I am not a fan of a basketball coach without experience. Since we went that route, I am glad it's Jai. Congrats to Pete for scooping Ferman. Jai pursued the job. Better hit the portal with big money. Let's be honest, Mas is making these decisions, not Rad. Welcome Coach Lucas and LFG Canes.
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Miami officially names Jai Lucas as Head Men’s Basketball Coach
- Thread starter DMoney
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Nothing working against it other than cis. I'm glad he has no prior affiliation with Miami. Go be great Lucas, hopefully he is here the next 20 years.
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Dude has some gravitas, that's for sure.
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Who are you trying to draw a parallel to? Haith?
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Fair enough. Good points.
If win big means a championship, then we haven’t seen an abundance of that. But we’ve seen a massive amount of legends, most of the guys who’ve titles in the 21st century, exit the profession in the past 10 to 15 years — most notably in the past 5 — so there is still a lot of tourneys to be played & for guys to stamp themselves.
There are a decent amount of examples from the 21st century. Scott Drew, who after a single season at Valparaiso, became Baylor’s HC then built up the program to win a title 18 years later. Matt Painter at Purdue, with only one year of previous head coaching experience, built up the program pretty well over the past 20 years.
Brad Stevens, elevated from assistant to making the championship game twice. Mark Few revolutionized the program after being a longtime assistant. Brian Dutcher, to a lesser extent, has done the same thing at San Diego State.Kevin Ollie won a title at UConn after being an assistant for a few years.
Hubert took them to the championship game plus a sweet 16 in his first 2 tournament appearances out of 3 years. He has won 70%+ of his total and conference games.
Fans may be antsy, but UNC is happy with him which is why they gave him a contract extension recently. To each their own but I view that as successful even with Carolina’s standards.
I think one crucially important detail that has been overlooked is Lucas being from a coaching family. Scott Drew, Kelvin Sampson, Dan Hurley, and many other successful modern college coaches are cut from that same cloth.
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Haith, Coker, Shannon, Gino, JD would be a start.
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Let's stick to basketball. Haith and Lucas are nothing alike.
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As I said, I've seen this story play out over and over at UM. It doesn't matter the sport.
You mean they both aren't/weren't highly sought after, young, AA, super recruiters, ties to Texas (state and school) with zero head coaching experience?
And the history of the sport. Recent and distant. I can hope he succeeds and not ignore facts. If Lucas succeeds he will be an exception to how it usually goes. There is a reason even the biggest defenders of this process and hire can’t name several if any like for like comparisons that worked out. We better have hired a special one. Not just a good coach. Because he’s gonna need to be special to succeed.
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It's been a while since we had to worry about retaining a HC. If Texas continues to underperform, and if Jai has impressed, we might face that problem a year from now.
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In what world was Haith considered a good recruiter? Also, are you really pulling the race card as part of your argument?
When he was rehired by Texas the Austin paper wrote this:
During his time at Texas, Haith played a major role in recruiting such Longhorn luminaries and future NBA players as P.J. Tucker, LaMarcus Aldridge and Daniel Gibson.
Those recruits are a long time ago but he’s getting credit from the local paper for them.
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Not a race card. You just said they were nothing alike and I pointed out how they were. If they were both red heads I would have pointed that out.
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History isn't working against him in 2025. History isn't tangible. It increases the likelihood, but has absolutely 0 bearing on what will transpire. Working against means something standing in his way. What obstacle does history present that he must overcome?
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Haith was 100% seen as a good recruiter when we hired him. I’m all for giving Lucas a chance before writing him off even if he isn’t the guy I would’ve gone after, but if both sides are just going to shoot down any facts contrary to what they think this is pointless lol
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This is a good problem to have. No one ever wants our coaches because they usually fail.
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To be fair jizcane is both sides at all times. Just depends which personality hits send.
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Since you want to be literal.
Basketball will be second best at his current place of employment. From infrastructure to attention. Fan engagement and enthusiasm will always be fickle. He has to rebuild a roster(something he's never done as a HC). Remember all the nice stories of Coach L going to dorms to deliver pizzas? That is part of the gig at Miami. He can't just be a recruiter and coach. He'll be marketer, fundraiser and he has to be the program's biggest advocate all while trying to win games in a Power 4 conference. How does he handle personalities? And I'm not talking about those of his players. Can he hire a power 4 level coaching staff? Keep them? Can he fire people and not let loyalty win out?
If Miami is going to invest more heavily in the basketball program that means the people who do are gonna want microwave results. No track record of success to point to if things start slowly to keep the dissenting voices quiet. He doesn't even have the buffer of being a native son like Mario. When Mario messes up a coordinator hire the account is still full for him to fix it. How many mistakes that need to be fixed with money will Lucas get?
And these things aren't actively working against him just like history isn't but he has to overcome them all the same.
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