Miami Hurricanes hiring Duke assistant Jai Lucas as next Men’s Basketball Coach, per reports

An elite recruiter and rising star from a major basketball family

On Saturday evening, multiple reports indicated that the Miami Hurricanes will hire Duke Associate Head Coach Jai Lucas as the next men’s basketball coach.

The initial report was made by Peter Ariz of CanesInSight, and confirmed by Adam Zagoria, a longtime basketball writer with the New York Times, Forbes, and other outlets.

Tim Reynolds of the Associate Press reports that Lucas has agreed to be Miami’s next head coach, but a contract has not been finalized.

However, before we go too far, however, there have been multiple reports that paint a bit of a different picture. Michelle Kaufman, longtime Miami Herald journalist, and Jeff Goodman, another longtime journalist and founder of Field of 68, both say nothing is finished with Lucas.

Is this a matter of semantic? Possibly. But, I wanted to offer both sides of the information it’s all out there.

Shifting the focus to Lucas himself, he’s a rising star coach and among the best recruiters in the country. The list of players he’s been listed as a primary recruiter for is incredible, and includes Shaedon Sharp (Kentucky), Duke’s Cooper Flagg, the likely #1 pick in the NBA draft, and the Boozer twins, most notably Cameron, the #1 player in the 2025 HS class, who will be following the footsteps of their father Carlos in playing for Duke in college.

The son of former NBA player and coach John Lucas, Jai was a McDonald’s HS All-American in 2007. He played collegiately at Florida and Texas for 2 years each. Following his college career, Lucas played internationally for 2 years, and in the NBA’s G League for the next 2 years before retiring and going into coaching.

As a coach, Lucas has quickly made a name for himself. After starting as an assistant at Texas for 4 years, Lucas was hired by John Calipari at Kentucky. He worked with the Wildcats for 2 years, Lucas moved to Duke for the 2022-23 season. Following that one season as an assistant, Lucas was promoted to Associate Head Coach for the 2023-24 year, a role he continues to hold.

Lucas is the first assistant who did not play collegiately at Duke in more than 30 years. His basketball knowledge is elite, and his recruiting is uber-elite. The 36 year old is just the kind of coach that Miami should be hiring to lead the program into the next era.

I know there are people who are going to complain that Lucas doesn’t have prior head coaching experience, and I understand the complaint. But, we’re not pulling a random coach from some far flung place. This is a basketball lifer, whose father played 14 years in the NBA and coached for many years himself. Both he and his brother — John Lucas III — were All-Americans and college players. And, Lucas himself has coached at Texas, Kentucky, and Duke already in his career. This is someone who knows how to run a program, even if he hasn’t done it by himself yet.

Should this move be completed, I think this is a homerun for Miami. An energetic 36 year old coach at the beginning of his career, who has already become associate head coach at one of the legacy programs in CBB, and one of the best recruiters in the game. No, he’s not a coach with 500 wins to his credit already, but Lucas is as strong a candidate without prior head coaching experience that you’ll find. I think Miami is smart to be on the lookout for the next great coach, instead of retreading someone from somewhere else.

We’ll see if/when this move becomes official, but I, for one, am excited at the prospect of having him be the next men’s basketball coach at The U.

More on this when it’s available.

Go Canes