Everything Jai Lucas Said Ahead of the ACC Tournament

CORAL GABLES, Fla. — The Miami Hurricanes have a chance to make history as one of the best turnarounds in college basketball history, but this is the first time Jai Lucas will be the head guy in these tournament situations.

Lucas prepares for the ACC Tournament, and now the Canes have a chance at winning a conference championship as the 3rd seed.

Here is what Lucas had to say ahead of the first tournament game:

Lucas on Getting the 3rd Seed...

Just kind of, maybe get some rest in, heal, and everything before the ACC turning. You try to do the whole thing in the conference season.  I should try to get the double by. One, if you spend more time resting, it also gives you fewer games in which we win the championship. So, just allowing us to work on some things, but also just the rest.  We have some guys playing every minute, and we've been banged up these last couple of weeks. So just to get some extra time to kind of just recover

On Players Health...

We're getting back, Not100% yet. started to be more. I guess more than anything, he was before.  You know, Malik's hand is just dislocated; it's against Virginia, so it's just kind of a pain tolerance type of thing that's just going to take time. So I don't think it'll ever be 100% even as this time builds, but we're doing our best to manage it. and keep awake and continue to be released.

On The Team getting All-ACC Honors...

It's well deserved for all of those guys, you know, it's elite, the way he's played. And I think impact had on us and to being the top three team in the ACC should have somebody that is on the first team so happy he was able to earn that the same thing with Tre making the second team. His impact on us and carrying us and closing some of these gangs for us down a stretch in the conference.  So the same thing with him and Ernest being on defense. And it's just way he's close the season, to be honest, defensively out of the season with him juggling.

I said, he's done this from the beginning, man, I had a shot.  Defense player of the year. But, you know, just for those three guys, and being seniors, I think this is their first award, the first one, Malik had an honorable mention. You had a first time making a team. impressive, man.  You know, it just goes to show, especially for us, but for them. Like, you can come here and be who you're supposed to be. Oh, man.  So I was excited to see them be a network recognition

On Tre Donaldson...

It's huge, because, you know, um, you need a guard, especially it always comes down to guards in March, who are able to kind of create and get you a shot and create shots for others, just by their penetration and getting in the paint and it's showing that, and he's done it, and he's done it before on big stages.  And so same thing here coming down March.

Reflecting on the Regular season...

I'm pleased. I mean, it got us in his position here.  You know, I was just talking to some of the staff. You know, depending on how you look at him, we're probably a combined 53 seconds away from being 16 and one in our 17 and one in the league. You know, you have the lead and end the game against Louisville, as a leading end the game against Florida State, at the lead and end of the game against Virginia and somebody else who counted, you know, you could combine those, and we're right there.  So, you know, but they are lessons we learned, we get better from them.

You can say the same thing other other way, you, Wake Forest and North Carolina State, of course. You know, we want our fair share of it, you know, so for me, I felt like we did where we needed to do.  You always want more as a coach, and you always can't sleep on the ones that they come back and haunt you, you know, and those games haunt me. But for us to be third and the ACC and to have ourselves in position to hopefully get a at large bid.'s all you can ask is the opportunity to compete for a national championship, which I feel like we're in position, but we still got work to do.

On Playing Opponnets Again...

Yeah, just the show, you know, those games, the first time we played both of those teams, they didn't see the best version of us.  And so, you know, the first time we played Florida State, of course, they beat us, and then that Florida State were able to get now, and we kind of had our identity show, but even then, we still at 16 turnovers, 18 turnovers, I think, and we only went by 10. You know, we cut that down, I think, a bigger win, the same thing with Boston College. They had the lead under four minutes up there, and then we were able to come down here and kind of separate ourselves and build a lead.  So it'll be the same thing with whoever we see again. There's always stuff we can learn. It was not, I don't think it was one team that saw us at our best.  And so whoever we play, who have things that adapt and adjust and kind of go from there.

You know, it depends on like, how close you played them, you know, for, like, I know the sixth seed is Louisville. So it would be one game since we played them.  So a lot of it will be leaning on our game, how they did, how they guarded us, and then whatever they did in the game before. Now, if you end up playing somebody like Syracuse, then it's completely different because they've played so many games in between your game, people might be hurt.

People might be out and maybe playing new people.  But you always use your game just as a gauge to see if it's a certain way they guarded you, that they did in other people or certain things they did against you, that they didn't do in the other games. and then you kind of go from there. So I just think it depends on the time of when you play. Also, like how many times you play them like you're saying, like if you end up playing, I don't even know.  Florida State, I don't know where they are in the bracket. I don't even know if they're on outside, but if you play a team for a third time, that's a little bit different

On the Team's Versatility...

I think that's one of our best qualities, is we have a lot of versatility. You know, we can play big, which was a song, we can play small, we can play song, we can press, um, we can play man, we can switch everything. So we have the ability to adapt through the game and then march, you have to have that, because it's surviving advance.  It's when it go home. So you can't just stay true to what you do, you have to be willing to say, "A right, this isn't working. Let's go do this," or this isn't working, all right, let's do this."  But you have to have the guys and the team to be able to do that, and we do.

Team With Older Player and Their Success...

Those older guys, but then also the teams that have their attention are the ones that really advance. So you look last year, like Florida had a bunch of guys back.  This year, they have a bunch of guys back and they've made a run. UConn, the last couple of years, they have a bunch of guys back. You look at Michigan, Michigan is, I probably say the one team that has so much new has been able to separate, but you look at Arizona, they have their core four back, so it is something that's big and really shows in March when you have that, I guess continuity in the roster.

On Quick in Game Adjustments in these Tournament Style Games...

A lot. You know, you also don't want to get away from who you are and what got you there, but you have to be a willing to adapt and adjust how.  The game is going to. You know, it may be a game where, you know, like Louisville, Malik got in foul trouble right away. So the game changes.  You know, the way we play, the way we're built, everything changes, so you got to adapt to that. I think it's the same thing in this moment. You got to be ready to make those quick decisions, but also, I think this is where going back into all the experiences and the lessons you've learned in the season make those decisions easier because we did this against North Carolina State.  It worked. So let's try it now, or we did this against whoever it worked. Let's try it now.  So that's kind of the benefit of having the gains and having the close ones that we have that we got so much data to pull from.

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