Jai Lucas dishes on transition into new period of Miami basketball

[ad_1] Jai Lucas has some massive footwear to fill at Miami, however the Hurricanes need to really feel they've the best man for the job.

Lucas was a extremely regarded assistant earlier than Miami poached him, however that is his first head-coaching gig. As he tells it, it feels a bit completely different.

"You understand, it’s been good. I’m not complaining in any respect, however it's completely different. It’s much more speaking… that’s the largest half," Lucas stated, in response to Daniel Hager of On3 . "The most important factor that I’ve been in a position to do (and I needed to do) was rent a extremely good employees. In doing that, it’s given me the power to delegate numerous stuff and never really feel like I've to teach every thing. I'm having to teach lots as a result of we're all new.”

Lucas is changing Jim Larranaga, who went 274-174 in 13-plus seasons in Miami earlier than he retired simply 12 video games into the 2024 season, citing exhaustion and the altering panorama of faculty sports activities. Larranaga took Miami to the NCAA Match six instances and gained two ACC regular-season titles. In 2022-23, he took the Hurricanes to the Last 4.

Lucas, 36, is the second-youngest head coach within the ACC behind Florida State's Luke Loucks, who's 35. Having a powerful and skilled employees round him can be particularly necessary.

One of many primary assistant coaches on his bench is Andrew Moran, who has sturdy ties to the highschool scene in Miami. He was named the 2025 Naismith Nationwide Excessive Faculty boys basketball coach of the 12 months as the top coach at Christopher Columbus Excessive Faculty. He guided the Explorers to four-straight Florida Class 7A state championships, and he boasted a 145-34 general document as a head coach.

Moran can also be this system's director of participant improvement.

Lucas additionally introduced in Russell Springmann as an assistant coach, who was the top coach at Oral Roberts for the previous two seasons.

Finally, each Lucas and the Miami program are in a transition interval. He is determining find out how to be a head coach, whereas the gamers and employees round him try to determine how he needs to go about enjoying profitable basketball.

He appears to be assured within the folks round him, although, and that is half the battle.

“Most of my employees I’ve by no means labored with and the gamers are utterly new, so my terminology is completely different from what they’ve had and it’s simply the little particulars of that. I had the advantage of with the ability to rent a very good employees and have good gamers and a very good group of men. That’s made the transition — to date — simple," Lucas stated.

Lucas spent the final three seasons at Duke, the place he turned head coach Jon Scheyer's high assistant. He was on the employees for 2 seasons at Kentucky earlier than that, and he began his profession teaching at his alma mater, Texas.

He was a participant himself. Lucas began his profession at Florida, the place he was named to the SEC All-freshman crew. He completed at Texas, the place he helped lead the Longhorns to 2 straight NCAA Match appearances.