Jai Lucas describes the biggest difference after transition to being a head coach

Miami made a splash this past March, when it poached Duke associate head coach Jai Lucas as its 10th head coach in program history. Lucas replaced Jim Larrañaga, who had been with Miami since 2011. Larrañaga coached the first 12 games last season before he was replaced by interim Bill Courtney, who led the Hurricanes to a dreadful 7-24 record.

Lucas first made his name known as a player, as he was a highly sought-after recruit in the Class of 2007. He’d play at both Florida and Texas before heading overseas for the next two years. He then began his coaching career as an assistant at Texas in 2016 and the rest is history.

The Houston native discussed the biggest difference in his transition to being a head coach earlier this week. At age 36, he is the second youngest head coach in the Atlantic Coast Conference behind Florida State‘s Luke Loucks (35).

“It’s… different,” Lucas said. “You know, it’s been good. I’m not complaining at all, but it is different. It’s a lot more talking… that’s the biggest part. The biggest thing that I’ve been able to do (and I wanted to do) was hire a really good staff. In doing that, it’s given me the ability to delegate a lot of stuff and not feel like I have to coach everything. I am having to coach a lot because we are all new.”

Lucas evolved from assistant to head coach in just nine years

“Most of my staff I’ve never worked with and the players are completely new, so my terminology is different from what they’ve had and it’s just the little details of that. I had the benefit of being able to hire a good staff and have good players and a good group of guys. That’s made the transition — so far — easy.”

Lucas was with Texas until 2020, when he left to join John Calipari‘s coaching staff at Kentucky from 2020-2022. After just two years, however, Lucas jumped to Duke, where he remained from 2022-2025. He was an assistant under coach Mike Krzyzewski, but was then promoted to associate head coach under current Duke head coach Jon Scheyer.

“Not only is he a great coach, he’s a great teacher, he’s even a better person and I’ve loved developing our relationship,” Scheyer said about Lucas following his hire at Miami. “He’s one of my closest friends and he’s going to do a great job there. He’s done a great job for us and I couldn’t be happier for him with taking the next step in his professional career. No better opportunity that he has to become a head coach in the ACC. I want to wish him all the best and I couldn’t be more excited for him and his family.”