Exit Lavall Jordan
[Bryan Fuller]
The departures are not over for the basketball team. Michigan assistant Lavall Jordan has taken the head coaching job at UW-Milwaukee:
Milwaukee has hired Michigan LaVall Jordan, sources told ESPN.
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanESPN) April 7, 2016
Meanwhile, Bacari Alexander is being heavily rumored as the next coach at Detroit. A coaching shakeup seemed inevitable after the last couple years, and it's probably for the best. Michigan can reset, and now they've got one, maybe two, guys who would be obvious candidates for the head job when Beilein retires.
We'll see what direction Beilein goes in with the new assistant slots. If I was king of the universe I'd suggest he hires someone who's been around the Wisconsin or Virginia programs to be a de-facto "defensive coordinator" for one of the spots. The other one is like whatever man, but just get some dude who's helped some real good defensive teams and get out of his way.
i.e. Kansas hiring Roy Williams from UNC after he'd been there for 10 years as an assitant, and then Bill Guthridge succeeding Dean, though that was admittedly a transistionary hire.
Wisconsin obviously just did this with Bo Ryan/Greg Gard, but they also rejected doing so when Dick Bennett retired mid-season in an attempt to get Brad Soderberg the gig. Soderberg would probably be the kind of guy Michigan could look at too.
And even then, Alvarez was reluctant to give Gard the job initially, making him an interim coach. He only became the permanent coach a few weeks ago.
and you should feel bad.
UWM and UDM = Michigan?I don't know how you got that out of my comment. That's obviously not what I'm saying. I said they're moving up the coaching ladder. A head coach at a mid-major is generally a more attractive candidate than an assistant with no head coaching experience.
I totally read Brian's post wrong. I thought he was referring to JB hiring someone now who would be an assistant for the next couple years before JB retires. Once he does retire, this assistant would take over. I don't like this approach. But I mis-read what BrIan was saying. My bad.
"JB doesn't have a coaching tree" -- said in response to a post announcing a new branch in Beilein's coaching tree . . . .
Because that's not my quote. I said " In fact, I don't think JB has ever really had a coaching tree (I could be wrong)"
A couple things to notice:
1. I used the word "had" which means in the past and therefore does not refer to LJ or BA
2. I used words like "I don't think" and "really" and "I could be wrong" to indicate that I wasn't definintive.
Because Beilein did shake up his Michigan staff once before, bringing in Jordan and Alexander as assistants six years ago, which led to recruiting "wins", better player development, and the 2013-2014 years. I remember reading articles in 2013 about Beilein's ability to reverse course and shake things up for the better. History doesn't change just because you don't like the results of the past two seasons.
Whoever it is needs to have some pre-existing and deep ties with a few top-tier 2017/2018 recruits. Should be a Partridge/Devin Bush hire at least in part.
Maybe an assistant at UK, Duke or KU, but I don't see them making a lateral move here.
Here's a name for you -- Dan Dakich. AAU coach, and that announcing skill undoubtedly will carry over into an assistant coaching position . . . .
an assistant coach. Or even the head coach. Instead they put him here he could inflict the most damage and left him there.
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Love your writing style, Brian!
Hire coach Don Brown for both football/basketball.
Also, yes, we need some recruiting help.
I thought player development of the backcourt was outstanding while he was here. I would be surprised if he wasn't considered for the next head coaching vacancy at Michigan.
though. I don't think Walton has the command of Morris or Burke and MAAR really hasn't improved as a passer. That might be unfair, but a new voice and set of eyes might really help the program.
God speed Mr. Jordan.
Hire someone who can scout and recurit worth a shit.
excuse when our BB program doesn't perform. To insinuate that successful programs are dirty is an insult to the B1G.
Can we be honest and accept the fact that JB is not an outstanding recruiter and is clueless regarding defense? He has had his hayday because he was forced to hire new asistants and got lucky with a couple recruits. Since then the program is on a downward trend and will continue to be so while he is our coach.
I don't care about the recruit clean argument. (I want us to recruit clean, but I don't know enough about dirty recruiting to make a judgment about how other programs do it.)
However your "Since then the program is on a downward trend" is a bunch of bunk. It's been three years since the championship game and two since a B1G title / Elite 8. Since then it's been one bad season and one so-so season. How old are you? Because that's not any time at all considering the spiral of futility that UM basketball was in for over a decade before Beilein got here.
I would ask if you can be honest and accept the fact that John Beilein is going to be the coach of Michigan basketball for the foreseeable future because of the success he's brought to the program, stop whining, and root for the team?
He's not old enough to remember the "Before Time" when Tommy Ammaker was a good idea. Hell, I remember having an irrational love of Avery Queen.
...and remembers the time before TA and BE when we were pretty darn good, considered elite
The TA years have nothing to do with JB. It is a barometer of nothing. We're 10 years past that. We should expect better that what we currently have.
