Jai Lucas reportedly recruiting popular local high school coach for Miami staff
Expected new Miami Hurricanes basketball head coach Jai Lucas may be named as early as next week per Michelle Kaufman of the Miami Herald. Miami Columbus head coach Andrew Moran could be hired as an assistant on Lucas’ staff per the report from Kaufman. Moran is in his sixth season coaching Columbus.
In six seasons at Columbus, Moran is 136-32. Over the last four seasons, Columbus has a 107-13 record. Columbus is competing to win a fourth consecutive state championship. Columbus is led by five-star seniors Cameron Boozer and Cayden Boozer, who signed with Duke under Lucas as the primary recruiter.
Moran previously led Miami Christian to the 2015 state championship. Miami plays at Georgia Tech on Tuesday in their last road game of the season and hosts North Carolina State on Saturday in its final contests of 2024-25. Miami will not make the ACC Tournament as the last-place team in the league.
If Lucas is hired early next week, that will precede Duke playing in the ACC Tournament that begins for the Blue Devils on March 13. Duke will begin play in the NCAA Tournament on March 20 or 21. Lucas will have a decision to make to stay with Duke or leave and start putting his coaching staff together and building the Miami program.
One of the biggest questions is will Lucas try to flip the Boozer twins from Duke as soon as he arrives in Coral Gables. The rumored hiring of Moran has to be with the potential to get the Boozers to join him and Lucas at Miami.
Miami will have almost an entirely new roster in 2025-26. Guards, redshirt junior A.J. Staton-McCray, sophomore Paul Djobet and freshmen Jalil Bethea, Austin Swartz and Divine Ugochukwu are the only players on the Miami roster with eligibility remaining beyond 2024-25. The question is if they will all return.
