{"id":711493,"date":"2026-04-16T02:37:25","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T02:37:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/711493\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T02:37:25","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T02:37:25","slug":"jai-lucas-quietly-turning-miami-into-basketball-powerhouse-with-transfer-portal-additions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/711493\/","title":{"rendered":"Jai Lucas Quietly Turning Miami Into Basketball Powerhouse with Transfer Portal Additions"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"65\">One of the biggest surprises from this college basketball season was the rise of the Miami Hurricanes. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"68\">One year removed from being one of the biggest disappointments in sports, winning just seven games and seeing Jim Larranaga retire, it was time to push the reset button on the program, and it worked magic. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6b\"><a href=\"https:\/\/miamihurricanes.com\/sports\/mbball\/roster\/season\/2025-26\/coach\/jai-lucas\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Jai Lucas<\/a> left Duke following the regular season to get a head start on the transfer portal with Miami and he built a team that quietly won 25 games in the regular season and ACC Tournament, earned a No. 7 seed in the NCAA Tournament and won a game before a hard fought loss to Purdue in the Round of 32. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6e\">Now Lucas is going to prove that last year wasn\u2019t a fluke and he\u2019s truly one of the best young coaches in college basketball. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6h\">First, he was able to retain Shelton Henderson for another season after a promising freshman campaign and then got to work in the portal. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6k\">Miami landed Georgia transfer Somto Cyril, who many thought would be an Arkansas commit upon his entry into the portal and followed it up by landing Villanova transfer Acaden Lewis after shining in the Big East during his rookie year. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6n\">The three should be the foundational pieces for success next season in Coral Gables but the Hurricanes are nowhere close to finished with its roster makeover. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6q\">Now, Kansas transfer Bryson Tiller called off his visit to Arizona after visiting Miami and Missouri as Lucas could be adding another highly thought of player to his roster. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6t\">It takes a lot to replace Malik Reneau, Tre Donaldson, Tru Washigton, and Ernest Udeh but Jai Lucas might be creating a more talented roster with Miami than he had this season and it won\u2019t be long before he has the Hurricanes basketball program back in the national spotlight. <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"22\" height=\"22\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.minutemediacdn.com\/platform\/google_discover_icon.svg\" class=\"shrink-0\"\/>Add us as a preferred source on Google<a aria-label=\"Follow si.com on Google News\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=si.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" class=\"flex h-[30px] w-[30px] shrink-0 items-center justify-center rounded-full bg-primary font-group-large text-sm font-medium text-white transition-colors hover:bg-secondary focus:bg-secondary md:w-auto md:gap-2.5 md:px-4 md:py-[5px]\">Follow<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the biggest surprises from this college basketball season was the rise of the Miami Hurricanes. One&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":711494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,231,772,1544],"class_list":{"0":"post-711493","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-college-basketball","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-basketball","12":"tag-ncaab"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116412066476695322","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=711493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/711494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=711493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=711493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=711493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}