The Blue Devil assistant will be the next head coach of the Hurricanes.
Miami men’s basketball is set to hire Duke basketball assistant coach Jai Lucas as the program’s next head coach. Lucas is in his third season as a member of the Duke basketball staff and was promoted to associate head coach along with Chris Carrawell in 2023.
This season has been as disastrous as it possibly could’ve been for the Hurricanes, as the program was picked sixth in this year’s ACC preseason poll but is now 6-20 overall and an abysmal 2-13 in conference play, the worst record in the ACC.
The Hurricanes have won just two games since December 21st and losses include to Mount St. Mary’s, Charleston Southern, and VCU.
Miami’s season was officially thrown away after longtime head coach Jim Larranaga announced his immediate retirement just after Christmas after the Canes got off to a 4-8 start to the season.
“I’m exhausted,” Larranaga said at upon his retirement. “I’ve tried every which way to keep this going.”
After the 75-year old coach announced that he was stepping down, Miami associate head coach Bill Courtney was named the head coach of the program for the remainder of the season, but a new head coaching hunt was still on the horizon.
Now, Miami has landed with Duke’s associate head coach after Lucas has been a college basketball assistant for several promiment programs.
Lucas served four years as an assistant at the University of Texas, his alma mater, and then served two years as an assistant at Kentucky before joining Jon Scheyer’s staff when he became the Blue Devils’ next head coach following the retirement of Mike Krzyzewski.
Lucas played a big role in several big time commits the Blue Devils have gotten over the last few years, including Cooper Flagg and the Boozer twins.
The 36-year old will be the next young head coach to step into college basketball in this new recruitment and NIL era. Miami hasn’t had a strong recruiting campaign for the 2025 class, bringing in one 4-star prospect in Matthew Able. But now, Miami brings in a proven recruiter with a fresh mind to hopefully connect with the players in this new era of college basketball.