Everything Miami Head Coach Jai Lucas Said After First March Madness Victory

The Miami Hurricanes have started its March Madness with a feel of a road game against the Missouri Tigers in St. Louis.

It ones of the best environments to be in for the Canes and now first year head coach Jai Lucas continues to shine in his first dance.

Here is everything he had to say after winning his first game.

Opening Statement:

JAI LUCAS: Missouri is so well coached, with how they attack, the way they're built, the physicality they play with. Mark Mitchell and everything he's done for them this year, he was a big part of our game plan and trying to slow him down. We knew he led them in points, rebounds and assists. So we tried to make it hard. We put Ernest on him, tried to give him a different look early.

For us what I'm most proud of is we talked about the glass and our identity showing. 46 rebounds, 16 offensive rebounds, 19 second-chance points, getting to the line 30 times. And then we took care of the ball in the second half, and that's why we were able to generate the separation we did.

And then these three up here with me in each part of the game, they showed why they have gotten us here, to be honest with you. Malik being able to close, Tre with his big shots, Shelton in the first half kind of carrying us offensively. But it was a team effort. I'm just really proud of them.

Q. Jai and Malik, I know you said Mark was a big part of your game plan. He's a big part of everybody's game plan when they play Missouri. And most teams don't have the success against him you guys did. What do you think specifically you guys did so well?

MALIK RENEAU: I think Coach did a great job of the game plan. He switched Ernest, our best defensive big, onto him and gave him size and length and caused havoc when he was coming down to the paint. I think Ernest did a great job with that even though he fouled out.

JAI LUCAS: For me it was just trying to make it as hard as possible. So we started with size. We wanted to put somebody a little bit bigger on him. And then every time he got in the paint, we wanted him to at least see two people. So some of the stuff they did and some of the lineups gave us the ability to do that a little bit.

But the way Stone started shooting the ball it made it tougher because he started to hit some. But we never wanted him to be able to take more than two dribbles and not see somebody.

Q. Coach, can you just talk about with Shelton and Dante, just the trust you had in them to be able to go out there in a situation like this and what you thought of their performance tonight?

JAI LUCAS: You know, for me, along with Tre, Ernest, Tru, Malik, Dante and Shelton are really my first freshman recruits. And so they are kind of the foundation of the program along with these guys, unless they go somewhere. But they are the ones I identified early, and I had the utmost trust in them. And that's why they played those amount of minutes.

Shelton is somebody I've known for a while. We went to the same high school. He trained in the same gym I did. So I've seen him grow up. I always like to say I recruited Dante secondhandedly when I was at another school recruiting some of his teammates. I saw Dante play a lot and I said if I ever got a job that would value what Dante Allen did, I would take him with me. And I just had the opportunity to get this one.

Their makeup, the way they're built, the winning characteristics, their pedigree, it gives me nothing but trust in them.

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Opening Statement:

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