It’s Year 2 of the Jai Lucas era at Miami, and expectations are high for the Hurricanes.
Year 1 was a success for Lucas and his team. UM won 26 games, advancing to the semifinals of the ACC Tournament and the Round of 32 of the NCAA Tournament.
Miami is expected to be one of the ACC’s top squads in 2026–27, as the Hurricanes added a bevy of talent to complement the returning trio of guard Dante Allen, forward Shelton Henderson and forward Malik Reneau, who averaged a team-high 18.9 points in 2025–26 and was granted an injunction by a judge in an Indiana court to play a fifth season of college basketball.
Henderson was impactful as a freshman, averaging 13.8 points, 4.9 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 1.1 steals per game. He will have more responsibility to “deliver” as a sophomore, according to Lucas.
“As a freshman coming in and having so many older guys around him, you fall into a role that gives you the ability to grow and kind of grow into your own, and that’s always what you want as a freshman. This year for him, and you see it publicly but also for us, there’s a little bit more expectation for him to deliver, and he’s shown his growth and being comfortable with having to deliver and having to be a little bit counted on,” Lucas said to reporters at the 2026 ACC Tipoff. “I won’t say he’s the man because we have a really good team, but he is one of those guys that we’re looking for game-to-game to be able to kind of carry us a little bit.”
The returnees will have plenty of help, as joining them is an 11-player high school plus transfer portal class that includes five-star forward Caleb Gaskins, former Georgia center Somto Cyril and former Villanova guard Acaden Lewis – who was named to the All-Big East Second Team after a successful freshman season with the Wildcats.
“He’s somebody I had a relationship with prior, and I watched him a bunch last year just because you grow to like people that you recruit. He was one of those kids I grew to like. And for him, we’re asking him to adjust a little bit. His ability to score and his ability to be what I like to call a natural basketball player is something he’s been really good [at],” Lucas said about Lewis, who scored 12.2 points and averaged 5.3 assists per game as a freshman.
“And now for me, for him, and I can say this up here because these are all conversations we’ve had, is just becoming a complete and full point guard, which he already has some of that, but just showing it to him on film and getting him to grow,” Lucas continued. “Week-by-week, month-by-month, he has caught on to it, and he’s starting to become his own version of Acaden Lewis.”
For as new as this year’s squad is, much is still very similar. The Hurricanes, as they were last season, have the potential to be one of the most physically dominant groups in the nation.
Lucas values physicality in his teams. It’s why he went out and grabbed Cyril – a punishing interior defender – out of the portal and prioritized the retention of Allen and Henderson, who brought an edge to the Canes in their freshman seasons.
“Our physicality, and that leads to multiple things. One of it is winning the glass, being able to rebound. The second part of that is defending without fouling and using our size. And then the third part of that would be getting fouled and getting points from the free-throw line,” Lucas said.
“But this year, with the way we’re built, part of this has to do with Acaden also, is our ability to play faster in transition is something that we really wanted to do. And then being able to have multiple guys now being able to space the floor and being able to shoot with some of the guys that we brought in, like Brent Bland and Nick Dorn. Dante Allen also has grown in his shooting. Freshman Caleb Gaskins has grown in his shooting. So just that ability to play faster, space the floor, but I would say the physicality is kind of where we start.”
What’s changed in Lucas’ coaching style from Year 1 to Year 2?
“I think the thing that’s different, at least in my perspective of coaching, is your team is so different year-to-year. So most times as a coach, and what I caught myself doing earlier, is you can try to kind of go cookie-cutter, cut and paste, and think, ‘Alright, we did this at this time, it’ll work.’ But this team this year is completely different than my team last year, so they needed something completely different,” he said. “So I’ve had to adapt and adjust with some of the things we did last year, they carry over and they do work, but some of them didn’t, so being ok with that and adjusting to being what’s the best thing for this team and what’s gonna be the best thing to help them win and being ok with doing that.”
Miami will begin its season with a neutral-site showdown against Florida on Nov. 2.
