The Washington Post - USA (2022-03-27)

SUNDAY, MARCH 27 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ M2 D5

ncaa tournament

BY EMILY GIAMBALVO

chicago — As the Miami men’s
basketball players began trick-
ling toward the locker room and
the celebration continued in the
stands, Jim Larrañaga veered
from his route to the tunnel and
headed to the opposite side of
the court. He had spent the past
couple hours leading the Hurri-
canes to a Sweet 16 victory, and
even with a sizable lead in the
final minutes, Larrañaga swept
his hands through the air after
each possession, imploring his
team to run back and play de-
fense. There’s little time to relax
and appreciate history in a tour-
nament that moves so fast.
But after meeting Iowa State’s
team in the handshake line and
fulfilling interview obligations,
the 72-year-old coach from New
York could finally pause. Most of
his players had left the floor
when he shuffled over to a line of
Miami cheerleaders. He joined
them with his right arm raised
and finger pointing skyward,
swaying back and forth as the
alma mater played. Larrañaga
raised both fists, then maneu-
vered through press seating
toward the front row. There, he
found his wife in a pastel orange
cardigan, waiting for a long
embrace.
Larrañaga took a couple steps
back and yelled for the people in
the crowd to hush. They listened.
And he screamed, “I’ll see you
Sunday!”
This is a coach who took over
the Miami program in 2011,
when the school had reached the
Sweet 16 just once in its history.
Larrañaga has brought the Hur-
ricanes to that round three times
since then, and this time he’s

going further. Miami, a No. 10 seed, will meet No. 1 Kansas in the program’s first Elite Eight appearance. A win Sunday would send this team on a stun- ning run to the Final Four, matching Larrañaga’s success with No. 11 seed George Mason in 2006. “When there are 358 Division I schools who would love to be in this position and there are only eight that are, you feel very fortunate,” Larrañaga said. “And I think my guys realize this is not something that happens every day. For Kansas it does but not for Miami.” These players are making history for their program, but they’re relaxed while doing so — hugging afterward on the court, dancing in the locker room and flinging water around with glee. As the players jumped and screamed, Larrañaga just smiled. “The water was cold,” Larraña- ga said, but amid the joy, he couldn’t remember exactly what came next. He turned to his players to ask: “Did I dance at all? I did? Was it any good?” Kameron McGusty, a sixth- year guard, began acting out the performance, moving his arms in a circular motion near his chest: “One of these,” he told his coach. “Ah, yeah,” Larrañaga said. “One of my dance moves from the ’60s.” In many ways, these players resemble their coach. They talk about love and appreciation. Jor- dan Miller “can’t even stop smiling,” he said after the Iowa State win, before he returned to the media room the next day, still smiling through his answers. They try not to take this pres-

sure-packed tournament too se- riously. “Being the loudest team in warmups, yelling and scream- ing before we run out on the court, doing our dance moves, kicking the ball,” McGusty said, is how they find their energy that turns into success. They laugh as they describe the newest pre- game ritual that developed during the postseason: pretending to punt the basketball. Sam Waardenburg’s recruit- ment from New Zealand to Mi- ami started with a big smile and a wave from Larrañaga. That

translated to warmth and com- munity on campus. And that kept Waardenburg with the team for six seasons. Charlie Moore, a journeyman point guard who landed at Miami for his sixth season, described Larrañaga as more of a father or teacher than solely a coach. “It’s always been positivity,” Waardenburg said. “That’s the main emphasis of the program, and you just love him for it because he just makes life so much better and special for you during your time in college.”

