In fact, I'd argue we haven't played particularly well in any big dance appearance under L. We have under performed our seeding every time.
2012-2013 #2 seed and lost in the sweet 16 to #3 seed Marquette (under performed seeding. The win against Illinois also wasn't a good performance. This team greatly underachieved in the tourney)
2015-2016 #3 seed and lost in the sweet 16 to #2 seed Villanova (performed on par with seeding - both wins against lower seeded opponents - Buffalo and Wichita State were nail biters)
2016-2017 #8 seed and lost in the first round to #9 seed Michigan State (under performed seeding)
2017-2018 #6 seed and lost in the first round to #11 seed Loyola (under performed seeding)
I almost had to do a double take when going back and looking at the results. I could've sworn we've been to the tourney under L more than 4 times, but we haven't. We really need to get back to make consistent tourney appearances again starting with this season.
honestly, there is no such thing as a bad ncaa tournament win for miami. winning ncaa tournament games is really difficult. here's a stat:
miami basketball ncaa tournament victories in the last 30 years
leonard hamilton, perry clark, frank haith (21 seasons): 4
jim larranaga (9 seasons): 4
like, in reality that victory over wichita st was one of the best wins in the history of the program. yes it was a 3 vs 11 game but wichita state was wildly underseeded in that tournament, go look at the ken pom 2016 ratings, they were no 13 overall, which was actually ahead of miami at 16. that wichita team had two NBA players on it (ron baker, fred van vleet), we had sheldon mac and davon reed who had cups of coffee in the nba but were far less successful at that level than even baker. and gregg marshall is one of best coaches in college basketball. that was an incredible win. you're crazy if you look at that as underperforming seeding or some nonsense. we're talking about miami basketball here. what other wins are you cherishing?
i think it's fair to say that we fell on our faces in that marquette game. villanova destroyed us but they won the title so how am i supposed to be mad at that. the michigan state game was a stinker but again... it's miami losing to tom izzo in the ncaa tournament, how mad am i really supposed to get. the loyola game came down to lonnie missing free throws and turning the ball over and then loyola hitting a buzzer beater, idk how much that really falls on L. mostly i look at his record and think we had some bad luck with match ups (villanova, wichita st, mich st) and against loyola. the 2013 team could have gone further... so on that everyone agrees. but again it's like, that team won the ACC regular season title and won the ACC tournament. *MIAMI WON THE ACC... IN BASKETBALL*. like yeah the marquette game sucked but that's the best season in the history of the program. how is that supposed to look bad for larranaga?