Jai Lucas recaps Thanksgiving tournament, preview Miami’s game against Ole Miss: `We've gotten better'

Miami’s two-game tournament at the ESPN Events Invitational gave the new-look Hurricanes an opportunity to gel and improve against two potential NCAA tournament teams. Miami came up short in its first game against BYU, losing 72-62, but bounced back against Georgetown, winning 78-65.

More than anything, Jai Lucas is content with his team’s progress after this slate of games. Miami is now 6-2, including a loss to defending national champion Florida.

“We’ve gotten better, and that’s what these whole Thanksgiving tournaments are all about, playing different styles, playing a higher level competition, and kind of learning and growing from the experiences,” Lucas said on Monday. “And I thought we got better from Florida to BYU and then from BYU to Georgetown. We took a step too, so we just got to continue to take steps.”

Lucas also expanded on the decision to play his starters less against Georgetown (average of 26.8 minutes) than against BYU (average of 31 minutes). 

He noticed that his starters ran out of gas against the Cougars, which could explain the flow of the game. Miami held a four-point halftime lead but didn’t have the juice to respond when BYU went on a second-half run. The first-year head coach utilized his reserves more against Georgetown, leading to 18 points from the bench and a couple of notable performances.

Junior guard Noam Dovrat played an impactful six minutes, making both of his three-point attempts. Freshman center Salih Altuntas was also serviceable as Miami’s backup big, scoring four points and grabbing three rebounds.

“We got to get the other guys in the game a little bit more, and that’s what we did in Georgetown. I think that helped us a lot, just keeping people fresher for later in the game, which was a big part, and then those guys also gaining confidence by having success,” Lucas said. “I felt Noam coming in and knocking down two threes was huge. Salih has just grown every game. His impact may not be in the stat sheet, but with his execution of his role and what we ask him to do, and him doing his job, is huge.”

Miami has another power conference test on Tuesday at 9 pm, as the Hurricanes will play their first true road game of the year against Ole Miss as part of the ACC/SEC challenge.

Ole Miss, now in Year 3 under accomplished head coach Chris Beard, are coming off one of their best seasons in program history. The 2024–25 Rebels entered the NCAA tournament as No. 6 seed and advanced all the way to the Sweet 16.

Beard’s squad underwent a ton of roster turnover in the offseason, replacing seven of its eight leading scorers from last year’s roster. Senior forward Malik Dia (13.0 PPG, 5.4 RPG) is the only returning starter.

The Rebels added an influx of talent by way of different avenues, most notably senior guard Ilias Kamardine (15.1 PPG, 4.7 APG) through France’s professional ranks and AJ Storr (14.9 PPG) through the transfer portal. The acquisition of Storr could end up making a massive difference by the end of the season, as Beard bought low on the senior guard after an underwhelming year at Kansas. The season prior, Storr was named to the All-Big Ten Second Team as he helped lead Wisconsin to the NCAA tournament.

Like Miami, Ole Miss is still in the process of building cohesion among its almost entirely new roster. The Rebels have dropped two consecutive close games to Iowa and Utah but already have a win over American Conference favorite Memphis under their belt.

“I’ve coached against Chris Beard almost half of my coaching life. He’s one of the best coaches in the business, especially when it comes to just game planning and defense alone. So you know they’re gonna be tough, you know they’re gonna be physical. you know they’re gonna rebound, you know they’re really gonna guard,” Lucas said. “And this is another experience where we’ve played two neutral games that were really road games with Florida and BYU. And so now playing an actual road game, we have a little bit of experience going against [a team on the road]; it’s not the same, but just a little bit. So hopefully, these past couple of games that we played help us in this environment, but I’m excited to see our guys in that environment too.”

Checking in on the NET

In other news that wasn’t discussed during Monday’s press conference, the NCAA released its first batch of NET Rankings for the 2025–26 season. These constantly updated rankings, which determine whether a Division I team is ranked in the first, second, third or fourth quadrant, are a key part of the criteria that the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee uses to select and seed teams for postseason play.

After its 6-2 start to the season, the Hurricanes are ranked No. 38 nationally in the NET. They are the sixth-highest ranked ACC member, ahead of teams like SMU (No. 39), North Carolina State (No. 40) and California (No. 52), but behind the likes of Duke (No. 2), Louisville (No. 9), North Carolina (No. 29), Virginia (No. 31) and Clemson (No. 34)

Miami is 4-0 in games against teams in the fourth quadrant – Jacksonville (No. 211), Bethune-Cookman (No. 240), Stetson (No. 332) and Delaware State (No. 362) – 3-0 against teams in the third quadrant – Georgetown (No. 122) and Elon (No. 155) – and 0-2 against teams in the first quadrant – BYU (No. 13) and Florida (No. 33). 

Defeating Ole Miss (No. 96), would give the Hurricanes a Quadrant 2 win. Keep in mind that the season is still early, and *a lot* of significant games have yet to be played. This means that there will surely be movement in the NET Rankings as the year continues. Miami’s win over Georgetown is considered a Quad 3 victory right now, but if the Hoyas find their stride, it could end up as a pivotal Quad 1 win by the end of the season.

Linked is a more thorough explanation of these rankings, according to the NCAA.