Patriots Harness Power of the Sons

Coach Jim Larranaga's sons Jon (above) and Jay have spent hours preparing in-depth statistical analyses and filling their father's e-mail inbox with unsolicited advice. (Preston Keres - The Post)

So when the Patriots closed in on their first at-large NCAA tournament berth this season, the sons got to work. Jay, working in Naples, began compiling Rating Percentage Index data and formulating his own NCAA tournament field. Once the Patriots were safely in the tournament, he would suddenly blurt out advice at the dinner table: "They've got to lock down on defense!" he might say. Notebooks began accumulating.

"All over the bedroom, the bathroom, the computer desk," Andrea Larranaga said. "Listing when teams played other teams, how they performed, why they performed that way. I think I've seen 'Wichita State' written down a gazillion times."

Jon has spent between 90 minutes and two hours on the Internet every day, breaking down opponents' game-by-game statistics while also trading phone calls with his dad and brother.

"It's like a second job," Elyssa Larranaga said. "I joke around with him; I say that on a husband status, March hasn't been good for him. But he's just an amazing guy, an amazing husband and is so proud of his dad and this team that you can't help but smile and go along for the ride."

While both wives joke about the amount of time their husbands have spent on the Internet, and while even Jay's 3-year old daughter Tia has made comments about her dad's computer work, both wives are as green-and-gold as they come. When Andrea couldn't get streaming video of the U-Conn. game, she logged on to http://www.caazone.com/ and scoured the George Mason message board for updates. When CBS producers called looking for her husband, who was watching the game with his team in Milan, she felt like volunteering to take his place.

"I was thinking, 'I've got to talk to you, I've got some basketball I need to get off my chest,' " she said.

Meantime, the e-mails have piled up: five or six a day from Jay and several more from Jon. They both will travel to Indianapolis for the Final Four. Neither son has watched tape of upcoming opponents, but both share their father's obsession with numbers. Before the media throngs alighted on Patriot Center, Jim Larranaga would often start his postgame news conferences by reciting one statistic after another from the box score.

And so his sons have combed through media notes and NCAA rankings and late-season box scores, looking for any advantage while enjoying a slice of the magic.

"I've enjoyed this so much, e-mailing with my dad and my brother, but the bottom line is his players have played great, and none of these statistics really matter that much in comparison to what the players do," Jay Larranaga said. "Hopefully we've been able to help a little bit, but players win games."

Before the Connecticut game, Jon told his dad which players to foul if the Patriots were trailing, while Jay told his dad that George Mason needed to work the ball inside to its forwards and that containing Huskies point guard Marcus Williams would be the key.

"I asked him if he had any suggestions of how we could do that," Jim Larranaga said. "He said: 'No, you're the coach. You figure it out.' "