This team makes up for its lack of size with quickness and agility. The Hurricanes play a scramble defense, focusing on disrupting opponents, trapping and picking up steals. They force 4.6 more turnovers per game than they commit, the fifth-best mark in Division I. That allows their offense to become efficient with easy buckets in the open court before defenses get set. Larrañaga started the season playing this style of defense about 10 percent of the time. As his players caught on, he in-

creased the frequency. Now they play that way all the time. The goal? Make opponents uncom- fortable. “The best thing you can do when you can’t rebound is don’t give them a shot,” Larrañaga said after his team knocked out No. 2 Auburn in the second round. Injuries hampered the program in recent years. At times, the Hurricanes were so short- handed they couldn’t play five- on-five in practice. Larrañaga compared the predicament to beginning a chess match without a few pieces. Confidence grew heading into this season when McGusty and Waardenburg decided to return. Larrañaga brought in Moore and Miller as transfers to bolster the lineup. Miami finished last season 10-17 with only four wins in conference play. The Hurricanes landed at No. 12 in the ACC preseason rankings, so “if we would have told you we were going to the Elite Eight, every- body would laugh at us and look at us crazy,” McGusty said. By Selection Sunday, they be- lieved they could compete with the best teams. Larrañaga loves to tell stories, so this group knows all about George Mason’s remarkable run 16 years ago. There are overt lessons nestled in the underdog tale. Now, Larra- ñaga says his players tell him, “Hey, let’s do what they did so you can talk about us in the future rather than them.” So here they are among the last eight teams standing — winning, dancing, joking and smiling, while trying to add to the story of another double-digit seed that prevailed.

Larrañaga has another double-digit seed on a historic, joyful March run

CHARLES REX ARBOGAST/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Jim Larrañaga led N o. 11 G eorge Mason to the 2006 Final Four. No. 10 Miami is in its first E lite E ight.

BY DOUG FEINBERG

bridgeport, c onn. — Raina Per- ez decided to come back for one more season and hopefully lift North Carolina State to new heights. The senior guard did just that, helping the Wolfpack ad- vance to its first regional final in 24 years. The senior guard stole the ball at midcourt and made a go-ahead layup with 14 seconds left to send the top-seeded Wolfpack to a 66- 63 comeback win over No. 5 Notre Dame on Saturday. It’s the Wolfpack’s first trip to the Elite Eight since 1998, when it reached the Final Four. N.C. State had lost in the Sweet 16 the previous three tourna- ments and looked as if it was going to make it four straight until the rally led by Perez and Kai Crutch- field, who also used the extra covid-19 year granted by the NCAA. “For this group it would have been hard for me to face the fact that they all came back and we still didn’t get over the hump,” N.C. State Coach Wes Moore said. “That makes me feel really good, and I’m so excited for our program to do this, kind of break through.” It wasn’t the first time that Per- ez came up huge for the Wolfpack on a big stage. She hit the game- winning jumper in last season’s ACC tournament championship. Trailing 59-51 early in the fourth quarter, the Wolfpack scored 15 of the final 19 points, capped by Perez’s layup. The Fighting Irish had one last chance, but Maddy Westbeld missed a three-pointer from the wing, and Perez hit both free throws for the final margin. The Wolfpack had gotten with- in 63-62 when Elissa Cunane made the first of two free throws with 36 seconds left. After a Notre Dame timeout, the Irish got the ball inbounds in the backcourt and Dara Mabrey was stripped near midcourt by Perez, who took it in for the layup and the lead. It was N.C. State’s first since the 7:43 mark of the second quarter. N.C. State (32-3) will play Con- necticut on Monday night. Cunane scored 16 points and Crutchfield added 14 for the Wolf- pack. Olivia Miles scored 21 a nd Westbeld had 13 for the Irish (24-9). — Associated Press

