Duke’s players were not the only ones saying farewell to Cameron Indoor Stadium on Monday night.

Associate head coach Jai Lucas has accepted the job he has long been the frontrunner for, as Miami’s next head coach. The news, first reported by ESPN’s Jeff Borzello, is accompanied with multiple reports that Lucas will leave Duke’s staff at the conclusion of the regular season — which comes Saturday in Chapel Hill for the No. 2-ranked Blue Devils.

That becomes the real news of this move. Lucas has been Duke’s defensive coordinator for the past three seasons, and the Blue Devils are positioned as a frontrunner for the Final 4 and a possible sixth national championship in the program’s history.

But timing works against Duke.

The transfer portal window opens March 24 and runs through April 22 — a 30-day window in which a first-year coach can rebuild, retool and reshape the roster he inherits. That date, March 24, is the day after the second round of the NCAA tournament ends.

Miami, more than any other team in the ACC, is in need of a roster makeover. The Hurricanes are 6-24 overall, 2-17 in the ACC, and were the first team eliminated from the ACC tournament.

Across the country, the best example of a first-year coach retooling a roster from a conference’s basement into a contender is probably in the ACC. Pat Kelsey took over a Louisville program that won five ACC games in two seasons under Kenny Payne; the Cardinals are 16-2 in the ACC, a game behind Duke in the loss column, heading into Wednesday night’s game.

A little more than a week ago, coach Jon Scheyer sidestepped a question about whether he could see a scenario playing out in which Lucas isn’t with Duke’s staff in the NCAA tournament.

“For me, it’s unusual times,” Scheyer said Feb. 24, two days after the first report of Lucas’ move to Miami was reported. “And Jai and I have been completely connected with all of this. … I can tell you Jai and I, we started this thing three years ago and our intention is to finish it. But again, I don’t want to get into that until I know something is final and done, where we’ll have to cross that bridge when the time comes.”

Crossing that bridge is now reality.

Lucas, 36, arrived at Duke about a month after Scheyer officially became Duke’s head coach. His hiring was a break from a trend of more than two decades — Mike Krzyzewski had stuck to hiring former Duke captains as his assistant coaches, and Lucas came to Duke without any ties to the program (though his family is from Durham, and Lucas Middle School in Durham is named for his grandfather).

Lucas played at Texas, where he also began his coaching career. He went from there to Kentucky for two seasons.

In those early months of Scheyer’s tenure, three hires were made to the staff — in chronological order, Mike Schrage as special assistant to the head coach, Lucas as assistant coach (he was promoted to associate head coach in June 2023), and Rachel Baker as the program’s general manager.