Larranaga Is Loving Life

" People make him happy," Courtney said. "He wants to be around people that he likes and people that like him. And at George Mason, he's definitely got that."

His players can be included in that description -- "He's changed my life; he teaches you to be first-class in everything you do," guard Lamar Butler said -- but they also chuckle at some of their coach's quirks.

Larranaga has a professorial air, and in fact once told his family that he thought "The Professor" would be an apt nickname. In postgame news conferences, he will offer lengthy discourses on obscure statistics, and he has a wealth of college basketball trivia at his fingertips. He reads voraciously, relying on books-on-tape during recruiting trips, and his interests range from Lincoln to philosophy to the works of Deepak Chopra.

When the Bowling Green athletic department struggled with funding during Larranaga's tenure, he decided that the small Ohio college town needed to hold a black-tie gala; he promptly went to the college library and checked out 10 books on fundraising.

"My own emotions were, 'We don't know what we're doing; we can't do this,' " Liz Larranaga said. The event raised $30,000.

He also fancies himself an amateur inventor. One creation, made from velcro and string, was known as "The Holster," and was meant to teach his sons to shoot a basketball without relying on their left hands. Another, called "The Focus," consisted of a pair of sunglasses doctored up with notebook paper, which forced Larranaga to stare only at the ball during his golf swing.

Players, assistants and family members said Larranaga's professional life, without artificial air, has been defined by focus. Because of loyalty and satisfaction and a desire for familial stability, Larranaga has rejected the frequent-flier approach to the coaching career. He stayed at his first collegiate job, as an assistant at Davidson, even after the head coach left for Virginia. He spent 11 years as the head coach at Bowling Green, passing up several opportunities to move on.

This month's breakthrough figures to catch the attention of major programs. Larranaga's name already has been linked to the opening at Cincinnati, and it will likely surface again as more jobs become available. Friends said it would take a remarkable offer to lure him away from Fairfax, and Larranaga said he's only thinking about preparing for Wichita State.

"I am not someone who moves very easily; I'm much more focused on doing the job that I'm in rather than looking at a particular job as a steppingstone," he said yesterday. "I'm so happy here at George Mason. My wife loves it here. I hope one day to be able to retire from here; that's the way I feel right now. This place has been fantastic to me."

Friends and family members said he never grumbled about the lack of exposure at George Mason, instead praising the administration and the school and its supporters, but he is clearly relishing everything about this month. Last Saturday night, on the eve of the North Carolina game, he and his wife were kept awake by a band that was playing inside their Dayton hotel.

"I wanted to complain," Liz Larranaga said. "He said, 'Don't complain. We're happy to be here. We have nothing to complain about.' "