Hurricanes left out of both NCAA and NIT,

CORAL GABLES — On this Selection Sunday, there was no festive watch party, no happy team meeting, no rush to book flights or start game-planning for a previously unknown opponent.

Instead, after the brackets were unveiled for the NCAA and NIT tournaments, there was, for the Miami Hurricanes, the realization that their brutal season had — officially — come to an end.

Considering how that season unfolded, it likely wasn’t a surprise to anyone in Coral Gables, let alone coach Jim Larrañaga, who after Miami’s 71-56 loss to Virginia Tech in the second round of last week’s ACC Tournament spoke about the challenges Miami endured this season.

“First of all, it was very, very challenging to really have only seven scholarship players available to us, and was very hard to prepare and practice properly because even amongst those seven players, they were dealing with injuries. Ebuka Izundu’s back, D.J.’s [Vasiljevic’s] back, Zach Johnson didn’t play in the second half because of a knee injury that happened yesterday. But he’s been dealing with that knee situation since he arrived at Miami,” Larrañaga told reporters in Charlotte last week.

He continued, “When you have so many physical issues that you’re dealing with, there’s very little preparation. Most of it’s mental. A lot of it’s just like a walk-through. And then those guys have to play 35 minutes or more. You look at Chris Lykes played 31 minutes, D.J. played all 40, Anthony Lawrence 38. I mean, that’s game after game after game, and it’s just very, very challenging.”

The Hurricanes (14-18) were dealt a tough blow before the season even started when forward Dewan Hernandez — Miami’s top returning player from a season ago — was held out of the opener against Lehigh after his eligibility came into question in the wake of the FBI’s investigation into corruption in college basketball. He was eventually ruled ineligible by the NCAA and withdrew from Miami to begin preparing for the NBA draft.

In December, Miami lost forward Deng Gak, who was hurt in a loss to Yale and underwent season-ending knee surgery. From there, things only got worse, the Hurricanes winning just five games in conference play and Larrañaga notching just his first losing season since he went 9-18 in his first year at George Mason.

Still, after that seasonending loss to the Hokies in Charlotte last week, Larrañaga was optimistic about Miami’s future, with the Hurricanes set to return several of their leading players including guards Lykes and Vasiljevic, while adding guard Kameron McGusty — an Oklahoma transfer who had to sit out this season to fulfill NCAA requirements.

Also set to join the Hurricanes are two top-200 signees, guard Isaiah Wong of New Jersey and forward Anthony Walker of New Hampshire.

“As far as the future is concerned, we’ve got a good group coming back. We have two good recruits coming in, and we’re still very actively involved in recruiting several players,” Larrañaga said last week. “Coming into this year, we were picked 10th, finished tied for 11th, but I thought we could have finished in the top five before the season started. I really was very optimistic. But when we lost all those guys, it was near impossible.”