especially in Miami where there's so many other forms of entertainment, so many other things that the students can do. Last year on two consecutive home games, we broke the student attendance record.

My staff and I have cultivated a group called Category 5, and Cat 5, if you don't know what that comes from, it comes from hurricanes. They have different categories of hurricanes. The last one that just passed the west coast of Florida was a category 4, so our student body is a category 5, which means they're tremendously enthusiastic, and we work with them to try to get more students to the games.

My staff and my players do a great job of trying to include the students, and you might even see after a game our players go into the stands and high five the students and the pep band.

We think that they are very much a part of the atmosphere and the electricity that they create in the Watsco Center, our home arena.

Q. Is that an intentional call to action, having your students go into the stands, or are they doing that just naturally because --

JIM LARRANAGA: Oh, no, that's with my direction. We want our students to feel very much a part of it, and I know our players really enjoy the enthusiasm.

This year I believe for the first time since I've been at Miami, we are going to move the pep band and the student section to the opposing team's end zone, trying to create a little bit more havoc for our opponent when they come in, maybe giving us a little better advantage.

But at the end of the game, should we be celebrating, we'll be down there with the band and the student body.

Q. Jordan, you were nodding along the way, what is it about what Coach is talking about with the student section that you agree with?

JORDAN MILLER: Yeah, I think the student section just gives us energy. Some games, every game is going to be different, you need to pick up the energy, but being able to have the student section there cheering us on, wishing us nothing but the best, is something that everybody gets to experience, and it's just wonderful, honestly.

Q. Coach, some of your greatest successes have occurred later in your career. Anything you can attribute that to?

JIM LARRANAGA: I think any success that I've enjoyed throughout my 51-year career is a direct result of my coaching staff doing a great job of identifying the right players to recruit and the quality of the player and person that we have brought to our program.

These guys and their teammates are just so much fun to be around. They're hardworking players. They're really good basketball players. But they're also really good people, someone you enjoy having a conversation with, someone you enjoy watching video, watching them interact and have fun on the court, off the court.

When you have good players, good players make good coaches. Great players make great coaches. The coaches that have been fortunate enough to have a ton of great players throughout their career, they're the ones that are the winningest coaches of all time.

I feel very fortunate. I think right now I'm eighth or ninth amongst all active coaches with career victories with 695. So I'm shooting for 700, and I'm hoping these guys can get it for me, but more importantly is us getting back to the NCAA Tournament and seeing if we not only can repeat but even go further this season.

Q. Isaiah, you enter this season a two-time all-ACC honoree with over 1,200 points in three seasons. Is there another gear? Is there another level in your game?

ISAIAH WONG: Yes, there's another level to my game. There's always -- I think for every year, there's always something to improve on, and I'm always in the gym, just working out, just trying to be more consistent as a player and just trying to help myself, better myself every season and just trying to help the team as much as possible.

Q. Coach, in reading through the notes, it says here that you had zero players transfer to another school for the fourth time in the last five seasons. What gives? Why are people sticking around as long as they are?

JIM LARRANAGA: Well, first of all, I've got to give credit to my staff for identifying the right players. When you have a player -- and I'll use Isaiah as a perfect example. If he had put his name into the portal like had been rumored, he would have been as highly recruited as any player in the country.

But I think Isaiah called me the day that came out, and he said, hey, I'm either going to the NBA or coming back to Miami. I love Miami.

And the players love being in the environment that we have. It's a great school academically. The basketball program is very much a part of their lives, and they love it, and the players and coaches get along really, really well.

We've added transfers like Jordan and Charlie Moore last year that fit in so beautifully, and we've been able to balance bringing in a transfer or two and not lose anybody to the transfer portal. A lot of that credit has to go to the players for making the adjustment to Miami and to the ACC.

Q. Jordan, do you have to win a championship to call it a successful season?

JORDAN MILLER: Not necessarily. I mean, I think every team could agree that it would be nice, but there's a lot of things you learn from any season. The things, what you take away is most important. I'll answer your question as a yes and no and just leave it at that.