Duke coach Jon Scheyer promotes top assistant Jai Lucas to associate head coach

Some staff news on the Duke basketball front just came down the pipeline. On Thursday afternoon, head coach Jon Scheyer announced a promotion for assistant coach Jai Lucas to associate head coach.

The move comes after just one year on the staff for Lucas, who took the opportunity to link up with Scheyer when he got promoted to head coach last offseason. The juicy part is he left Kentucky and John Calipari’s staff after just one year there to take a premier spot on the staff of the other biggest national college basketball brand. Now, after just one year as a plain old assistant, Lucas is getting the bump to second in command.

Here was the announcement from the Duke Basketball Twitter account and a few words from Coach Scheyer on the promotion for his new No. 2:

S/O @CoachJLuc! Promoted to Associate Head Coach! 😈 pic.twitter.com/VXCdUeoDFi

— Duke Men’s Basketball (@DukeMBB) June 29, 2023

“Jai’s been an amazing addition to our staff this last year,” said Scheyer in his statement. “He’s great on the court, he’s run our entire defense. He’s somebody that comes with many different perspectives with the experiences he’s had before Duke, but now he also understands what it takes to win at the highest level. So, very proud of him, very excited to name him associate head coach.”

Lucas’ star has risen immensely and swiftly over the past few years in the college basketball coaching game. He’s sworn by as one of the top recruiters in the entire country and has helped bring plentiful five-star talent to Texas, Kentucky and Duke in just the past four years. He recruited some of the pieces that sparked Texas’ best season under Shaka Smart in 2021 and then left for Kentucky, where he was underneath the best college basketball recruiter in the galaxy. After one year there, he jumped ship to Duke to join Scheyer’s staff as one of his top assistants and clearly was the top guy by the end of this past year — hence the promotion.

So now, he’s second in charge at one of the biggest college sports brands in the country…and at just 34 years old, too. Jai Lucas is certainly a rising star in the industry and seems destined for a head coaching gig at some point in the near future. Who knows, maybe he’ll make it five years in a row changing job titles next spring if a decent head coach gig opens up and his phone starts ringing.