B RIDGEPORT REGION

Wolfpack

rallies late,

steals one

from Irish

N.C. STATE 66,

NOTRE DAME 63

BY GENE WANG

bridgeport, conn. — The sec-
ond-seeded Connecticut women’s
basketball team bore little resem-
blance to a powerhouse program
during the first half of its NCAA
tournament Bridgeport Region
semifinal.
Then the third quarter arrived,
and No. 3 seed Indiana became
collateral damage amid a decisive
16-0 onslaught that sparked the
Huskies to a 75-58 triumph Satur-
day afternoon at Total Mortgage
Arena.
Connecticut (28-5) advanced
to its 16th straight regional final
behind four players scoring in
double figures, including team
highs of 15 each from Christyn
Williams and Paige Bueckers, and
will face top-seeded North Caro-
lina State on Monday night for a
spot in next week’s Final Four.
Williams and Bueckers con-
tributed significantly to the third-
quarter uprising, combining for
13 points in pushing Connecti-
cut’s lead to 53-33 with 6:15 to
play. Bueckers’s three-pointer
started the run, and Williams
was especially active getting de-
flections and scoring with the
Hoosiers (24-9) scrambling on
defense.
“During that stretch there was
a look about us that we felt
exceptionally confident,” Hus-
kies Coach Geno Auriemma said.
“We knew exactly where we were
going. We knew where the ball
was going. We knew where the
shots were coming from. We
could pick and choose which
shots we wanted to take. We got
more layups than we had gotten
in the previous two quarters.”
The Huskies won their 13th
consecutive game thanks also in
large part to an overwhelming
15-2 advantage in offensive re-
bounding.
Senior Olivia Nelson-Ododa
and sophomore Aaliyah Edwards
had five offensive rebounds
apiece and combined for 24 re-
bounds overall, almost matching
the Hoosiers’ total as a team (27).
Robust work inside allowed
Connecticut to own a 14-2 margin
in second-chance points, with
the Huskies attempting 19 more
field goals and surviving a 5-for-
20 showing on three-pointers.
Connecticut’s starters combined
to shoot 4 of 18 from behind the
arc, including Williams missing
all three of her attempts.
But the senior shot 7 for 11
overall and added six rebounds,
three assists and a steal without a
turnover in helping to extend
perhaps her final NCAA tourna-
ment. Last season, Williams aver-
aged 18.4 points in the NCAA

tournament and was named first-team all-region. “We were not happy with how the first half ended,” Williams said. “They got an easy three at the buzzer, so I guess the emphasis at halftime was come out of the gate with our defense. We had to be aware of what’s going on at all times, and I thought we did a great job with that, and then we got easy buckets in transition.” Bueckers produced in that re- gard, too, in her eighth game back following surgery to repair an anterior tibial plateau frac- ture and lateral meniscus tear in her left leg. The sharpshooting guard missed 19 games and reached double figures for the third time since reentering the lineup. Last season, Bueckers became

the first freshman to win nation- al player of the year and the first in Big East Conference history to claim player of the year, freshman of the year and tournament most outstanding player in the same season. Bueckers withstood a tense moment in the first half when she tumbled hard near midcourt, clutching her knee and grimac- ing in discomfort. She rose and jogged back to the bench, where the athletic training staff exam- ined her before determining she had suffered no additional damage. “We really want Paige to do well because she was coming off a big, big surgery,” Auriemma said. “We know how good she is, and we want her to be the Paige that she was. What you don’t want is

to sit around and root for Paige while the game is going on in- stead of playing basketball, so it’s been a little bit of finding our- selves again, how much do we want to cheer for Paige and how much do we need to play basketball and let her figure out her own way.” A 14-3 flurry bridging the first and second quarters during which Bueckers delivered one of her two assists lifted the Huskies into the lead for good at 19-18 on the way to a 37-33 halftime advantage. Connecticut led by as many as nine d uring the first half when Azzi Fudd collected a pass from Caroline Ducharme during a fre- netic transition sequence, pulled up behind the arc in front of the Hoosiers’ bench and released a

jumper that swished through to booming applause in what effec- tively was a Huskies home game. The half also featured Auriem- ma at his animated best, in one instance turning toward the bench and jumping three times while shaking his arms in disbe- lief after Edwards missed a layup. “We came back out in the third quarter, and it was just really a bugaboo for us,” Indiana Coach Teri Moren said. “They got off to a 16-0 run, and you just can’t allow that to happen against a team like U-Conn. It’s very difficult to overcome a start like that. We just did some uncharacteristic things. We knew it. We were disappointed with that, and then we just didn’t do a good enough job on the boards today.”

WOMEN’S BRIDGEPORT REGION SEMIFINAL

Steady Huskies reach 16th straight Elite Eight

CONNECTICUT 75,

INDIANA 58

FRANK FRANKLIN II/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Geno Auriemma’s Huskies dominated on the boards, outrebounding the Hoosiers by 12 and outscoring them 14-2 in second-chance points.