Larranaga’s son eyes building Irish hoops

Jim Larranaga became a champion of underdogs everywhere when he led George Mason to the Final Four in 2006. But compared with what his son is attempting, Larranaga coached an NBA All-Star team plus Goliath.

Jay Larranaga is trying to change an entire culture. He’s the player-coach of the Irish national basketball team, and Ireland plays a bit part on the world stage when it comes to hoops. The big sports are Gaelic football, hurling, soccer and rugby. A lot of kids play basketball, “but in terms of a profile and wealth and resources, we would be the poor relation,” Basketball Ireland CEO Debbie Massey said.

In Ireland’s only Olympic appearance in men’s basketball in 1948, it lost all four games by an average of 51 points, including a 71-9 defeat by Mexico.

By hiring Larranaga last year, Massey and other members of the organizing body continued their effort to broaden the sport’s base and nudge it over the poverty line.

“We wanted somebody who would have very strong credentials and who had a really good understanding of what [basketball] is like in this country,” she said. “It’s absolutely nothing anyone in the States could relate to.”

Larranaga can relate; he has the genetic and coaching bloodlines. He was raised in a basketball-intense environment, evolving into a solid shooting guard at Bowling Green and then a European pro. Thanks to a maternal grandfather born in County Cork, he played for the Irish national team for six years. He knows the landscape.

“Every time you put on the jersey and have an opportunity to represent a country in competition, it’s awesome,” he said. “I knew basketball wasn’t the most popular sport in Ireland, but it’s a great honor. And it’s a big challenge.”

With former NBA players Marty Conlon and Pat Burke, the national team was reasonably competitive a few years ago. Things began to slip, but Basketball Ireland and Larranaga are making progress, albeit slowly.

“Our purpose is to win all our games and then provide a really high profile,” Massey said. “It’s really for all the young children in this country who can see the pathway and see that they can play at the club level and school level and professional level and get involved with the national team.”

Last August, Larranaga’s team went 1-3 in the first round of pre-qualification for the 2011 European championships and the 2012 Olympics, losing its final game to Slovakia in overtime after Larranaga hit a tying 3-pointer in the final seconds of regulation. The series dealt a big hit to the squad’s European championship and Olympic hopes. Then again, as his dad told him, if George Mason can get to the Final Four… “I feel like we’ve got a fighting chance,” Larranaga said.

The Euro series resumes next month with four more games. Larranaga said he has 22 players now - 14 Irish-born and eight Americans - and has a good idea who will make the final roster of 12. He said he plans to be on it but isn’t sure how much he’ll play. At 34, he again will play for the Juve Caserta club team in Italy but prefers to stick to coaching with the Irish team.

“I don’t know how guys are able to do both,” he said.

Unlike last year, when the squad had about a month to prepare and played exhibitions against Notre Dame and national teams from Iceland and Poland, practice will be limited to five days.

“The economy in Ireland is so bad we don’t have the resources to put the team together for three or four weeks of training,” Larranaga said. “The economy is one of the worst in the world. The budget is a shoestring. They asked me what’s the bare minimum we can do and still be competitive. I said, ‘Give us a week and we’ll be ready.’ ”

He got less than that.

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