Report: Texas Men's Basketball Director Operations Jai Lucas to join staff at TCU

TCU Horned Frogs alum and new head basketball coach Jamie Dixon understands to influence former NBA star and head coach John Lucas wields in the Houston area and reportedly made a big move on Thursday to help the Horned Frogs there by adding Texas Longhorns Men's Basketball Director of Operations Jai Lucas, according to RCSSports.

Lucas was a Florida transfer after a McDonald's All-American career at Houston Bellaire who played point guard for Texas and appeared in 58 career games (one start) during his two seasons at UT (2009-10 and 2010-11), During his time with the Longhorns, Lucas scored a total of 169 points and recorded a 70-to-40 assist-to-turnover ratio in 662 minutes played while appearing twice in the NCAA Tournament.

After playing professionally for three seasons in the NBDL and Latvia, Lucas joined the Texas staff in 2013 and stayed on in his new role when head coach Shaka Smart was hired last spring.

The move is hardly surprising, as Lucas likely can't advance much further in Austin without a departure among Smart's current group of assistants, so this is a well-deserved promotion for Lucas that should help TCU significantly in Houston. Since Smart doesn't have deep ties to the state historically, it would make sense for Lucas' replacement to at least have some connections to the state.

In the immediate future, the biggest concern is that five-star big man Jarrett Allen has a relationship with John Lucas because he works out with him in Houston, so if Jai does make the move to Fort Worth, it could hurt the Longhorns with the team's biggest remaining target in the 2016 recruiting class.