Jai Lucas Promoted To Associate Head Coach

Here’s an interesting bit of news: Jon Scheyer has promoted Jai Lucas to associate head coach.

It’s a philosophical change from what Mike Krzyzewski did. Actually, it is on several levels.

We can imagine a situation where an older Coach K might have thought it was a good idea to go outside of the program to find an assistant, but for a long time, he exclusively hired not just former players of his but former captains.

Scheyer is again forging his own path. Lucas came from Kentucky of course, and came with a reputation as a great recruiter. Scheyer also complimented his work with Duke’s defense and his organizational abilities.

We saw a bit of his coaching from the videos from the Coach K Fantasy Camp where he was intensely competitive despite the fact that it was a mostly non-serious competition. And he worked the refs beautifully too.

There was thing that, for us, was a surprise: we knew that his dad is Maryland legend John Lucas, who attended Hillside, and that much of Jai’s family is from Durham, not to mention his wife’s. However, we didn’t realize that his grandfather, John Harding Lucas, is still with us at 102. That’s pretty great.

There’s also one unintentional (we assume) dig in Scheyer’s comments about Lucas: “...but now he also understands what it takes to win at the highest level and operate at a place like Duke University.”

BBN is no doubt sewing Scheyer’s face on Coach K voodoo doll.