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If that's true, you'll remember that Frieder won a couple of B1G championships but kept getting upset in the tourney. And Fisher didn't win any B1G championships, but got to the Final Four three times. Beilein has done both in the past three years. But "we should expect better than what we currently have"? Huh? THIS MAKES NO SENSE. (I mean maybe it does in a narrow, "we all want to be better every year" and "I sure hope we improve on the past two fairly lacklustre seasons" but as a broad indictment of Beilein's record of success, it's just plain silly.)
...much like TA years are a barometer of nothing, so were the BE, SF and BF years. They have nothing to do with what we have now.
Too many people, like yourself, look backwards in our program and say things like "look how bad we were, we should be happy with what we have" or "we are historically an above average program, so we should be happy that we are hitting par".
We should take a look at ourselves now and ask ourselves: "how good can we be going forward?" There is NOTHING that is holding us back from being better than what we are now. JB needs to be better in a lot ways. He's paid like an elite coach, we better damn well start coaching like one.
Don't tell me about our past - it does not determine our future.
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What are you going on about? You were the one who brought up the past, not me. If I do compare Beilein to past UM basketball coaches, he comes out pretty favorably though. Of course we all want the team to get better than it has been since that Elite 8 in 2014, but unlike a lot of Beilein haters, I put my trust in him to make it right. He's earned that from fans. If it's a question of how much leash we are willing to let him have to make it right, I've always said it would be 2 bad seasons in a row, and then he's on the hotseat. The problem that I have with all of you is that I wouldn't consider this past season "bad". Disappointing? Absolutely. But not bad.
... Then you jumped in trying to compare JB to Frieder and fisher. Which doesn't mean much when defining who we are today and who we should be going forward.
I'm not a JB hater. I've never said a bad word about him, except for thinking that he is not an elite coach. I've also been clear that I don't want him fired - he's earned the right to leave on his own terms. I still think that. But I also think that his best days are behind him (I mean his age doesn't help), in that we won't get much better than what you saw last year. His recruiting is meh and I'm not too optimistic about our future under his watch. I'm happy to be proven wrong.
Oh yeah, I definitely think last year was a bad season. We made it into the tourney which is nice, but man we looked like ass all season except for a handful of games. Even when we had both Caris and Spike.
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The past two years, U-M is 6-22 against top-50 opponents. Of course we're on a downward trajectory. Sure, things were great three years ago, but what's gone on the past two years (in part because of injuries, granted) is such a departure that it's obviously worrisome.
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I would tend to agree with you, but I think that a lot of the anti-Beilein sentiment around here goes beyond "being critical" into willful blindness and unsubstantiated whining. I would put in the latter category this poster's arguments that "Beilein got lucky" and Beilein's "hayday" (sic) was because of the new assistants. That's pure nonsense, not valid criticism, and not worth defending in my opinion.
but I can't be wrong, so the answer is no to your invitation to accept your view.
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Wisconsin's been to like 20 straight NCAA tournaments. They must be cheating
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LaVall Jordan isn't a candidate for the head job here...not yet. Unless he lights the world on fire I'd like for the next coach to stress 1) defense and 2) recruiting
One never knows.... tim izzo was heathcotes assistant, and its been shown that the pupil was greater than the master there.
What the disrespekt. His name is spelled "Healthcoat."
I think there's a yo-yo effect with what fans want from their coaches. If one coach gets fired, they want the next coach to be a totally different kind of guy, even if the last guy's shortcomings have little to do with all of that stuff. If an NFL team hires a low-profile defensive coordinator and he fails, it seems like the next hire is often a high-profile, offensive-minded former head coach. And vice versa.
But a lot of times that seems silly. Holding wins and program cleanliness constant, I'd much rather watch an offense-oriented team of overachievers (based on recruiting rankings) than a defense-oriented team of underachievers.
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Hope he comes up with a better defensive answer than Rich Rod did with GERG.
Rob Jeter played for Bo Ryan at Platteville and coached under him at three stops before taking over for Bruce Pearl at Milwaukee. He made the tournament twice in a fairly difficult one-bid league, especially considering that Butler, with Stevens, was in it for the majority of his tenure. And it appears his firing was pretty controversial .
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Yeah, the other hire can't be a whatever it has to be recruiting. I don't believe getting someone good at recruiting means we can't have a clean program. We've turned enough 3 stars into NBA players to have credibility in player development and Michigan has always appealed to talented players. Something *is* wrong with our recruiting based on all the players we have missed out on over the recent years after our tournament run.
Didn't Jalen express some interest in coaching a few years ago? Bet he'd be a great recruiter.
wonder how this impacts him
you don't need to post on the front page, just drop in your thought with the rest of the posters. In addition to bringing us heightened and sophisticated emphasis on the pick and roll, Jordan is/was a great recruiter. This is a wee tad slack.
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