As Hurricanes fall to Virginia Tech, rumors swirl around Miami’s next men’s basketball coach

As the Miami Hurricanes’ men’s basketball team limps toward the end of a dismal season, focus has shifted to the future and their next head coach.

It appears that might be current Duke associate coach Jai Lucas.

Word spread quickly during Miami’s 81-68 loss to Virginia Tech at Watsco Center on Saturday that Lucas, the 36-year-old son of former NBA coach John Lucas II and a member of Jon Scheyer’s staff at Duke since 2022, has emerged as the leading candidate to replace Jim Larranaga, who retired in December.

Multiple well-placed UM sources confirmed to the Miami Herald that Lucas is the top choice, but noted Lucas’ hiring likely wouldn’t happen until after No. 3 Duke’s season ends.

Duke will play at Miami on Tuesday; the Blue Devils are expected to arrive in Coral Gables on Sunday.

Scheyer was asked about Lucas being ready to take over a program during his post-game press conference after Duke’s 110-67 win over Illinois Saturday night at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

“Absolutely he’s a head coach,” Scheyer said. “No question about it. It’s part of why I hired him. The job he’s done for us has been incredible. Any report or anything that’s out there, I’m just getting wind of it now, so we’ll cross that bridge and figure it out. But I can tell you, 100 percent Jai is an amazing coach. He’s been great for these guys, and we’ll continue to move forward together and figure all that out but he’s terrific, man. All across the board, he’s great.”

After Saturday’s loss, UM interim coach Bill Courtney noted, “I think our group is still giving effort. They’re trying. We just make critical mistakes and get down on ourselves. We haven’t yet learned to fight through adversity.

“That’s what we keep preaching,” he continued. “We got a few games left and we’ve got to see if we can learn those lessons and be better.”

The Canes (6-21, 2-14 in ACC) appeared poised to win their seventh game of the season Saturday despite playing without leading scorer Matthew Cleveland (16.3 points per game), who told Courtney after shootaround he was unable to play because of a sore ankle injured against Florida State on Wednesday.

A.J. Staton-McCray started in Cleveland’s place and scored 21 points to pace the Canes, who took their largest lead, 48-42, on Staton-McCray’s three-pointer with 15:14 left.

The Hokies answered immediately with a 13-0 run and grew their lead to as large as 16 points with 4:58 left.

“A.J. stepped up in Matt’s absence,” Courtney said. “You want everybody to step up. You want everybody to play the correct way. You want everybody to play defense. That’s the main thing. …You’ve got to have pride in yourself defensively, individually, to get a stop.”

Trailing by six, Virginia Tech reclaimed the lead in two minutes with nine consecutive points on three three-pointers — two by Ben Burnham on back-to-back possessions and then one from Jaydon Young, who scored a game-high 27 points, that prompted a timeout. Tech scored two more baskets before Austin Swartz sank a jumper. But that only temporarily halt the Hokies’ momentum.

“It was just a quick turnaround,” Staton-McCray said of the Hokies’ 13-0 run. “And from there it just spiraled away.”

“We took off,” Hokies coach Mike Young said. “I thought we played better defense, and we got a couple in the bottom of the basket, which seemed to lift us up a little bit. And we were moving better.”

The Hokies (12-15, 7-9) shot 52 percent, including 12 of 29 (41 percent) from three-point range, four days after an ugly 54-36 loss at Boston College — the program’s fewest points in a game since a 43-33 loss to East Carolina in 1967.

“We were putrid the other night,” Young said. “For us to come in here and win, I’m proud of our team.”

Canes center Lynn Kidd fell just shy of his fourth double-double in five games, scoring 16 points (5 for 5 from the field) and grabbing nine rebounds against his former team. Guard Paul Djobet added 12 points off the bench and Brandon Johnson posted 10 points, seven rebounds and four assists.

Staton-McCray surpassed 1,000 points for his career on a driving layup in the first half. With the redshirt junior reaching the milestone, Miami became one of 15 Division 1 teams with five or more active 1,000-point scorers — Nijel Pack (1,745), Cleveland (1,569), Jalen Blackmon (1,421) and Johnson (1,172) — and the only one in the ACC.

The Canes have four games left this season, starting with Tuesday, when returning players might see their next coach seated on the visitors’ bench.

When he was hired, Lucas became the first Duke assistant in 30 years who hadn’t played for the Blue Devils.

Heralded as a top-notch recruiter and defensive coach, Lucas has been a part of the staffs of Rick Barnes, John Calipari and Shaka Smart. He started his playing career at Florida before transferring to Texas.

Steve Wiseman of the Raleigh News and Observer contributed to this report.

This story was originally published February 22, 2025 at 9:59 PM.