Miami's Bill Courtney Addresses the Rumors After No. 2 Duke Loss
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CORAL GABLES, Fla. — The Miami Hurricanes basketball season is almost over. With that, the rumors of a new head coach have run rampant. Now the reports indicate that Duke associate coach Jai Lucas is the next man to fill the role of Jim Larranaga.
However, Bill Courtney holds the title of interim head coach. He was put in a terrible situation once Larranaga stepped away and had to bear the consequences of those actions. After the game against No. 2 Duke, he was asked if he felt awkward about Lucas being on the sideline.
"No not one bit," Courtney said. "As far as I knew I didn't know anything was official and so you know you hear all the rumors and stuff like that but yeah so there's no need for us to address them just for our team."
He was also asked if anything changed with the team. Courtney's motto since returning from the West Coast trip has been keeping the main thing to the main things while taking it game by game.
"It's not really a big change for us," Courtney said following the loss. "We got to stay focused and kind of and you know keep the main thing the main thing and the main thing is the game preparation for the game and you know I'm sure guys especially younger guys may have thought about it. it's almost impossible not to hear the noise but you know all the time when you coach guys you want them to try to block out as much noise as possible cause there's always going to be some noise. It's just a different kind of noise each time and you try to do your best to stay focused through all this stuff."
This was something that was not supposed to get out this early. The reaction from Duke head coach Jon Scheyer was also noticeably avoidant of the question when asked about it. The Hurricanes can't do anything about it until the season ends and now they will turn their attention back on the road.
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The Hurricanes will now be on the road for the next two games. They will travel to face another team from North Carolina first and square off against the Tar Heels on March 1 at noon ET.
Justice Sandle is a graduate of Mississippi State University and is the site lead for Miami Hurricanes on SI. He can be reached at justice.sandle111@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter@Justice_News5.
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Justice Sandle is a graduate of Mississippi State University earning a Bachelor of Arts and Science in Communications with a concentration in Print and Digital Journalism. During his time in Starkville, he spent a year as an intern working for Mississippi State On SI primarily covering basketball, football, baseball, and soccer while writing, recording, and creating multimedia stories during his tenor. Since graduating, he has assumed the role of lead staff writer for Miami Hurricanes On SI covering football, basketball, baseball, and all things Hurricanes related.