Jai Lucas expresses disappointment in Miami's defensive effort vs. ULM

Miami got to 9-2 overall on Saturday afternoon with a 104-79 win over UL Monroe. However, despite their highest scoring outing of the season so far, Jai Lucas was none too pleased with the play on the other end of the court for the Hurricanes.

Following the 25-point win, Lucas expressed those frustrations in his postgame press conference. That’s as their defensive effort this weekend seemingly ruined the overall outcome of the game, despite the win nonetheless, in his mind.

“It’s always good to get a win. I guess let’s start there. You never want to take away from being able to win a game. It’s hard to win any game. So, I appreciate that,” Lucas said as his opening statement. “But, I am not pleased with how we won, but we won, so.”

Asked to explain, Lucas criticized their performance defensively, as it’s what he sees as his team’s identity. That wasn’t what they were yesterday, though, based on his assessment of the victory over the Warhawks.

“The result is good, but the process of getting the result was not good,” said Lucas. “We pride ourselves on being a defensive team, and we were not that today. We were non-existent on the defensive end…It’s going to be hard for any coach to be happy, even though we won by a large amount.”

“We were stuck in mud. Our rotations were slow,” Lucas said. “We struggled guarding the ball and keeping people in front, and, whenever you struggle to guard the ball and keep people in front, the ball gets in the paint and then once, the ball is in the paint, anything can happen…We just struggled to keep the ball in front.”

In the win on Saturday over Louisiana Monroe, Miami gave up 44% shooting overall and 47% shooting from three. That’s as the Warhawks, from what he explained as a result of penetration into the paint, hit a total of 15 three-pointers to account for the 28 field goals made by ULM. As a result, it was a season-high in threes allowed and was the second-most points given up this season by the Hurricanes.

Lucas did note that his team has been unable to practice at full strength, and therefore get to where they need to or want to be defensively, recently due to injury. He didn’t want it to be an excuse, but said it just is their circumstances at the moment.

“Part of it is we’re down on numbers, so we haven’t been able to practice and haven’t been able to compete in practice how we need to, to the level. And so it carries over to the game,” said Lucas. “Because we’re down on numbers, and, you know, we got seven guys, people banged up, people out? It’s hard to think you’re not going to be able to compete in the games if you’re not competing in practice. So, we got to compete in practice. Can’t worry about injuries. Can’t worry about stuff like that. We’re going to have to play three-on-three, two-on-two, four-on-four. We got to play. We got to compete, so.”

“Part of it does have to do with injuries,” Lucas said. “I thought we were trending in the right direction, but, these last two games, I haven’t liked what I’ve seen.”

Miami has just two games left in the non-conference over the next two weeks. That should allow them a little more time to get healthier, and hopefully improve defensively, before conference play starts for them come New Year.