{"id":135659,"date":"2025-04-21T17:00:38","date_gmt":"2025-04-21T21:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=135659"},"modified":"2025-04-21T17:00:38","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T21:00:38","slug":"shelton-henderson-miami","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/04\/21\/shelton-henderson-miami\/","title":{"rendered":"Miami&#8217;s Jai Lucas Poaches Top-15 Recruit from Former School"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Duke doesn&#8217;t have much to complain about at this point. They&#8217;re coming off a season where they entered as <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/03\/18\/duke-2025-national-championship\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">heavy favorites to win a national championship<\/a>. They will likely have <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/04\/10\/duke-mock-draft\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">three lottery picks<\/a> next year. The Blue Devils also have one of the <a href=\"https:\/\/247sports.com\/season\/2025-basketball\/compositeteamrankings\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">top high school recruiting classes<\/a> in the country. Contrast that with Miami, which <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/12\/26\/report-miami-coach-jim-larranaga-in-talks-to-step-down\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">parted ways with Jim Larranaga<\/a> and had one of the worst seasons in recent memory. They both have one thing in common: <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/03\/06\/grading-miami-hiring-jai-lucas-head-coach\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Miami&#8217;s new head coach<\/a>, Jai Lucas. Lucas was a top assistant at Duke and one of their best recruiters. That recruiting is working out well for Miami, as <a href=\"https:\/\/247sports.com\/player\/shelton-henderson-46128580\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Shelton Henderson<\/a>, a former Duke commit, has officially committed to Miami instead. What does this transfer mean for Miami? Does Miami have the pieces to compete for an NCAA Tournament bid next season? Let&#8217;s dive in.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">BREAKING: Top-20 recruit Shelton Henderson, a former Duke signee, has committed to Miami, he told <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/On3Recruits?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@On3Recruits<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The 6-6 small forward was recruited to Duke by former assistant Jai Lucas, who\u2019s now the head coach at Miami. <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/2n5trj8fGd\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/2n5trj8fGd<\/a> <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/gDzFUvBBGG\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/gDzFUvBBGG<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Joe Tipton (@TiptonEdits) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/TiptonEdits\/status\/1914412571404157262?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 21, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Miami&#8217;s Jai Lucas Poaches Top-15 Recruit Shelton Henderson from Former School<\/h2>\n<h3>Elite Recruiting in Miami<\/h3>\n<p>Jai Lucas was the primary recruiter for Duke in the Shelton Henderson chase. Once Lucas left for the Miami job, there undoubtedly were questions about whether Henderson would follow Lucas. Turns out, any rumors came to fruition. Lucas was able to have such an influence on Shelton Henderson that he would rather turn away from Duke to play for Lucas in Miami. The long-term implications of such a decision are enormous. If Miami can take recruits from one of the best college basketball programs in the country, they will have success for a long time.<\/p>\n<p>This isn&#8217;t something that will just stop at some point. Lucas helped bring in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cbb\/players\/cooper-flagg-1.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cooper Flagg<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cbb\/players\/kon-knueppel-1.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kon Knueppel<\/a>. He signed a <a href=\"https:\/\/247sports.com\/season\/2025-basketball\/recruitrankings\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">top-15 recruit<\/a> despite not recruiting until after Miami&#8217;s season was over. Imagine what Lucas will be able to do in his first full cycle. His elite recruiting will drastically change the perception of one of the most desirable areas in college athletics. If given proper time, don&#8217;t be surprised to see Lucas with multiple five-star recruits on his team year after year.<\/p>\n<h3>Miami&#8217;s Ceiling<\/h3>\n<p>Despite pulling in a recruit like Henderson, it is important not to place high expectations on Miami next season. Miami will return virtually none of its roster. While this is a good thing, coaches like <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/01\/25\/louisville-basketball-is-back\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Pat Kelsey make a one-year turnaround<\/a> seem easier than it is. Lucas hasn&#8217;t been a head coach before, so there will be a learning curve, too. At a minimum, he has an experienced point guard, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cbb\/players\/tre-donaldson-1.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Tre Donaldson<\/a>, from Michigan. A player like that will help this team improve.<\/p>\n<p>For now, Miami has little chance of making the NCAA Tournament with this roster. They have time, an elite recruiter, and open roster spots. Miami should be a force in the coming years, but next season will be different. If they don&#8217;t sign a top transfer, finishing above .500 would be a good goal for this program. It would set them on track to make an NCAA Tournament run in Lucas&#8217; second year. If Lucas can continue to take players interested in programs like Duke, Miami will be elite sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Photo credit: \u00a9 Jasen Vinlove-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Duke doesn&#8217;t have much to complain about at this point. They&#8217;re coming off a season where they entered as heavy favorites to win a national championship. They will likely have three lottery picks next year. The Blue Devils also have one of the top high school recruiting classes in the country. Contrast that with Miami, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5370,"featured_media":135676,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,773,3],"tags":[3120,861,1498],"class_list":["post-135659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-college-basketball","category-news","tag-acc-basketball","tag-duke-blue-devils","tag-miami-hurricanes"],"modified_by":"Eamon Cassels, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5370"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135659"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":135677,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135659\/revisions\/135677"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/135676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}