Jai Lucas expectation coming into Miami was to get 13 new guys

[Trinton Breeze]

Jai Lucas kicked off his first ever press conference today with the Canes media, drawing a star-studded crowd of legends and staff, including former Cane greats Darius Rice and Jack McClinton, the entire current squad, the potential future assistant coach Christopher Columbus, Andrew Moran, and the recently stepped-down head coach and Hurricanes icon Jim Larranaga.

During his interview, Lucas was all about the squad, but what really stood out was his expectation to recruit 13 fresh faces from the recruitment class or transfer portal, while hinting that some players might actually want to stick around for the new Canes coach.

“It’s going to be a big overhaul. My expectation coming in is I’d need to get 13 new players, because that’s the way it is now.” Said Lucas.

Who might make a comeback? Unfortunately, I'm not sure, but I can definitely picture tons sticking around while quite a few others might just pack their bags.

Lucas also mentioned in the interview today that he dreamed this moment as a coach and it was just at the right time that it happend:

“I’ve dreamed of this moment my whole life, and this is exactly what it looks like,”

Lucas kept bringing up in his interview today that Miami is going to be a tough defensive team, and for him, defense is the top priority.

While at Duke's they had impressive defensive stats due to Lucas: they’re holding opponents to just 61.1 points per game (6th in the nation), sitting 29th in defensive rebounding, and rocking the No. 3 spot in overall defensive efficiency, all thanks to their coordinator who’s had Duke in the top 20 for adjusted defensive efficiency; this dude knows his stuff from playing at Texas, where they were a top-five defense, forcing over 12 turnovers a game.

Miami is hoping to bring in Andrew Moran, the head coach at Christopher Columbus, who just won the state title in Florida and could give a big boost to their recruiting, especially with prospects like Cameron and Cayden Boozer and five-star forward Caleb Gaskins on his radar.

This was a successful hire, let’s get to work Jai.

 

[Memnon]

The first 2 seasons of his tenure will heavily depend on how he navigates the Portal.

I get that High School recruiting is always the premium selling point to get fans to buy in, but in this instance, this is an inexperienced young first time HC who's gonna have to start from scratch, with basically 0 to very little building blocks to start with. (Assuming the mass exodus that's expected takes place).

And yes, landing 4/5-star high quality HS prospects will matter, but in order to win games & make the program attractive, he's gonna have to hit a few early homeruns in the Portal in years 1 & 2, in order to have solid ground to stand on while recruiting HS.

Recruiting for Texas, Kentucky, Duke is a pretty easy job, those places recruit themselves. Recruiting Miami is a lot more difficult. Not saying he can't or won't get it done, but that's really only a portion of the battle.

Winning the portal early will be crucial to his success down the line.

Then there's the X's & O's aspect of it, which is TBD.

 

[passitback]

The first 2 seasons of his tenure will heavily depend on how he navigates the Portal.

I get that High School recruiting is always the premium selling point to get fans to buy in, but in this instance, this is an inexperienced young first time HC who's gonna have to start from scratch, with basically 0 to very little building blocks to start with. (Assuming the mass exodus that's expected takes place).

And yes, landing 4/5-star high quality HS prospects will matter, but in order to win games & make the program attractive, he's gonna have to hit a few early homeruns in the Portal in years 1 & 2, in order to have solid ground to stand on while recruiting HS.

Recruiting for Texas, Kentucky, Duke is a pretty easy job, those places recruit themselves. Recruiting Miami is a lot more difficult. Not saying he can't or won't get it done, but that's really only a portion of the battle.

Winning the portal early will be crucial to his success down the line.

Then there's the X's & O's aspect of it, which is TBD.

Lucas is going to have to vet these recruits to ensure they have the character traits he desires in the locker room. Pitino referenced this today in an article I read. He said, "you build a team by making sure you understand the whole puzzle of what goes into it." More on that here, if you are interested in learning more about how Rick flipped the roster and built us up so quickly (Lucas is in a similar spot):

St. John’s title team wasn’t ‘built by NIL money’: Rick Pitino

Rick Pitino wanted to set the record straight: St. John’s isn’t the product of a high Name, Image & Likeness payroll.

nypost.com

 

[AtlAtty]

The first 2 seasons of his tenure will heavily depend on how he navigates the Portal.

I get that High School recruiting is always the premium selling point to get fans to buy in, but in this instance, this is an inexperienced young first time HC who's gonna have to start from scratch, with basically 0 to very little building blocks to start with. (Assuming the mass exodus that's expected takes place).

And yes, landing 4/5-star high quality HS prospects will matter, but in order to win games & make the program attractive, he's gonna have to hit a few early homeruns in the Portal in years 1 & 2, in order to have solid ground to stand on while recruiting HS.

Recruiting for Texas, Kentucky, Duke is a pretty easy job, those places recruit themselves. Recruiting Miami is a lot more difficult. Not saying he can't or won't get it done, but that's really only a portion of the battle.

