Duke assistant coach Jai Lucas has accepted the head coaching job at Miami and will reportedly be heading to Coral Gables after the Blue Devils close out the regular season against North Carolina on Saturday. In a unique situation, the 36-year-old first-time head coach is looking to get an early start rebuilding the Hurricanes as they come off a disastrous season that saw Jim Larrañaga retire in late December.
Just confirmed Lucas will indeed leave Duke after the UNC game this weekend.
— Matt Norlander (@MattNorlander) March 5, 2025
Potentially unprecedented in CBB. More common in CFB lately, but I can't recall the last high-major CBB assistant to leave an NCAAT team with a month to go to run another team. Thank the portal. https://t.co/coV1gnhPDV
As Matt Norlander of CBS Sports states, Lucas’s early departure might not just be unique, but also unprecedented in college basketball. In college football, coaches will often depart early, though coaching staffs remained intact through this season’s inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff.
Naw, Jai Lucas leaving before the season is done isn’t going to sit right with me.
— Chris Nedimyer (@dukefan2314) March 5, 2025
Don’t care he got another new job, great, but that’s shitty timing to the program and players.
While Duke fans recognize Lucas’s talent as an up-and-coming coach in the sport, and his role in assembling one of the most talented rosters in the country, many are frustrated by his early exit from a program with national championship aspirations.
Good riddance Jai Lucas, hope Duke wins a title and you get no recognition for it.
— Arrest Jack Dorsey (@arrest_jack) March 5, 2025
A star recruiter, Lucas played a big role in landing star freshman Cooper Flagg, one of the favorites to win National Player of the Year, along with Kon Kueppel, Khaman Maluach, and Isiah Evans in the 2024 recruiting class. All four players have made an immediate impact for the No. 2 team in the country.
I really hate that you can accept coaching positions and leave before the season is officially over. With that being said, good luck in Miami Jai Lucas, we lost a good one
— T ▪️ (@telizabethhx) March 5, 2025
While some Blue Devils fans lashed out at Lucas, others recognize that his move is a product of the system that is in place. If Lucas had waited in Durham through a possible Final Four run, he would have missed out on the early wave of transfer portal entrants. As coaches like Pat Kelsey at Louisville have demonstrated, one-year turnarounds are possible with a top-notch portal class, and Lucas needs to have his staff in place to evaluate players and construct a cohesive roster for Year 1.
Jai Lucas was a key component in the Duke engine, and we will miss him dearly.
— Rick Heidrick (@rheidrick24) March 6, 2025
Blame the stupid NCAA transfer portal rules/dates and not him, for him leaving after the regular season ends.
He was Duke’s defensive coordinator and I’m interested to see who picks up that role.
Lucas arrived in Durham in 2022 and was elevated to associate head coach a year later in 2023. He was also a key recruiter at Kentucky for John Calipari from 2020-22 and before that he spent five years on the staff at Texas.
Lucas’s departure is an unneeded distraction for Jon Scheyer and his team, but Lucas’s presence, while being preoccupied with building another ACC program, would have been even worse. Once he reached an agreement with Miami, it was time to move on, and all will be forgiven if Flagg, Knueppel, Maluach, Evans, and all of the Blue Devils Lucas helped recruit deliver a national title this spring.