Duke Assistant Coach Leaving Blue Devils Before NCAA Tournament
The Duke Blue Devils are the No. 2 team in the country with only a few games left in the regular season. They plan to roll through the ACC Tournament and earn a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament later this month, but one assistant coach will be moving on after their bid for a national title ends.
According to ESPN college basketball insider Jeff Borzello, Duke associate HC Jai Lucas will be taking the head coaching job at Miami. Lucas will move from one ACC school to another, and he’ll do so after the season ends.
Lucas started his coaching career after playing for Rick Barnes at Texas and for Billy Donovan at Florida. He played overseason and for a few NBA G-League teams as well.
He’s worked at top programs, starting with Texas when Barnes brought him on as an assistant in 2016. He was retained by the incoming Shaka Smart upon his arrival at Texas, and joined John Calipari at Kentucky in 2020.
During his time, Lucas was considered of the best recruiters in the country – rivaled only by Jon Scheyer at Duke.
Lucas joined Scheyer’s staff when he took over for the outgoing Mike Krzyzewski, becoming the first Duke assistant in men’s basketball to not attend the school in over 30 years.
Miami is hoping that he can bring his recruiting success to their basketball program. The team has been coached by Bill Courtney on an interim basis after Jim Larranaga’s decision to retire late year.
The Hurricanes went to the Final Four in 2023, and made their first ever Elite Eight appearance the previous season. They haven’t been able to bring in top talent from a recruiting standpoint, but thy’ve been good at convincing top talent to come in via the transfer portal.
We’ll see if their current roster building strategy clashes with Lucas’ likeliness to rely on top-class freshmen who have committed to the program.
We’ve seen both formulas work with different degrees of success, so we’ll have to find out if Miami made the correct hire with Lucas starting in 2025.