COACH… Jai Lucas at ACC Tipoff

The Atlantic Coast Conference held it annual Basketball Tipoff Days this week in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Miami was represented by new head coach Jai Lucas, seniors C Ernest Udeh Jr., PF Malik Reneau, and PG Tre Donaldson.

Coach Lucas met with the press at the Tipoff event. He share his thoughts and feelings about former head coach Jim Larranaga, and building a roster from the ground up.

On Coach Jim Larranaga…

“Coach L and my father have known each other for a really long time,” said Lucas. “You know, my dad was in college, in the summers they would go around and work at other schools' basketball camps. He went and worked at Davidson, and every morning at 6:00 a.m. Him and Coach L would get up and work out together. They have had a bond and a friendship ever since then.”

“Ever since I took the job, he was one of the first people to call me, congratulate me, and kind of talk me through it. And he was at practice yesterday. He has an open invitation, like I told him. This is really his program that he's built and took to new heights, so you know, for me just having somebody who has sat in the chair and been very successful at the University of Miami with the basketball program has been important.”

On building a roster from the ground up…

You know, for me starting this journey, as my first year head coach and first time running a program, it's important for me to make sure I built my foundation with guys who had pride in being at least from the state of Florida or from the area.

“…Tre Donaldson, Malik Reneau, Ernest Udeh were the first three guys I attacked in the portal and wanted to build it with. One, with them being from the state, but also just watching them and my foundation and how I want to play and how I want to build this team. I knew I wanted these three to be kind of the core, especially in building the first year of this program as well.”

“So I'm excited about where we are and where we're headed and our opportunity to compete in the ACC, and also in our schedule in the preseason as well this year. The thing I wanted to really make sure we establish right away was just the culture of defense, and that's kind of my background and where I'm from and what I've been able to do.”

“So for me I wanted to build it in that vision, and I think part of that is, one, you've got to have great positional size, and that's kind of also how I built the team, and in doing that, it also gives us great versatility on that defensive end.”

“My role is to make us as competitive as possible…So I'm really excited where we are, where we're headed, but I'm excited where we can be once we get into conference play going forward.”

GO CANES!