Dave Hyde: Its season ends, but Miami has a rising star at helm
· Yahoo Sports
There have been so many great moments for Jai Lucas this season, so many surprise comebacks to create a surprise season that his Miami team figured Sunday would become just another one in the final minutes against Purdue.
Visit aportal.club for more information.
Shelton Henderson, who doesn’t look or play like a freshman, drove the ball hard to the basket looking to cut Purdue’s lead to four points with under two minutes left. Purdue came out with the ball.
Hurricanes guard Tre Donaldson, shooting for a miracle, missed a 3-pointer that would’ve pulled Miami to within three points with 49 seconds left.
And so, finally, the Darwinian stakes played out the way they always do this time of year. Win, like Purdue did, 79-69, and it was off to the Sweet 16. Lose, like Miami did, and there were a lot of handshakes that ended with, “Nice season.”
Not nice, though.
Great.
If you stand back and look at it from a view beyond Sunday, it’s as pretty a picture as Miami could have drawn last summer. That’s when all the coaches and players were new. The questions were endless.
Now add it all up as Lucas walks through the door into this offseason. His team had 19 more wins than last season, tying an NCAA record for improvement. It finished third in the ACC. It took a game in the NCAA Tournament and were down to the final minutes with second-seed Purdue, which just won the Big Ten Tournament, in the second round.
“It’s a tough one, a tough one,” Lucas said, getting emotional afterward. “I felt we were right there and then it’s just moments in the game. You get in these high-level tournament games and one of two moments, one or two plays separate the game.”
Seasons are measured in seconds this time of year. Purdue was the tougher and stronger team in the manner the seedings confirmed. But not every great season needs a trophy to back it up.
“I told them in the locker room, and I’ll say publicly, that it was an absolute joy to coach this team,” Lucas said. “I thank them for believing me, believing in a person who had never coached before and everything they gave me. I am forever indebted.”
Some tears came from players beside him at the interview table.
“So, I’m proud of them, and I’ll remember them forever,” he said.
You never know who will be back next year any more in college sports. Malik Reneau and Donaldson are seniors, so they’re gone. Henderson, guard Dante Allen and four other freshmen are the foundation of tomorrow, assuming they all return.
But the one rising star will return. Lucas showed he can not only build a team, but win on the run in the manner of his first year. He took over a program with no players and no coaches.
He recruited, spent NIL money and coached hard enough to keep this season going until Sunday.
“It started with getting the right players and the right staff,” he said.
In his first team meeting, Lucas assigned roles for everyone to hasten the team-building process. Reneau, for instance, would be their leading scorer. Reneau was that guy too, right to Sunday when his 16 points were only bettered by Henderson’s 18.
There’s the tightrope Lucas walked so well between building this season around seniors like Reneau and Donaldson and tomorrow around players like freshmen Henderson and Allen.
“For a first-year coach to have that kind of improvement in wins and be able to piece a team together — they gave us everything we could handle,” Purdue coach Matt Painter said. “It was difficult to keep them off the glass, out of the paint, our guys had to work.”
Purdue is off to its seventh Sweet 16 in nine years. That’s the kind of program it is. Miami hopes to get there. Lucas showed how it can.
“It’s hard to get here,” Lucas said. “It’s hard to be part of March Madness. It’s hard to win a game, so I’m appreciative of that.”
What’s hard is finding a rising star to construct a season like this. Miami didn’t comeback against Purdue. But take a step back and admire its comeback to college basketball this season.
____