Larrañaga, Kruger, Dunphy and Nolan to be honored with Joe Lapchick Character Award
NEW YORK (AP) — Jim Larrañaga, Lon Kruger, Fran Dunphy and Dianne Nolan are this year’s recipients of the Joe Lapchick Character Award.
Larrañaga has spent the last 53 years coaching in college since he got his start as an assistant at Davidson College in 1971. Larrañaga had stops at American International and Bowling Green before coming to George Mason in 1997. It’s at that school he burst onto the national scene as he guided the Patriots to the Final Four in 2006. The school upset top-seeded and defending champion Connecticut, rallying from a 12-point deficit in the first half. Their run ended with a loss to eventual champion Florida in the national semifinals.
From George Mason, Larrañaga went to Miami where he has coached from 2011 until now. He has won 740 games in his career.
Kruger built the reputation for fixing struggling programs as he had success wherever he coached. He became the first Division I coach to lead five different programs to the NCAA Tournament, doing so with Kansas State, Florida, Illinois, UNLV and Oklahoma.