NC State is scheduled to face off on the hardwood with the University of Florida both this season and next season. One name that the Wolfpack will not be seeing in the series is that of Jai Lucas. It was announced today that Lucas is transferring from Florida.
Florida guard Jai Lucas, the son of former NBA player and coach John Lucas, has decided to transfer.
The point guard and his mother met with Gators coach Billy Donovan on Wednesday.
Lucas, a sophomore from Bellaire, Texas, averaged 8.5 points last season and led the Gators in 3-point shooting at 43.5 percent. He started all 36 games last season, as well as the team’s first exhibition game Monday night.
But with freshmen Erving Walker and Ray Shipman competing with Lucas for playing time, and highly touted recruit Kenny Boynton having committed to attend Florida next season, it looked like Lucas’ minutes might fall.
Lucas isn’t just the son of John Lucas – the former Maryland point guard from the Triangle whose legacy is forever connected with NC State and David Thompson – but he was also recruited out of high school pretty heavily by NC State. Coach Sidney Lowe and staff seemed to back-off both Lucas and Chris Warren (Ole Miss) near the end of their recruiting, but who really knows how these things develop. For example, why keep making Lucas a priority if the staff knew that we weren’t going to land him? Regardless, we ran a very interesting entry last season that discussed Warren and Lucas.
As today’s article stated, the commitment of Kenny Boynton obviously played a role in Lucas’ decision…and Boynton’s decision has impacted Duke’s guard recruiting…which has shifted the Blue Devils’ focus to John Wall.
How fascinating is it that the Wolfpack’s initial pass on Lucas two years ago will now have some form of an impact on our current recruitment of John Wall?
