Jim Larranaga opening statements:

I'm very very excited to be here...The great Chinese philosopher Confucius once said, "Choose a job you love and you'll never have to work a day in your life." I love to coach. I love to work with young people to teach them and help them to develop as people and as players. I think a coach is a leader--he has the responsibility of showing young people the correct way of doing things. A coach has to have a vision, he has to have plan of how those things will be accomplished. When I visited George Mason during the interview process I was just so impressed with the people, the campus, with Fairfax County, with the tremendous blend of Southern charm and also the cultural advantages of the cosmopolitan area surrounding Washington, DC. It was so attractive that there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that I wanted to be the next head basketball coach at George Mason and bring this University's men's basketball program into the next century.

I have a very simple philosophy. I have a very strong commitment to family. I want my family to be very much a part of this community. I have a very strong commitment to my basketball players and I want them to be part of my family. I have a very strong commitment to excellence and I think that's what George Mason is all about. The goal of striving for excellence both academically as well as athletically. We have a major task at hand, though, in building a foundation that will produce championship caliber teams in the CAA year after year and that task has already begun. We'll work extremely hard through this spring and summer to prepare for next year and then obviously laying the foundation for years to come. How will we do that? I think the one thing that is consistent with success is you have to recruit good people. You begin with winners, people who are competitive, people who work hard, who have the work ethic to compete against the very best there is in the country and that will be my challenge; my assistant coaches--when we're able to put a staff together--their challenge and of course the players that are already here, I want them to know that from the freshmen through the senior class that I am totally committed to them, because as of today you are a part of my family and I will treat you just as I have my own sons; demanding, loving, caring. We will expect you to be the best that you can be and that our team will be the best that it will be, day in and day out, and year in and year out. We'll also make a tremendous commitment to defense. I think there's a coaching cliche that defense wins championships, well, never a truer word was spoken because without defense you can't be successful. We will apply tremendous pressure on defense forcing teams to play our style of defense. We will also work hard on the fundamentals of offense so that we can execute any offensive play we choose to. We will work extremely hard each and every day on the court and in the classroom to represent George Mason University the way it should be--in a first class manner. I'm excited about being here.

What is your vision and where do you see it going?

I will meet with the players as soon as possible to talk about their schedules (class, academic, etc). And begin working individually as soon as possible and I think that will clearly establish in our players minds the very important aspect of teaching and learning and improving because the only way we can get better is if our players are improving constantly. The next step will be in interviewing them in what our needs are for the future. I think I have an idea, but I would like to hear it from them because they've played with each other and have a good feeling for what our strengths and needs are. The next step will be going out and contacting the top student-athlete prospects that are available at this late stage of the recruiting process. And then, building from there towards next year with the emphasis on the defense and the fundamentals.

Philosophy on recruiting?

Envision a map and place a target with a bulls eye being on the Northern Virginia/Washington, DC, area and that will be our goal to concentrate our efforts locally to try and build from the Fairfax community and surrounding counties. Obviously this is a hot-bed for high school basketball. Some outstanding basketball players are produced each and every year and we want to have the opportunity to recruit the very best student-athletes close to home....Surrounding areas are the state of Maryland, the entire state of Virginia, moving on north to the New York area, and as far south as South Carolina. I have been coaching for 26 years and recruited the east coast extensively during that time. That is going to be the foundation for our recruiting, however each and every year you have a need, and if there isn't a player locally that can meet that need, than you have to go wherever. A lot of times there are a lot of international players that are interested and of course this area will be attractive to them and we'll pursue that vigorously.

Talk about your offense and defense:

We play man-to-man defense, a pressure form of man-to-man defense, contesting every pass, every dribble and every shot. We'll deny wings...we'll deny the ball into the low post. We'll put a lot of pressure on the ball in our man-to-man defense. To compliment the man-to-man we'll play a scramble defense which is trapping, either the dribbler or the pass receiver. We like to play multiple defenses and create our tempo, which means taking the other team out of its normal rhythm. We believe that offense is rhythm and if you can take a team out of what it normally does you have a better chance of being successful. We believe that the best offense is a great defense and that your defense will create easy opportunities for you in the open court. If the fast break is not there, we like to slow things down and execute our passing game which has a lot of high-low action, a lot of ball movement and is balanced in terms of perimeter and post opportunities. We'll also utilize from time to time a zone defense just to give the other team a different look. We'll also pressure full-court to give ourselves opportunities for the easy basket off a turnover.

How do you feel about recruiting junior college players?

In this day and age you have to first clearly establish what your recruiting philosophy is for high school kids. You must let the high school coaches know--and we will--that we're going to build through the high school ranks, however, because of the raise in academic standards there are a lot of good student-athletes that end up going to junior college for one reason or another. We'll always investigate and research the top prospects, whether they are high school, junior college or international students.

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