Miami coach Jim Larranaga welcomed nine newcomers to his team this season, including seven players who are wearing orange and green uniforms for the first time ever. Considering that Davon Reed, one of his two returnees from last season, is injured, it's easy to see how daunting a challenge he faced. It would appear the hard part is over after the Hurricanes' 69-67 upset win at No. 8 Florida on Monday. Larranaga spoke with ESPN.com about how he's gotten a team of strangers to work together.

With so many newcomers this season, how do you go about molding so many new faces so fast?

I think we're still in the growing process. We're not anywhere near where we want to be. There are a lot of questions that still need to be answered. I think last week Florida took advantage of our mistakes in the first half and in the first part of the second half, and then we started to make some adjustments and our guys really got focused on what we wanted to do and executed much better in the last eight minutes of the game. As a coach what you're looking for is consistency in execution, both offensively and for us very especially defensively. I think we did a much better job of being focused defensively in the last eight minutes.

So much for taking things slow. Jim Larranaga and Miami have come out of the gate hot, registering the season's first big upset by beating Florida. Kim Klement/USA TODAY Sports

Of course it's early, but what did you learn about your team?

On the road, down 15, Florida had a 33-game home win streak ... Certainly you could have folded the tent. One of the things we anticipated was great leadership from Angel Rodriguez. And leadership comes in many different forms. Angel is one of those guys who defensively is very, very tough. He never wants to give in and he sends that message to all of his teammates by the way he plays. He plays so hard. He's so tenacious on defense. When necessary he can step up and make the big shots like he did [Monday] night. But the big key is the leadership and Angel provides that. His teammates have a great deal of respect and trust in him. That's where we are right now. We're building on that.

I'm going to ask you to split hairs here, but what is his best attribute -- his leadership qualities or his playing skills?

His leadership is what provides all the other intangibles and the tangibles. He has the ability to shoot the ball, to handle the ball, to defend the ball, to steal the ball, to rebound the ball. He has all of those qualities. But he wouldn't have that if he didn't have that tough-mindedness, the will to win and how hard he's going to play.

How much did your trip to Spain [in August] help not only against Florida but just to start the year with some kind of continuity?

One of the funny, peculiar things is Angel Rodriguez didn't play in the trip to Spain. He had an injury and we did not want to take the risk of making it worse. But he did all the practices at home before we left. He got injured in the last day. So it gave the coaches the opportunity to look at the other players and the other combinations. If you look at the Florida game all four of our freshmen [DeAndre Burnett, Ja'Quan Newton, Omar Sherman, James Palmer] came off the bench and every one of them made a contribution. When you have four freshmen and they're all learning and we were able to give them four exhibition games in Spain, now it really is like eight games into the season and our coaching staff knows them better and better as we go along.

You have the best win of the early season, does that buy you more credit, do they buy in faster because of a win like that?

Certainly it gives our team confidence being down 15, on the road, coming back and beating a top-10 team in the country, a team that was a Final Four participant. So our players, they're smart, they know that Florida is going have a great season and be one of the top 10 teams in the country all season long. So it gives us a step in the right direction to know what we had to do and how deep we had to dig to win a game like that.

During your time at any of your other coaching stops have you ever experienced anything like the roster turnover you had and the newcomers you've had to mold? Did you feel like you're starting from scratch?

No. We have nine new guys. Nine players of out 12 have never worn a Miami uniform until this season. It's not a change for us in terms of what we've always have done; we've always focused on the basic things. It's a matter of getting the players to embrace the style, to embrace the art of improving. One of the things we want out players to do is to get better. The way we practice allows them to do that and as good as we played [Monday] night to win that's not going to be good enough to win in January.

Do they understand that?

They definitely do. We quiz the players on a lot of things and one of the things we do is personnel of our opponents -- not just ACC teams.

I heard that you quiz your team on plays? Is it a written quiz and did you just start that this season?

It is written. There's a question on the left side of the page and on the right side you have to fill out the answer. There were about 15 questions. We've quizzed the players throughout my career, but with so many new guys we have so many more quizzes because the new players are all learning and it's important for the coaching staff to know who really knows this stuff and who is thinking too much.

Do they have to score a certain percentage?

The ideal is everybody scores 100 percent, but it's still early in the season and we're adding things on a weekly basis. It's very likely that new players will get confused. We use hand signals to call plays and some of the signals are very similar so the opponent won't know exactly what we're doing but our players should. But because of the similarity the players can sometimes get confused this early in the year, especially someone brand-new.

Speaking of hand signals, how often do you throw up the "U"?

(Laughs) I'd say regularly.

STATE OF THE GAME

Each week we'll have a coach talk about an aspect of the game he'd like to see changed in the future.

The Atlantic Coast Conference used an experimental 30-second clock this season during exhibition play. Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski not only liked it, he would actually like to take it a step further: "I don't know why we have 35 [seconds]; so why wouldn't we have 30? I think as the game progresses we're going to get to 24. Just with the international experience we have, kids in Italy, Spain and whatever they grow up are playing with a 24-second clock. So they learn how to play basketball. I'd be a proponent for a 24-second clock. I'd be a proponent for what they do internationally and in the NBA -- eight seconds to cross half court and you don't get a new clock if you call a timeout, you don't get another eight seconds. Those things speed up the game. I'd also be a proponent where a player can't call a timeout. That's what we do internationally and it makes players make plays. There are more plays. There are just more plays and I don't know why we wouldn't want to see that. That would be a good thing."

TALKING POINTS

The following quotes were taken from news conferences or teleconferences from around the nation.

UConn coach Kevin Ollie on why former coach Jim Calhoun will have a successful broadcast career: "He's not a person that shies away from his opinion, so I mean, that's going to be great for ESPN, and I think he's going to be very opinionated, and he's got a wealth of knowledge. I mean, anybody who's sat around here and just spent two minutes with him, kind of knowledge from basketball to life, that he's able to hopefully give out to whoever is watching out there in TV land."

Washington coach Lorenzo Romar on talk that Kentucky could beat a NBA team: "Well, I think people saying that are being very kind, and I think I would take it as a compliment to coach [John] Calipari and what they've done with their program and what type of team people are expecting this year. But all in all, you go out there and play against NBA guys that are experienced and stronger, a lot more experienced and stronger. I think it's a different story."

Xavier coach Chris Mack on the Big East transition: "The Big East is a great conference. I think so much was made of the demise of the Big East, but I don't think people quite realize the level of the play, the size, the athleticism that remains in a great, great conference. Villanova is a top-10 team in my mind, and should be in everybody's mind that follows college basketball. I think this league has had an infusion of talent. There are more top-100 kids in this year's freshman class per team than any other conference in college basketball outside of the ACC."