A new day dawns, another day to speculate about Boston College basketball. Head coach Earl Grant is out, and athletic director Blake James is tasked with finding his replacement. One of the top rumored candidates is Jay Larranaga, who BC reportedly has already interviewed.
Jay Larranaga is the son of former Miami head coach Jim Larranaga, who took the Hurricanes to a Final Four appearance in 2023 before retiring in 2024. The younger Larranaga graduated from Bowling Green in 1997 and played in minor
professional leagues for twelve years. After coaching the Ireland national team and then leading the Erie BayHawks as their head coach from 2010 to 2012, he got his first big coaching job with the Boston Celtics where he was an assistant under Doc Rivers and Brad Stevens from 2012 to 2021. He took a more prominent assistant coaching role with the Los Angeles Clippers in 2021, where he still works today under head coach Ty Lue. Over the course of his career he has been considered for multiple head coaching vacancies, and was even interviewed to replace Doc Rivers in Boston, but has remained an assistant coach.
Why he’d be interested:
Moving back to Boston to run your own college program in a power conference is an appealing situation. As we will mention several times throughout this process, BC’s financial commitment to basketball is outpaced by its peers in almost every regard, which makes it one of the least appealing jobs in high major college basketball. But if Larranaga is ready to make the jump back into being a head coach after spending over a decade on the bench, this would be a good opportunity.
Why it could work:
I trust the Boston Celtics organization as a local sports institution that produces intelligent, capable leaders. Throughout the the last 20 years, and especially the last 10, the Celtics have proven that they are some of the smartest minds in professional basketball from analytics to culture-building and everything in between. Larranaga is a student of that culture, which is a promising sign.
As far as his personal abilities go, it’s hard to know how impactful he’s been as an assistant coach. Brad Stevens is a highly-respected basketball mind and kept him on the Celtics staff for a decade, during which they appeared in multiple Eastern Conference Finals. The Clippers’ Ty Lue is a highly-regarded head coach that recruited Larranaga to his staff. And in his short tenure as head coach of the Erie BayHawks, he led the team to two playoff appearances in two years while several players were called up to the NBA. He has the trust of senior leaders in high-level basketball organizations, and his limited experience as a head coach was promising.
Why it could flop:
He hasn’t been a head coach since 2012. He has never coached college basketball. There are a lot of difficulties when it comes to taking the Boston College job and Larranaga doesn’t seem like he has the experience to deal with them. How will he navigate the world of NIL and transfers at a school with a small financial commitment? Can he build a culture from the top-down? These are unknowns that Larranaga hasn’t faced in his last 14 years as an NBA assistant.
How likely is this hire?
Word on the street is that Larranaga is a likely candidate.
It’s early, but I would consider this hire as very possible. He has a connection to Boston, he seems ready to jump to a new job, and BC reportedly has taken an interest in him.
