What Shelton Henderson Brings to Miami Basketball

Miami had a great run with former head coach Jim Larranaga, the winningest coach in program history. He led them to back-to-back Elite Eight appearances and a Final Four in 2023, but retired in 2024, citing problems with the NIL era of basketball.

Enter Jai Lucas, the new head man at Miami. An elite recruiter who made his mark at Duke and Kentucky as an assistant, Lucas took over the Hurricanes program that was in a state of disarray after a miserable 2024-25 season.

Immediately, Lucas began to hit the recruiting trail, grabbing a fantastic transfer portal class, as well as one elite high school prospect in wing Shelton Henderson out of Bellaire.

Initially thought to be a Duke lock, Henderson ended up signing with the Hurricanes. A four-star according to the Rivals Industry Ranking, Henderson is considered a top-20 player in the country, a 6-foot-6 athletic perimeter player that loves to attack the basket off of the dribble.

Henderson is a high-motor athlete whose energy translates on both ends of the floor, but especially defensively. He is a switchable defender that can play against wings and guards, with potential to play against forwards as well depending on his physicality, which to this point has been very good.

The motor also lends itself to elite rebounding, as Henderson is one of the best perimeter rebounders in the entire class of 2025. His offensive game is predicated upon dribble drives and finishing at the rim, where he can throw down monstrous dunks given his athletic profile.

His swing skill will be his shooting, which has not been elite so far in his career. This will be the deciding factor in whether or not Henderson plays a sophomore season or goes to the pros – if he is able to shoot the ball efficiently and make opponents pay for sagging off of him, he will be a major problem on both sides of the ball.

Given Miami's newfound roster infrastructure, the Hurricanes could be a team to contend with in the ACC along with Duke, Louisville, North Carolina, and NC State. Henderson's ceiling is sky high, and if things go to plan, he could find himself in the first round of next summer's draft.