Everything Jai Lucas Said After No. 24 Miami Loss to Louisville

CORAL GABLES, Fla. — The Miami Hurricanes look towards the future even after a loss to Louisville in a close fashion.

It also gives the team a chance to reflect on the season that was starting with Jai Lucas.

Lucas spoke after the loss, reflecting on the season, the seniors, and the future with the ACC tournament and the NCAA Tournament ahead.

Opening statement...

"I mean, man, what a game, what a game. You know, for me, the game was lost in the first 10 minutes, just with how we came out defensively. Any time you give 46 points in both halves, it's hard to win a game. But, the guys, they competed, they battled. The building was amazing. This is what you always want this place to be, and especially with it being spring break, and still the people that show up and come out and they've made this a special year. I'm more upset because we couldn't send our seniors out the right way. And they've meant so much to me and so much to me in building this program and everything they've given me this year. Like I told them, when we took the picture at half court, I said, I'm hanging this in my office, and this will be the only picture--I don't have any pictures in my office. So I'm just excited. And then just ready to turn the page. This one's over with, the season's over with. It didn't impact our season and where we were. You don't want to lose, but we got a lot of good film that we can use from this and hopefully we get the opportunity to play them again on Thursday."

On message to team to battle back...

"At halftime it was just about guarding and having some pride. I didn't think we had great pride and then they showed great pride and then we got to the point where our physicality and our ability to get in the paint get downhill really started to show when we got fouled. We got fouled a bunch. Whenever you can shoot 21 free throws in the second half it gives you a chance. It gives you a chance, but they also shoot 18. Whenever a team is even scoring in the paint with us that's kind of where our separator is. Even if a team makes 12, 14, 15 3s we got to dominate the paint because that's where we kind of make up for not making as many 3s."

On reason for early deficit...

"I just thought it's a lot of things that could go into it. You can always say senior day. I just thought at the start of the game, their desperation and urgency was a little bit better and it's a lot of things that can go into that. And then eventually we worked our way into the game. And also Malik got two fouls early and it kind of changes things and you got to adjust and adapt it in. Conwell in the first half, I think he had 18. It's hard, they played good."

On the senior class impact...

"Huge, huge, especially for me and for the start of my era of Miami basketball. Everything Coach L has done and why the job was so appealing was because it wasn't a dumpster fire. He left it in good standing and for them and for me this first year, for them to come in and win 24 games, finish third in the ACC, it sets us up to continue to recruit at a high level and show people how competitive and what we're about here. And it really starts with those three because they were the first three that committed and we kind of built it around them."

On the senior class impact with recruits...

"Other places and you can come here and develop and get better. Even with Trey, Malik and Ernest have been different places, but these are career years for them. I think it goes to putting them in the right spots, my style of play and also what we do here in our kind of our culture of how we work and how we develop. And even though you've been somewhere else and maybe didn't have this in your game, you can come here and work on it and then continue your career."

On message to team with level of desperation moving forward...

"I told them after the game, the game is lost in the first 10 minutes and from now on those 10 minutes cost us in this game, the next game, the season's over. So to understand that's the level of desperation, that's the level of urgency from here on out that you have to play with and you have to have. And I'm not taking anything away from Louisville. I thought they were really good today. Conwell and everybody. The big kid, Khalifa, can really shoot. He comes in and hit a 50-footer almost. So they played well and I just thought we waited too late to get going."

On the possessions down the stretch...

"They were huge, they were huge, we battled, we executed. And then the last play, Conwell just did a good job of taking Tre's right hand away. We were trying to get him right and he jumped it and Tre stumbled into the ball, threw it to Malik and the ball went out of bounds. So he just had a great individual defensive possession. The one, I thought I was damn near at half court trying to call timeout. But the ref just blew by me. But that would be the only thing I want back would be trying to get that timeout just to settle us before Wooley hits the 3."

On the final play design with Tre that resulted in a turnover...

"It's just to get Tre downhill to his right hand, get in the paint, see if we can get fouled, try to flood the side, to just open up the gap and the kid jumped it."

On Louisville playing without Mikel Brown Jr.

"You add another kid who's averaging 20 points or 18 points, a lottery pick, so it changes their whole dynamic a little bit. So you have to adjust and adapt to that, but still, the team is well built. They're built offensively, they're built with skill, they're built with shooting. I think it really was on display tonight. We have different styles, styles make fights, so in the first half, their style kind of got the best, and in the second half, and towards the end of the game, we started to show what we're about, and so it was just about earlier. Earlier, we got to do a better job of just containing the ball and controlling the glass in the first half and if we did that you don't go into halftime down nine, and you go maybe down four or five, and it's a different game."

On message to team after the game...

"Just thanking them for the season.We've never talked about the season. We haven't talked about the wins. We haven't talked about the standing. I thought this was the best opportunity to do that. Losing sucks, but I also wanted to give them some grace as well because to win 24 games with 12 new people to finish in the top three of the ACC to get a double bye with a league that's getting eight, nine, ten teams in the tournament hopefully is impressive and I just thanked them for that. And I told them everything we've done is over with now. The regular season is done. Now we're into conference. We're into March and it's it's win or go home. That's the biggest thing. I haven't really talked about any awards or anything, but I would hate to see if we finish third and we don't have every somebody on every team. I think we deserve to have Malik on First Team, Tre should be somewhere First Team or Second Team. Ernest should either be Defensive Player of the Year or All-Defense. Tru should be Sixth Man of the Year, All-Defense. Shelton on All-Freshman team. Part of winning and part of finishing third is you have to give those guys their credit when it's due and I think they deserve that ."