Jai Lucas Update - Off To A Solid Start At Miami
He has a solid if limited core. Now to expand on it and to build out his staff.
Jai Lucas left Duke a few weeks ago to start his Miami coaching tenure. So how’s that going?
While losing your entire roster isn’t so great, given Miami’s roster this past season, it’s probably an improvement. So we’d say, so far, so good.
Working without any assistants until Saturday, Lucas has reeled in some decent prospects.
- Ernest Udeh - 6-11 Senior transfer from TCU
- Malik Reneau - 6-9 senior from Indiana
- Tre Donaldson - 6-3 senior from Michigan
- Tru Washington - 6-4 sophomore from New Mexico
Udeh has played at Kansas and TCU. At 6-11 and 260, he can, at a minimum, throw his weigh around. He’s never been a huge scorer (this past season he had a career high 6.6 per game), but he’s a good rebounder. If he can defend in the lane, he’s got the job.
Reneau averaged 13.3 points for Indiana last season along with 5.5 rebounds and 2.0 assists. He’s a solid and useful player.
Tre Donaldson originally planned to play football and basketball at Auburn before focusing solely on basketball. Last year, he took off for Michigan, where he did quite well and actually his transfer was a bit of a surprise.
Finally, Tru Washington, who left New Mexico after Richard Pitino took the Xavier job.
The only one of Lucas’s first four players to not be coming home to Florida, the Phoenix native was pretty good in Albuquerque. He averaged 11.1 ppg in his sophomore season although his shooting percentages are not great.
Still, as we learned at Duke, Lucas is an excellent defensive coach and he’s putting together a pretty good group on that end.
Still, he’s going to need more players and that’s going to be easier with a staff. He made his first hire on Friday when he hired Andrew Moran from Miami’s Christopher Columbus High School.
If that sounds familiar, it probably should: future Blue Devils Cameron and Cayden Boozer are due to graduate from there soon.
That’s probably going to spark some rumors, but consider this too: 1) Moran is an excellent coach who just named the 2025 Naismith National High School boys basketball coach of the year and 2) Lucas has said that he wants to make recruiting Miami and Florida a priority. Moran will certainly give him a leg-up there.
And as we have said more than once, the ‘Canes should be the dominant power when it comes to recruiting the Caribbean. And consider the players who have come out of the region, starting with the great Tim Duncan. Houston, remember, started J’Wan Roberts, who hails from St. Thomas.
Lucas needs quite a few more players, but so far, he’s got a pretty good start. He’s got an experienced and very solid point guard in Donaldson, a powerful big man in Udeh, a forward who can score in Reaneau and probably a good perimeter defender in Washington.
And obviously he needs to flesh out his staff.
All in all though, things are heading in a good direction. There’s no way to predict just how much Lucas can build for his first season, at least not in mid-April.