Jim Larranaga: 'It seems like we're climbing a mountain uphill and keep slipping back'

The Miami basketball team suffered its fifth straight loss on Wednesday night, this time in lopsided fashion against Duke with multiple players missing due to injury.

For coach Jim Larranaga, it was a frustrating setback.

“It seems like we’re climbing a mountain uphill and keep slipping back,” Larranaga said. “And we ran into a very good team tonight that every mistake we made we paid for. So I’ll meet with the team tomorrow. I have a couple of very specific messages and hopefully we can start climbing up without slipping so far back.”

Perhaps the first order of business is getting healthy again. Miami was without Nijel Pack and Matthew Cleveland in the game on Wednesday night, immediately putting the team at a disadvantage against Duke.

It’s going to be hard for the Hurricanes to really turn things around without more firepower in the lineup.

“The way I look at it, I don’t know how the players look at it, I think when we’re at full strength and we’re able to prepare and practice correctly, we’re a much better team than we look like right now,” Larranaga said. “But we’re not at full strength. We haven’t been at full strength almost the entire ACC race.”

Miami has had a number of close calls. The team nearly upended No. 3 North Carolina before falling 75-72 two weeks ago. Other games have been in reach, like an overtime game against Wake Forest.

Larranaga summed up those problems.

“We lost in overtime at Wake Forest, we were without Wooga Poplar,” he said. “We lost to Syracuse at the buzzer, we were without Norchad Omier. We lost a close game to North Carolina, we were without Kyshawn George.

“So every time you look, and I said this a week or two ago, if you go back in time last year when we had a Final Four run, every time we lost one of our starters we lost. We lost Norchad Omier like at the first minute of the Duke game in the tournament, lost that one. Isaiah Wong was sick at Duke last year, he could hardly play. He played but not really, would be like if Matt Cleveland played today. Then our only loss at home was without Nijel Pack.”

Miami just hasn’t been able to sustain the kind of injury woes the team has had this year. The unit’s not deep enough.

“So for us, we’re not as deep, not as big, as some of the teams in our league,” Larranaga said. “So we need to be at full strength. We need to be healthy and playing well. And the only way you can do that is practice, preparation, where everybody is executing their role.”

At this point, at 15-12 overall and just 6-10 in ACC play, Miami is almost certainly out of the NCAA Tournament barring a run through the ACC Tournament to the title game and out the other side.

Larranaga’s not focusing on that.

“I don’t look that far down the road,” he said. “I’m going to get ready for Saturday’s game.”

Miami will take on Georgia Tech in a game that tips off at 4 p.m. ET on the ACC Network.