Jai Lucas on playing neutral site game vs. Florida in Jacksonville: 'This was a road environment'

JACKSONVILLE, FL — Miami dropped a neutral site game vs. Florida on Sunday night, falling 82-68 to the defending national champions in an in-state rivalry matchup. Despite the game officially being listed as neutral, there was a decided fan advantage for the Gators which Jai Lucas noticed.

“This was a road environment,” Lucas said during his postgame press conference. “It wasn’t neutral.”

While there were Hurricanes fans scattered throughout the crowd, every foul call and big play proved that as much as the colors in the stands that Miami was in hostile territory. While Lucas made no excuses for the double-digit loss, he did see his team show plenty positive signs throughout the game.

“I know the score looks bad, but we’re right where we needed to be in one moment, and then it got away,” said Lucas.

Florida ultimately pulled away late, but Miami was able to stay in the game for the better part of 30 minutes before the deficit continued to extend through the final minutes. Miami is now 3-1, with this just the first loss of the new era.

Jai Lucas on future of Florida rivalry

Jai Lucas and his Miami team not only faced a hostile crowd, but the Florida band and cheerleaders made the trip from Gainesville on Sunday night. Miami had neither in attendance, and no mascot roaming the sideline either.

Even the in-arena advertisements featured multiple Florida spots without any space for Miami. Despite the classification in the computers, it was much more like a road trip.

“Yeah, I think the crowd — I didn’t expect the crowd to be like this,” admitted Lucas. “We’ll go anywhere in the state. I think it’s important for the program and for me to play everywhere in the state that we can.”

Lucas went on to pitch a number of other potential neutral sites where Miami and Florida could play in future years, including Tampa and Orlando.

“I think it’s big for our brand,” said Lucas. “We want to go everywhere.”

As Lucas and Miami look to the future, it is clear that establishing an identity within the state of Florida is important. While he wants to be a “national brand,” there is clear value in traveling to the fans who cannot regularly make the trip to Corral Gables.