Michelle Kaufman: Miami's Jai Lucas deserved more votes for ACC Coach of the Year

MIAMI — Jai Lucas or Jon Scheyer? Who deserved to win the ACC Coach of the Year award?

Voters overwhelmingly chose Scheyer, coach of top-ranked and dominant-in-every-way Duke, over University of Miami first-year coach Lucas, who directed the biggest turnaround in the nation, transforming Hurricanes men’s basketball from a 7-24 team into a 24-7 team, from last place in the Atlantic Coast Conference and not making the conference tournament to a double bye into the quarterfinals of this week’s ACC tournament.

Scheyer got 51 votes. Lucas got 19.

There is no doubt that Scheyer has done an extraordinary job since replacing the legend of all legends, Mike Krzyzewski. He filled Coach K’s enormous shoes without missing a beat and has done it with class.

The 38-year-old reached 100 wins faster than any coach in ACC history. The Blue Devils are ranked No. 1 by the Associated Press, KenPom and NCAA NET. They have won back-to-back ACC regular-season titles, and this season, after losing all five starters to the NBA, were 15-2 against Quad 1 opponents and 14-0 against everyone else.

So, it’s hard to knock anyone who gave Scheyer a vote.

But 51 votes to 19? Should the gap have been that big?

It depends on your criteria for coach of the year awards. Should they go to the most successful coaches or the coaches who spearhead the biggest turnarounds and exceed expectations?

Yes, it is fair to say Scheyer exceeded expectations this season after losing all five starters, including National Player of the Year Cooper Flagg, to the NBA. Plenty of people figured the team couldn’t possibly be as good this year.

But the players who returned, Isaiah Evans, Caleb Foster, Patrick Ngongba, Maliq Brown and Darren Harris were part of Duke’s Final Four run last year. Evans was NBA-ready but chose to return. And among the newcomers was ACC Player of the Year and Freshman of the Year Cameron Boozer, projected to be a top-3 pick in the NBA draft.

Lucas, meanwhile, arrived in Coral Gables a year ago this week as a 36-year-old first-time head coach with no players, no coaching staff and no experience running a program.

Like Scheyer, he was a young coach tasked with following a legend, Jim Larranaga, a beloved coach 40 years his senior, who took unheralded UM teams to the school’s first Elite Eight and Final Four before retiring midseason last year, leaving interim coach Bill Courtney with an uninspired and struggling team.

Longtime fans were skeptical when Miami hired the unproven Lucas. There were bigger names and more experienced coaches the school could have brought in.

But from his first news conference, there were hints Lucas was ready for the job. I asked Larranaga that day for his first impressions of his replacement. He said: “He’s got a clear vision, worked for some of the best coaches in the history of the game, he’s going to be a huge success.”

So far, his hunch was right.

Lucas showed up with a very clear plan of how he wanted to rebuild the program. He cleaned house, brought in an entire new roster and coaching staff.

It was important, he said, in this transactional, transfer portal age of college sports, to bring in players who had a common thread, something they could bond over quickly as there is no time to build chemistry the way coaches of the past had done.

The common bond was Florida. He recruited players and assistant coaches who had Florida roots. He persuaded Miami native Malik Reneau to come home from Indiana and Marcus Allen to return from Missouri, Tallahassee native Tre Donaldson to transfer from Michigan, Orlando native Ernest Udeh to leave TCU and head back to his home state.

Dante Allen, a Miami Riviera Prep star and son of Miami Heat assistant Malik Allen, decommitted from Villanova to join Lucas’ project.

They all knew each other from high school and AAU tournaments.

They were reunited with local assistant coaches they knew from the recruiting trail. Former Missouri assistant Charlton “C.Y.” Young, a Carol City High legend, 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. He hired former Columbus High coach Andrew Moran, well-known on the AAU circuit.

In addition to finding players with common ties, he looked for players with positional size. Big guards. Big forwards. Powerful centers. He aimed for freshmen whose bodies were college ready, strong, muscular players such as Allen and Shelton Henderson, who has known Lucas almost his entire life, went to his high school and decommitted from Duke to sign with UM.

Lucas said from the start that his team would be gritty but not necessarily play pretty. They would not be great three-point shooters. Instead, they would rely on physicality, rebounding, points in the paint and getting to the free-throw line.

The team’s symbol became the Jason mask, by design. After each game, Lucas awards a plastic Jason mask to the player of the game.

“Aesthetically, we’re not the prettiest team to watch,” he explained. “We’re this big, physical monster, but we know what we’re about.”

His players bought into his formula. Before long, so did those fans who had their doubts.

Lucas became the fastest first-time head coach in the ACC to reach 20 wins since Bill Guthridge at UNC in 1997-98. He led the Hurricanes to 24 regular-season wins, matching the program record.

On Thursday, they enter the ACC tournament as the No. 3 seed and are a lock to make the NCAA tournament. ESPN’s Joe Lunardi has Miami projected as a No. 7 seed.

“His players and staff really respect him,” Young said of Lucas. “He is demanding without being demeaning.”

And yet, Lucas is not among the 15 names on the watch list for Naismith National Coach of the Year. He got only 19 votes for ACC Coach of the Year.

He deserves more credit than he is getting. I say this as someone who has been around the UM basketball program since 1985, when as a student I covered the resurrection of the program after a 15-year hiatus. I covered the Hurricanes under Bill Foster, Leonard Hamilton, Perry Clark, Frank Haith and Larranaga.

As I observed Lucas’ debut season, I felt like I was witnessing the start of a long, successful coaching career. He checks all the boxes. And presumably, he will only get better. Question is: how long will UM be able to keep him?

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