Miami (Fl.) head coach Jai Lucas met with the media to discuss the 77-76 road win at NC State.
NOTE: Click the video player above to watch the full press conference!
Opening statement...
Man, life in the ACC, it's a roller coaster. Exciting game, I don't know what else, what other way to put it. Coach Wade has done an amazing job. I know everybody knows that, but he's done a great job in a short time. Just with his team and their spirit and competitiveness that they play with.It's really hard to match.
I mean, it just comes down to little details. Little details. I thought the first half we stayed close enough for them not to get a great run. And then we hit a wall in the second half where we had a little bit of lead. They took over and they made a run. But I'm just excited for our guys because they battled and they competed the whole night. The whole night they just kept chipping away. And we were able to pull it out at the end.
Coach you ended the game on an 8-0 run in the final 52 seconds. What did you see from the press outward, the guys kind of escaping this one?
With this one, I just think the way Dante came in in our pressing group, we have a lineup that we put in for pressing. The way he came in was able to get active and get hands on the ball. And then we did a great job of not fouling in the traps right away. Usually we can get fouls right away, but we wanted to trap one time and if the ball came out, then foul. But we were able to get turnovers out of the trap, which was big time.
Coach, obviously your team is very physical in the ACC, and you guys take a lot of pride in that. How much were you guys trying to get NC State to switch into some of those matchups and try to take advantage of that?
We tried. I mean, we tried. We did. We came in the game with a plan. It worked better in the first half. Then we had to adjust in the second half. And we started to do it a little bit different. But, for me, we always base our game off of three things. Points in the paint, offensive rebound, and winning the free throw battle. We were able to offensive rebound and match our second chance points with our offensive rebound. Fifty-six points in the paint, which is big time.
But we didn't get the amount of free throws that we need. We need to be more close to 30, 34, and we try to make about 19 or 20 a night. And that kind of makes up for nights where we don't shoot the three-girder. And that kind of closes the gap when teams shoot better and do things like that.
As a follow-up really quickly, Matt Able, a guy that was previously committed to Miami. Fifteen points in the first half. Just your thoughts on his game and what your relationship was like with him?
I mean, he's a big time. He's big time. When I got there, he was committed. Didn't really have a prior relationship with him. And I tried to recruit him.
He came on visits, spent time with him and stuff like that. And then he just decided that he wanted to go somewhere else. But I knew he's a stud. He's a stud. He's going to be a stud no matter where he is because he's made up of the right stuff.
You know the ACC pretty well, back-to-back wins over triangle teams.
Yep.
As a Durham guy, is there any sort of pride or significance in your heart?
Man, no, I'm just happy for my team. I'm just happy for my team. And I haven't had a lot of success in this building. I always tell people this is one of the hardest buildings in the ACC. It is. I put it right up there. I mean, usually when you're at Duke, you get everybody's top crowd. Look at the crowd tonight. Like, this is one of the hardest places to play. And I put it up against anybody. So I'm just happy we were able to survive.
Did you have a lot of family in the building?
I did. I did. I had a lot of family with both my parents being from Durham, aunts, cousins, uncles, everybody. I thought 15, 20 people in.
You had a lot of faith to have Tru in the game at the end.
Yep.
What kind of went into that? And obviously you got rewarded.
You bet on people's pedigree. So Tru's won two Mountain West championships. He's been in big moments. He's one of those guys where when everything is going crazy, he gets into the crazy. So in that moment, there was no doubt, maybe a little bit. I don't want to go too coach on you. No doubt.
But maybe, like, I knew he was going to make at least two of them. And then once the first one went in the way it did, I knew he was making all three.Because he had that belief in his confidence. And for him to have been away and doing some stuff and come back and make those three free throws, it's huge.
Coach, with State getting that late 7-0 run before you guys kind of came back, could you speak on the physical and the mental toughness of your team to keep fighting through that?
It's huge. And we're still, I'd say, we're not, we're getting there. We're not there yet. But we're still a new team. And these experiences are huge for us because we have to go through them to help us down the stretch. Like, we still have a gauntlet left in the ACC. The ACC is a gauntlet. So we still have a gauntlet left. So each one of these games just adds to our data bank that helps us to become our best version, hopefully, towards the end of February, going into March.
Sir, these are two of the teams that struggled last year. And you both have flipped it really quick. Speak to how that happens and how much pride you have that this is a meaningful game this year for Miami.
No, it's huge because all the games in the ACC have been meaningful. When you get the opportunity to go on the road and get a quad one almost every night. And down the stretch, I think we got five of our last six or something like that, six of our last four or something like that, I'm sorry, four of our last six, a quad one games. That's a lot different than it was last year.
Last year, I think we might have had two the whole year at Duke, which is Louisville, North Carolina. So just it goes to everybody in the league. But for us, it just speaks to the character of the kids that we recruited. And the staff did a great job of identifying the right people and really doing their homework of getting people who fit me and I fit them. And that's why we've been able to kind of mesh pretty quick.
