Former Beaver Lucas now shooting it up for Wolfpack
Former Oregon State guard Jarod Lucas was named second-team All-Mountain West Conference this season for Nevada. The Wolfpack open NCAA Tournament play Thursday against Dayton in Salt Lake City (courtesy Nevada athletic communications)
Jarod Lucas was Jordan Pope at Oregon State before Jordan Pope.
The 6-3 Lucas was a scorer and sharpshooter for three seasons (2019-22) at OSU in much the same fashion as Pope has displayed over the past two years for the Beavers.
Lucas left after the 2021-22 campaign and transferred to Nevada, where he has led the Wolfpack in scoring in each of the last two seasons. Nevada (26-7) faces Dayton (24-7) in a first-round game in the NCAA Basketball Tournament Thursday at Salt Lake City.
“Can’t wait to get it started,” Lucas says in a phone interview from his home in Reno. “It should be a good game. Dayton is definitely a good team, but we have had a tremendous year.”
Coach Steve Alford’s Wolfpack had the program’s most successful season since 2018-19, when they went 29-5 overall and 15-3 in Mountain West Conference play. This year’s team finished 13-5 and tied for second with Boise State in MWC action, and Lucas was the biggest part of that.
A year ago, Lucas averaged 17 points for a Nevada team that went 22-11 overall and 12-6 in Mountain West Conference play, losing 98-73 to Arizona State in a first-round NCAA Tournament game. The Hacienda Heights, Calif., native has been even more prolific this season, averaging 17.8 points while shooting .422 from the field, .397 from 3-point range and .899 from the free-throw line.
Lucas leads the MWC in free-throw percentage and 3-point percentage and ranks third in scoring and sixth in 3’s made this season. Yet he was named only to the second all-conference team, behind first-team guards Isaiah Stevens of Colorado State and Darius Brown of Utah State. Stevens averaged 16.5 points and led the league with seven assists a game. Brown averaged 12.4 points and was second in the MWC in assists with 6.5 per contest for the Aggies, who won the conference’s regular-season title.
“I should have been first team, no doubt in my mind,” says Lucas, never one to be lacking in self-confidence. “I had a great season, was one of the best guards in the league, and our team got second place.”
Lucas scored a career-high 30 points in an 108-83 blitzkrieg of Portland on Nov. 18. He was 9 for 15 from the field, 6 for 9 from the 3-point line and 6 for 6 on gift shots. He is finishing the season on a roll. Over the last nine games, Lucas has scored at least 18 points in every game and has averaged 20.3.
The Wolfpack were 15-1 when they lost four games over a five-game stretch to Boise State, San Diego State, Wyoming and New Mexico in late January. After that, the Wolfpack closed out the regular season 10-1.
“We lost by 34 (89-55) to New Mexico in the Pit,” Lucas says. “That stretch was a wakeup call for us. Since then, things changed. Last year, we lost our last four games, including the NCAA Tournament game. It was big for us to win games in March this season.”
Nevada’s run at the ensuing Mountain West Tournament was short, ending with a first-round 85-78 loss to Colorado State.
“We had a lot of guys who weren’t healthy,” Lucas says. “We got hit by the flu, myself included. That’s taking nothing away from Colorado State. (The Rams) beat us and are a really good team.”
Lucas came out of the womb shooting, it would seem. As a senior at Los Altos High — playing for father Jeff Lucas — Jarod averaged 39.6 points per game. That, remember, is in a 32-minute game. He wasn’t highly recruited; the only Pac-12 coach who beckoned was Oregon State’s Wayne Tinkle.
Jarod came off the bench as a freshman at OSU, averaging 4.6 points while shooting .389 from 3-point territory and .870 from the foul line. He will forever be remembered from the corner 3 he hit at the buzzer to beat Utah 71-69 that season in the first round of the 2020 Pac-12 Tournament. The next day, the season went dark due to Covid.
Lucas broke into the Beavers’ starting lineup midway through his sophomore season, finishing with a 12.7-point scoring average, second on the team that won the Pac-12 tourney and reached the Elite Eight.
In 2021-22, Lucas led Oregon State in scoring with a 13.5-point average in the most disappointing of seasons. The Beavers went 3-28, worst record in the program’s history through 120 years. After the season, Lucas transferred to Nevada.
“I loved Oregon State,” Lucas says. “I had some great years there. I met my girlfriend there.”
She is former OSU triple jumper Madison Lyon, who recently moved to Reno to be with Lucas. Lyon is still taking classes on-line through Oregon State.
“We got to the Elite Eight,” Lucas continues. “The next year we won three games. I knew I was going to leave. I didn’t really want to leave. If we had been .500, I probably wouldn’t have left. God had a bigger plan for me, to get out of there and get to Nevada.”
Jarod Lucas was a two-year starter and sharpshooter at Oregon State before his transfer to Nevada after the 2021-22 season (courtesy Pac-12 Media Hub)
How was Lucas’ relationship with Tinkle?
“I enjoyed playing for him, but me and Coach had our ups and downs,” he says. “Coach can be really strict when it comes to doing things his way. He has proved he can win, but I needed a change of scenery.”
Nevada’s coach is Steve Alford, the former All-America guard who played for Bobby Knight at Indiana and in his fifth season coaching the Wolfpack.
“I love playing for him,” Lucas says. “The best decision I have ever made. For me being a scorer and shooter, there is no better coach. There are so many things I have learned. Under Coach Alford, I have played the best overall basketball of my career.”
Much of Alford’s offense is designed to free up Lucas for open looks.
“One of my strengths is shooting the ball,” Lucas says. “Back in his day, that was Coach’s strength, too. He has shown me so many things he learned while playing for Coach Knight, and we have adjusted it to fit with modern day basketball. Our offense is all about down-screens and pin-downs and staggers and making reads. It has been a perfect system for me. I feel like my ability to read (defensive) schemes is second to none in college basketball.”
Lucas has also benefitted from Nevada’s NIL cache.
“I am making a pretty good amount,” he says. “I can’t disclose that number, but it’s definitely more than I made at Oregon State.”
Lucas has graduated with a degree in communications. He hosts a Wolfpack basketball show on Nevada Sports Net that airs twice a month.
“We have aired eight episodes,” Lucas says. “It’s taped and can be watched on YouTube. It’s been a lot of fun.”
Nevada is one of six Mountain West teams to make the NCAA Tournament, including Boise State, which was one of the First Four.
“It’s great we got six teams in,” Lucas says, “but I was disappointed with the seeds. San Diego State is a five, but nobody else got better than an eight seed.”
Nevada is a 10-seed. Dayton is a seven.
“We deserved better than that,” Lucas says. “We figured we would be a six or seven seed.”
The oddsmakers may feel that way, too. Dayton, the third-place team in the Atlantic 10 Conference this season and a No. 7 seed, are 1 1/2-point underdogs against the Wolfpack.
“My first thought when Dayton went up on the screen (as Nevada’s opponent), those guys probably don’t think we are very good after the way we played (against Arizona State) last year,” Lucas says. “They have plenty of guys who can shoot the 3. But we like playing in Salt Lake City. It’s a 6 1/2-hour drive from Reno, and we get to play in elevation, which we’re used to.
“I feel good about our chances, but I’m sure Dayton does, too. It should be a pretty good matchup.”
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