Miami is giving two familiar names bigger jobs on Jai Lucas’ staff.
On Thursday, the Hurricanes promoted Riley Welch and CJ Fredrick after both spent last season in supporting roles under Lucas. Welch moves from special assistant to the head coach into an assistant coach position, while Fredrick goes from graduate assistant to assistant director of player development.
For Welch, the rise fits a path he has been chasing for years. He has been open about wanting to get into coaching, and his background has kept him around the game at a high level.
His father, John, spent the 2023-24 season on John Calipari’s staff and is now the associate head coach at Fresno State. Riley Welch walked on at Kentucky from 2019 to 2021, and that is where he first crossed paths with Lucas, who was on Calipari’s staff from 2020 to 2022.
After graduating, Welch stayed in the coaching lane as a graduate assistant for Calipari from 2021-23, then spent two seasons with the Grand Rapids Gold, the Denver Nuggets’ G League affiliate, before heading to Miami to reconnect with Lucas.
Fredrick’s promotion brings another former Kentucky player into a larger role. He spent two years with the Wildcats and missed the entire 2021-22 season because of a hamstring injury.
The former Covington Catholic star started his college career at Iowa and finished at Cincinnati, where injuries continued to limit him and he played only 34 games over two seasons with the Bearcats. After working as a graduate assistant for Lucas last season while also earning his master’s degree, he now has a full-time job on the Hurricanes’ staff.
The staff news comes as Lucas continues to build momentum in Coral Gables. Last month, he agreed to a new five-year deal with Miami that includes a raise.
In his first season as a head coach, he guided the Hurricanes back to the NCAA Tournament, where they beat Missouri in the first round before falling to Purdue in the second. Miami finished 26-9, a dramatic turnaround that matched an NCAA record for the biggest year-over-year improvement after the program went 7-24 in Jim Larranaga’s final season.
The outlook around the program is strong, too. Miami sits at No. 18 in ESPN’s Way-Too-Early Rankings, even after losing four of its top five scorers. The Canes added Acaden Lewis from Villanova and Somto Cyril from Georgia through the transfer portal, landed top-10 recruit Caleb Gaskins from the high school ranks, and bring back sophomore forward Shelton Henderson after what was described as a promising freshman season.
Lucas’ staff is getting stronger, and Welch and Fredrick are now part of the next step.
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