For years, college football uniquely owned the ability to screw up its own postseason with job changes and transfer activity. Now it’s time to make room on Dysfunction Island for men’s basketball.
Jai Lucas isn’t to blame for the situation that makes his final game on the Duke Blue Devils coaching staff Saturday instead of whenever their NCAA tournament run ends. The Miami Hurricanes, who hired Lucas as their next coach, are not to blame. Duke coach Jon Scheyer certainly isn’t to blame.
The system is to blame. The situation is a mess.
“The timing is—look, it’s not ideal,” Scheyer said Thursday, fewer than three hours after Lucas had been announced as the new coach of the Canes. It was also about 54 hours before tip-off of the regular-season finale against the North Carolina Tar Heels, a week before Duke opens ACC tournament play and two weeks before it begins a realistic run at a national championship.
At a time like this, everyone in the Duke program should be locked into A) the game in Chapel Hill against its archrival, B) an ACC tourney run and C) the chance to cut down the nets in San Antonio in April. These opportunities aren’t evergreen, even at a place like Duke. The last national title was a decade ago, and under different leadership.
But the calendar, including the timing of the transfer portal, has forced some difficult decisions in Durham. Expansion played a part as well. Lucas is being pushed toward his next job before finishing his current job.
Miami’s season ends Saturday, because the Hurricanes were so bad they finished 18th, and last, in the league and thus missed the 15-team ACC tourney. The portal opens on March 24, right after the first and second rounds of the NCAA tournament are completed. If all goes according to the Blue Devils' plan, Duke could be playing until April 7. A month of trying to do two jobs at once wasn’t something Scheyer or Lucas wanted.
“We’re doing the right thing here,” Scheyer said. “But the rules and the processes in place—I mean obviously we need to continue to tinker and get better at that.”
There have been past examples in football of assistant coaches accepting head coaching opportunities elsewhere but finishing the season before leaving. The Alabama Crimson Tide and Nick Saban did it successfully with Kirby Smart (on his way to the Georgia Bulldogs) and Steve Sarkisian (on his way to the Texas Longhorns), and unsuccessfully with Lane Kiffin—Saban pushed him out between rounds of the 2016 College Football Playoff because he wasn’t sufficiently focused on the title chase. Smart, in turn, did it with Dan Lanning, who was ticketed to take over the Oregon Ducks.
But those were different times. Smart’s hiring at Georgia was late in the 2015 season; Sarkisian late in the ’20 slate; and even Lanning’s ’21 hiring was before portal recruiting overwhelmed all else. If Ohio State Buckeyes assistants Chip Kelly and Jim Knowles had taken college head coaching jobs instead of another coordinator role, would they have been able to see it through to Jan. 20 with the Buckeyes?
In basketball, where entire rosters can disappear, the imperative might be even greater to start immediately. That undoubtedly has spurred earlier administrative decisions, with Miami, the Florida State Seminoles, Indiana Hoosiers and Utah Utes all announcing changes or making them during the season.
It’s just a shame that Duke’s defense coordinator, a guy who has been on Scheyer’s staff for all three of his seasons as head coach, has to bail now on a special season.
“Hopefully we can make a run at this thing the way I feel we can,” Scheyer said. “[Lucas] would be behind with the way the transfer portal was set up … so there’s decisions that have to be made now for him and for his program moving forward. Not to mention hiring the staff and all that. So yeah, this is one of the things where I think we can look at this and say it doesn’t make sense.
“Our decision makes sense, but it comes from timing, which it is not ideal. Even putting aside hiring new coaches, the fact that the transfer portal is open throughout the tournament, again, I understand why it is that way, but I think the focus should be on the tournament. The focus should be on the teams that are playing for something and have a chance.”
And yes, Duke certainly does have a chance. The Blue Devils are 27–3 overall, have won 23 of their last 24 games and have an average margin of victory of 31.8 in their current seven-game winning streak. They’ll get a No. 1 NCAA seed and start the Big Dance in nearby Raleigh. They have the nation’s best player in freshman Cooper Flagg. Expectations could not be any higher.
It’s not a good time to mess with the winning formula. But Scheyer believes that after 30 games together, his team is just about fully formed.
“I’m not going to sit here and say Jai’s not important to what we do,” he said. “Of course he is. He’s smart, he’s great. We have continuity. But really at this point of the year, we’ve developed our identity already. So it really comes down to the day-to-day preparation, the job with our players on the court. And that’s why you have the staff. … And for me, at the end of the day, it’s my responsibility. Just like every game plan we put together, it falls on me offensively, defensively. I feel I’m a very hands-on coach. That’s not going to change and we’ll be ready to go.”
Scheyer emphasized that he’s happy for Lucas and will always consider him a friend. Recruiting battles can change those feelings, though, and nothing could sour the relationship faster than the five-star Boozer twins, Cayden and Cameron, decommitting from Duke to attend their hometown school of Miami. All eyes will be watching to see whether Lucas hires the twins’ high school coach, Andrew Moran, as further incentive for them to become Hurricanes.
That would take the current mess to another level.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Timing of Jai Lucas’s Departure Puts Duke—and College Basketball—in a Mess.