The Challenges The Miami Hurricanes Men's Basketball Team Face With 10 New Players
Four new players on a roster can be challenging. Moreover, only three returning players from last year's team and 10 new players on the Miami Hurricanes men's basketball roster is an entirely new challenge that head coach Jim Larrañaga will take control of.
In the new area of college sports, this will be a common occurrence in many locker rooms around the country. What they don't tell you is how hard it can be to learn a new system, gel with your new teammates, and perform at a high level quickly with the short amount of time that they have together.
"What's very very challenging for players is to play against the same faces every single day and what's very very different is that we started working out as a team in July. So we've had all of July, a couple of weeks in August, all of September and October to really put the pieces together," Larrañaga said.
Working with new players will always take some time but having a brand new team learn an entirely new system could cause a slow start for the Hurricanes this season. They have a favorable schedule in front of them but there are still some challenges ahead.
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One thing that coach Larrañaga has worked well with is seniors and veteran-led player teams. That is what he has in this group and knows that he will have to lean on their experience moving forward to get key wins. But first, he has to get his team some new faces in front of them so they can implement the new systems that they are learning.
"Because we have so many new players, 10 new guys, we've made adjustments and their learning a whole new system so you need the time because you are taking players from all different systems and trying to mesh them into one unit," Larrañaga said. "I'll be excited to see how we're doing when we have a scrimmage and an exhibition game before we open up the season and we'll see how we do in those."
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The season starts for the Hurricanes on Nov. 4 when they take on Fairleigh Dickinson Knights at the Watsco Center at 6:00 p.m. ET.
