CORAL GABLES, Fla. — One last time for the Miami Hurricanes Interim Head coach Bill Courtney as he was able to hold his head high after a dumpster fire season that was given to him.

He takes nothing for granted and the opportunities that he was given this season show that he can still be a coach in college basketball.

it’s an incredible joy, like you know unless you’ve been in the arena and you can feel that kind of joy after a wind of big wind, um it’s hard to describe.’s, you know, you’re not embarrassed to show any kind of emotion in those moments and which you whether you with a group of guys that it really care for each other and they’re all good kids. it makes it that much sweeter again when you vent through what we’ve been through and then that you know, kept the chaoticness of the week, and we couple weeks before and just everything circling around and try to remain focused, trying to keep them focused on the games. almost impossible. I mean, the last two days of practice have been just, you know, I don’t know, they’ve been on, but for those guys to again, they focused and lock in and they play extremely hard as they did, was the testament to who they are and they care.

Yeah, um you know, we got the time out and, you know, we said we were going mad, and they were trying to face guard them. Dante out was making very difficult and catching hall from what they also screen form, uh and then they were doing some switching, and so what happened was we told them the fake the handoff to the side with your and when he did, Dres actually helped a little bit, but didn’t switch some bad at the o to the basket.

They contested it late, uh brains bad and then bring you followed up, and dunked it, you know, I was very happy because I just didn’t wanna leave on it any time on o’clock for them to get a shot.

Guys just kind of dugging, right in to play incredible defense. We were very aggressive. 
I thought that was the biggest difference we were much more aggressive in the ball, much more active with her hands, he would get deflections and steals and then we were able to rebound. You know, because, you know, one of the things that has always been good for us is if we can rebound, then we can run because we got some fast guys. You know, that’s going to be impossible to stop and transition. um Divines who’s fast and transitions, and also Swartz even got a lot of transition today, so those guys will rebound or whatever crazy.

you rebound it first, and we know they are going to shoot. They take a lot of shots that you might not expect him to shoot. So you gotta be ready, you got a guard that. and you got a rebound. 
But once we rebound you know, we can out, we said that. We said, don’t run for threes with storing, let’s do that second half a couple of times. run for lamps, all right? If we have to kick it out to shoot three, that’s great, but we’re gonna put pressure on the rim transition. and we made a point emphasis to run for lamps. 
I think we did that in the second half

we have a game on Saturday, and they have to meet with Jai tomorrow. So you, with your freshman, if you with you, what are you thinking about? 
You think about the game is stay, you with the new head coach on Sunday, right? And so, it’s difficult, you know, especially for 18, 19-year-olds to kind of compartmentalize and play a game, but then again, I’m so proud that they were able to do that. uh you know, those five guys at the end of the game did a great job of locking in and focusing. Brandon and Matt the last game in college, right? It’s still the last game, so they did want to go out with a bang, and they did that. 
You know, we talked about it memories that they’ll have of this game were gonna last for the rest of their life being easier her talk about. I remember my senior night vividly. No matter what happens, how much you get paid in basketball no matter what it happens, this memory will stay with you forever. 
So if for it to end like you did, it’s very, very sweet.

that? It’s all my interactions with these are really, really the quality of a human being an individual, so I always have nothing but the best EP falls all over the place and college basketball now. 
I hope that you’ll be able to kind of again, attack with some of those things right away and and be able to have success. you know, I think he knows how you doing he’s been in great programs, with some great coaches. I can’t wait wait to see you know, he does. Hopefully, my son is still here as a grand sister, so he might see pop up every once in a while. 
But again, I was those guys nothing but the best.

It’s hard I mean, what we were able to accomplish Jim Larranaga at Miami, you know, guys that have been here a long time, recognized how special he was. 
Miami basketball I was at Virginia. I was in Virginia. We came down here for road games. 
There was nobody here. There was no winning. The guy with the four Sweet 16 one ACC titles regular season and conference championships, turned the trists. 
The guy with the back-to-back elite eight in the final four and college basketball’s modern history, I think there’s been in fact three teams that have done that, right? Anybody in the country would have wanted to do that sort of success he has had, you know, achieved him or has to be appreciated, you know, and again, everything changes. I understand, that. 
But God believes it, that guy I, you know, I want to start to the movement to get a statue of do outside the radio lead to coordinating down to him. because he he set a legacy here with Miami basketball, that would be very, very hard to match.

Well, you know again, it’s a tough situation. I was really depressed that we lost the first two days because we put a lot of emotional energy and tried to win and then we had bad matchups and their guys got hurt so now just becomes trying to keep the thing together with toothpicks and glue. um, you know, and so, you know, we just try to stay together, try to become a team who I mentioned it before we up in California, we were really struggling, they got blow out like three straight games. and I think that was where in the genesis of our team came together. we weren’t gonna always win, but I thought that we were always gonna compete and I thought we did that for the rest of the year, we competed in every game, no matter who we had out to the floor. these last two games that basically seven guys, uh on the roster with no bigs, essentially. Kiree Huie is still rusty, but, you know, if I’m the co, I’m just trying to go dunking on like George Tech. but the guys just fought like crazy, um and so you know, it was a great opportunity for me. 
I loved every minute. I don’t care if I was mad at them. They were mad at me. 
We were struggling, we were losing again. It takes like 24 to 48 hours to just be depressed on the set of a couch about The Bachelor. That is literally what I do you, because the Bachelor, makes me think about nothing, you know, this chill I and you know, once I got over the Bachelor and it came back in the office, I tried to have a positive attitude every day, tried to leave these guys by example and tried to teach them lessons about life. Life is not always gonna be easy. 
We keep telling that, you know, as again, we always talk about attitude. life is 90% 10% of what happens to you in 90% of how you react to it. And I think our guys are doing a great job with that.

They will be terrific players. All improved this year in particular with their basketball IQ. They’ve learned to play the game. again, when you’re thrown into the fire like that, you have no choice. You can sink or swim and I thought they did a great job of swimming, especially in the second half of the season. Divine you seem like got a big three tonight and the confidence to take that shot is what was impressive to me because he wouldn’t have taken that shot before. Jalil learning shot selection, and discernment, got so much better on defense. I think Austin Swartz has a chance to be special, honestly. He came here last summer, he was the 13th man and he just kept working and learning how to work and it got better and better. 
So I think all three of those guys have incrediblyfutures no matter where they’re at.

I don’t I have no idea. 
I mean, college basketball is a funny sport. I imagine I’ll be coaching somewhere next year. Trying to win, try to teach less, you know, has to become then. You know, that’s my goal with this thing. I think that’s a bigger part of and, you know, it’s much changes as they are, as much money as they’re getting there still kids that are trying to be led and it took me a while to figure that out that you could still lead them. 
You still have to coach them, coaching in the way you think that the best way possible. so, you know, if I’ll be doing that somewhere next year.

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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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