Winning the portal early will be crucial to his success down the line.

Then there's the X's & O's aspect of it, which is TBD.

It’s doable, but not easy. Michigan flipped almost their entire roster from 2 seasons ago.
Their center came from FAU
Their PF came from Yale
Their PG came from Auburn
Their SG came from Ohio State

it does help that Dusty may has success at FAU in terms of his system, but a lot of the success is attributable to finding the right transfers. And on the back of this season’s success (and NIL), they signed a 5 star for next season.

 

[The U is back to work]

Roster should be 2/3 portal IMO if you have the funds. Makes such a difference playing veterans who have seen minutes matchups and hopefully tournament experience. Jai will go after these elite HS kids but just look at the portal overall you have to fight just as hard to keep them.

 

[hotshot]

P

It’s doable, but not easy. Michigan flipped almost their entire roster from 2 seasons ago.
Their center came from FAU
Their PF came from Yale
Their PG came from Auburn
Their SG came from Ohio State

it does help that Dusty may has success at FAU in terms of his system, but a lot of the success is attributable to finding the right transfers. And on the back of this season’s success (and NIL), they signed a 5 star for next season.

I like Pitino's strategy. He's old, Lucas is young so not seemingly a fit but ...

Pitino really could not care less about HS recruiting. If he never recruits another HS graduate to SJU, he's not losing any sleep.

He primarily focuses, at this stage of his career, on experienced and established Mid-Major players who are hard-nosed and will rebound and play defense. If they are already 22 yrs old, that's another plus.

 

[AtlAtty]

P

I like Pitino's strategy. He's old, Lucas is young so not seemingly a fit but ...

Pitino really could not care less about HS recruiting. If he never recruits another HS graduate to SJU, he's not losing any sleep.

He primarily focuses, at this stage of his career, on experienced and established Mid-Major players who are hard-nosed and will rebound and play defense. If they are already 22 yrs old, that's another plus.

Yeah let’s be real, Pitino wants to win conference and national championships, and that requires either older players, or one of the 2-3 freshmen who can have that much impact. The rest of the freshmen, even the 5 stars like Bethea and Edgecombe, have athletic ability but it doesn’t often translate into success at the college level in their first, and often, only year. Even Ace Bailey and Ron Harper jr, for all the hype, had Rutgers playing .500 basketball. Flagg is in that elite group of impact freshmen, but the team success is just as much because of Duke’s older players.

Pitino isn’t trying to win the recruiting rankings, and either should Lucas.

 

[AtlAtty]

Yeah let’s be real, Pitino wants to win conference and national championships, and that requires either older players, or one of the 2-3 freshmen who can have that much impact. The rest of the freshmen, even the 5 stars like Bethea and Edgecombe, have athletic ability but it doesn’t often translate into success at the college level in their first, and often, only year. Even Ace Bailey and Ron Harper jr, for all the hype, had Rutgers playing .500 basketball. Flagg is in that elite group of impact freshmen, but the team success is just as much because of Duke’s older players.

Pitino isn’t trying to win the recruiting rankings, and either should Lucas.

One more thing. I feel that with every passing year, what Michigan did with the Fab Five becomes harder to fathom. To start 5 freshmen, and reach the championship game is almost unbelievable. And I would argue, will never happen again (notwithstanding that NIL will make it harder to recruit 5 of that caliber).

 

[Angry Ibis]

Yeah let’s be real, Pitino wants to win conference and national championships, and that requires either older players, or one of the 2-3 freshmen who can have that much impact. The rest of the freshmen, even the 5 stars like Bethea and Edgecombe, have athletic ability but it doesn’t often translate into success at the college level in their first, and often, only year. Even Ace Bailey and Ron Harper jr, for all the hype, had Rutgers playing .500 basketball. Flagg is in that elite group of impact freshmen, but the team success is just as much because of Duke’s older players.

Pitino isn’t trying to win the recruiting rankings, and either should Lucas.

My man!!!

Let’s ******* go!!!

 

[CANESCANES]

“Having $4.5 million to $7 million is now required to recruit a top-25 caliber team.”

I’ve heard Jai Lucas will have $8 million this year

 

[TheOriginalCane]

Pitino isn’t trying to win the recruiting rankings, and either should Lucas.

If Lucas can coach 5 non-blue-chippers into a championship winning team, I will truly be impressed.

 

[CANESCANES]

A coach in the SEC told me, “I think Arkansas, Kansas State, and Kentucky will all be between $7 and $9 million in my opinion.” The coach also added, “I’ll be interested what Villanova does, they typically have spent heavy.” An ACC coach said, “I expect BYU to have a big budget. And I heard they’re giving Jai (Lucas) between $7 and $8 million down there at Miami to help start the process.”

Another coach in the Big 12 gave an interesting thought, “Indiana and Miami have monster budgets with brand new coaches. New coach hires are always the ones who ***** the market up. They are flush with cash and have to overpay to generate momentum.”

 

[CANESCANES]