Jai Lucas getting the full Kentucky experience before he takes UK’s pitch on the road
It took about nine months to happen, but Jai Lucas is finally beginning to get a proper introduction to Kentucky basketball.
As one of John Calipari’s primary salesmen out on the recruiting trail, Lucas has welcomed the education and understanding that has come along with the past few days.
Standing against the wall of the Boyd County Middle School gym — the third of several stops on the UK basketball camp tour this month — Lucas marveled Thursday afternoon at the passion the folks in Ashland showed toward their favorite basketball program. Kentucky’s players and coaches were met with similar sights Tuesday and Wednesday in Bardstown and Union, and they’ll see more of the same over the next couple of weeks.
Adoring kids in UK gear scattered around the court. Attentive parents and other onlookers standing on the sidelines and sitting in the bleachers. After the trying last year or so, things are finally looking a little bit normal, something Lucas has yet to experience as part of the Wildcats.
“The big thing you get — and I’ve gotten — is how much people care about Kentucky basketball,” Lucas said. “And how important it is to them. And how important it is in the state. Not being able to do any of this stuff last year, I think it’s good for them to see how much people love them and how much people appreciate what they do.
“You know it, but you don’t really know how big it is until you’re in it.”
Lucas — after nine long months — is finally in it.
The former McDonald’s All-American point guard was recruited hard by Kentucky before ultimately choosing Florida — and later transferring to Texas — so he knew a little about the UK program and its passionate fan base before joining the Wildcats’ staff late last summer.
But this week — being out among the fans, in person, for the first time — is a welcome change in a tenure that has already been filled with upheaval.
Lucas, who had spent the previous four years as an assistant coach at Texas, was hired late last August as special assistant to the head coach and recruiting coordinator, a job he held for roughly two months before Calipari announced that he was promoting him to a full assistant coach before the start of the 2020-21 season.
In that role — in addition to his on-court coaching duties — Lucas was expected to head up UK’s recruiting efforts with fellow assistant coach Joel Justus. Of course, the unprecedented circumstances with COVID-19 meant no recruiting travel and no ability to host prospects for on-campus visits.
And Calipari’s original plan for a recruiting machine spearheaded by Justus and Lucas — viewed as two of the top young recruiters in college basketball — was nixed before it even had a chance to really get started, with Justus leaving UK for Arizona State this offseason, a few weeks prior to the NCAA lifting its “dead period” that once again allowed coaches to see recruits play in person and bring them to their colleges for campus visits.
The time between Lucas’ hire and now also saw one of the worst seasons in Kentucky basketball history and an overhaul of the recruiting landscape, with transfers taking on just as much importance as traditional high school prospects.
So, it’s been a lot, to say the least.
Lucas noted that last year — even when players were able to arrive on campus and start team activities — it was still a “one ball, one player, one coach, one goal” type of deal.
On Thursday, he looked forward to a more “normal” 2021-22 campaign, the start of which has been seen over the past few days with the arrival of the next group of Wildcats on campus and this series of camps across the state.
Lucas also looked forward to this season’s team hopefully getting to experience the atmosphere of playing in front of 20,000-plus fans in Rupp Arena. He pointed out that Keion Brooks was really the only player on the team that had enjoyed that to any extent. Then he started to go down the roster. Walk-on Brennan Canada played in a handful of games during that last “normal” 2019-20 season. Dontaie Allen and Zan Payne sat on the bench then as redshirts. But no one else on the team has ever been on the cheering end of a full-throated Rupp Arena crowd, Lucas said, before clearly having a revelation.
“And me,” he shrugged. “I’ve never experienced that.”
The departure of Justus and longtime assistant Tony Barbee also led to the arrival of Ron “Chin” Coleman and the return of Orlando Antigua to join Lucas as Calipari’s three assistants.
This week has also marked the first time that Lucas has had a chance to be around Antigua and Coleman, who coached at Illinois together for the past four seasons, in person.
“They’ve been amazing,” he said.
They’ll be expected to produce amazing results both on the court and on the recruiting trail.
Lucas, who turned 32 years old in December, talked excitedly about getting to welcome recruits to campus for the first time as a Kentucky coach, a process that will start later this month with a series of official visits.
In July, the Wildcats’ staff will be back out on the shoe company circuits, finally getting an in-person look at the players they’ve been talking to on the phone and through video conferences for the past 15 months.
More campus visits will follow that, and by the fall, Calipari and Lucas and UK’s other coaches will be back out on the trail, seeing high school kids in their gyms and visiting with families in their homes.
“That’s the best part,” Lucas said. “You can kind of build a different type of relationship when you’re able to be around people face to face (rather) than a Zoom and things like that. And just getting out and starting to feel like we’re getting back to what our normal job is — we’re excited.”
This story was originally published June 3, 2021 at 6:40 PM.
