How Jai Lucas is reshaping UM basketball by bringing Florida players, coaches home (2025)

One by one over the past month, the new University of Miami men’s basketball coach Jai Lucas persuaded players with Florida roots to pack up and come back home from Indiana, Michigan, Texas, and Missouri to play for a Hurricanes team undergoing a complete makeover.

It began with Miami native Malik Reneau, who announced he was transferring from the Indiana Hoosiers with a post that read: “I’m Coming Home! It’s All About the U”.

Then came Michigan’s Tre Donaldson, a football and basketball star from Tallahassee, who posted “Florida Boy” with emojis of a palm tree, the U, and a hurricane. Donaldson helped lead the Wolverines to the Sweet 16 this season.

Before long, TCU’s Ernest Udeh, Jr., an Orlando native, followed suit with the message: “Da Florida Boy is Bakk…305.” Dante Allen, a Miami Riviera Prep star and son of Miami Heat assistant Malik Allen, decommitted from Villanova to stay close to home.

Marcus Allen, a University of Missouri freshman who led Miami Norland High to the 2024 state championship, is the latest local headed back home, according to multiple sources.

He will be reunited with former Missouri assistant Charlton “C.Y.” Young, a Carol City High legend, who decided to come home and work for Lucas, as did Georgia assistant Erik Pastrana, who grew up near the Orange Bowl and played high school ball in Wellington. Lucas’ staff also includes former Columbus High coach Andrew Moran.

The only two players with no South Florida ties so far are New Mexico transfer Tru Washington, who played for Lucas’ uncle at Kentucky, and five-star recruit Shelton Henderson of Houston, who has a long history with Lucas.

They played for the same high school and Lucas, the former Duke associate head coach, was a big reason Henderson initially committed to the Blue Devils before flipping to follow Lucas to Coral Gables.

Lucas, 36, became the youngest head coach in the ACC when he took the Miami job, replacing retired legend Jim Larranaga. He sat down with the Miami Herald this week to share his vision for the program, which plunged from Final Four in 2023 to last place in the ACC in 2025.

It is no coincidence that his team will have a Florida feel. In this revolving-door age of the transfer portal, when players are hopping from school to school, some of them annually, Lucas was determined to find players who come in with a common bond.

“You want to have people who have pride in something,” he said. “And the thing I learned these last couple years recruiting in Miami is how much pride there is in the city, but also in the university. And so, when building the program, I wanted to build it with people to whom Miami and Florida means something. In this day and age, that gets lost a lot.”

And then he went a step further.

“I feel you can win a national championship with kids from Florida, a lot of things have to fall into place, and you’ve got to get the right pieces and right match ups, but I do think it’s something that is really doable, and that was something that made the job so appealing.”

Lucas’ roster-building strategy is a departure from Larranaga’s.

The 2024-25 UM roster had no players with South Florida ties and just one, Gainesville native Lynn Kidd, with Florida roots. The previous season, the only player with local ties was Norchad Omier, who was raised in Nicaragua but played at Miami Prep.

Omier was the only player with any Miami connection on UM’s 2023 Final Four team. The other key players were from New Jersey, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Massachusetts and Michigan.

Asked why he thinks highly touted players want to come home, Lucas explained: “I think sometimes when you leave and go away from home, you appreciate it a little bit more when you get the opportunity to come back. Part of it is just growing up.

“We want to create a program where the kids who are from here want to stay and don’t feel like they have to leave or need to go to a bigger basketball brand name to get everything they want out of basketball.”

It helps that UM is committing more money to basketball than it had in the past. According to a source close to the school, Miami’s NIL men’s basketball budget more than tripled from the estimated $2 million Larranaga and his staff had to work with last year.

His ideal roster would include two to three high school players joining each year, four players retained from the previous year, three transfers, and three developmental players.

“So, you would have 10 that you would say are on salary, for lack of a better word,” Lucas said. “Then you can supplement some of the other scholarships with players who can grow with the program. I don’t want to call them walk-ons, because they’ll be better than that.”

Lucas feels his youth works in his favor in the changing landscape of college athletics.

“Erase whatever you thought college basketball was the last 30, 40, years; it’s not that anymore,” he said. “I think that’s why you’ve seen so many pioneers in our game retire in these last couple years. It’s not anything that they grew up in, and it’s not anything that they grew up loving.

“So, for me, at my age, this is what I grew up in. I’ve been able to be at a few places [Kentucky, Duke] that were at the forefront of navigating it at a high level. So, all the experience I’ve gotten with this new age and new wave has prepared me greatly for this opportunity.”

For Hurricanes fans wondering what type of team Lucas is constructing, he gave some hints.

They are going to be big and tough. They will be good rebounders. He said watching where basketball is going in the past two years, the best teams have positional size. “The big is making a run back in basketball, even the guards are big,” Lucas said.

In describing the players, he said Henderson, a 6-6 and 220-pound forward, is “a Swiss army knife” who brings a little of everything.

“Shelton can play with the ball in his hands, but he’s also big enough, physical enough athletic enough where you could put him with three smaller people, and he can play the power forward, so he can play all over the court,” Lucas said.

He added that Henderson might have the chance to leave for the NBA after one year.

“That’s a big maybe, if some things happen right, and he continues to work the way he’s supposed to, but I see him as…I hate saying this name, because I know he’s kind of hated now in Miami, but he’s like a Jimmy Butler to me. That type of player.”

Lucas conceded that Henderson’s Duke to Miami switch was a bit awkward for him, but the family decided it was the best option.

“With everybody I recruited there, I just had one initial conversation to kind of tell them I was leaving and what was happening, and then I stayed out of it and stayed away, because just not my intention to do anything of that nature,” Lucas said.

“Shelton is a little bit unique, he’s somebody I’ve known since sixth grade. Towards the end, they called and said this is what they wanted to do.”

Udeh, Jr., has a big personality, Lucas said. “When he’s in the room, you know he’s in the room.” Donaldson and Reneau have known each other a long time and are quiet leaders. Washington is an aggressive defender.

“Having that fighter instinct was a big key with me, especially this first year, because if we’re going to be one thing, we’re gonna be tough, I can promise you that.”