Luke Yaklich: Still Got It
Texas just won their fifth straight game, and third straight Q1 game, on a crazy, improbable 52-51 finish to put themselves on the right side of the bubble. More relevantly, they held their opponents under 60 in all five wins.
They're a kenpom top 25 defense, which is better than their defense last year, despite two remarkable differences:
1) they no longer have Jaxon Hayes who was a top 10 draft pick, and they didn't replace him with anyone of note. They have a genuinely weak roster this year.
2) they turn the ball over like a hot potato. They're 285th in the country, turning it over more than 1/5 of their possessions! It's extremely difficult to play defense when your offense is turning it over like that. They are overall a horrible offense too. 129 in the CBB, one of the worst P5 units.
After what was likely a double transition period - his players to his system and him to the new three point line - Texas has been incredible on defense of late.
Yaklich might have just saved Shaka's job.
Yaklich and Beilein gonna be back together again.
Wouldn't surprise me, but looks like Texas and IU are both tourney bound. Would they fire their head coaches under those scenarios? Probably should cut bait since both teams are pretty bad still, but will be interesting.
What if they ended up at...Minnesota?
I’m not sure. Yaklich probably feels he’s ready for his own gig.
Yeah, at this point he's definitely going to get offers.
Why is he going to be getting offers for sure? His resume is still paper thin and if he gets offers its going to be at places like arkansas pine bluff or lehigh, not power 5 teams.
i'll take the over on that. he's not going to get an offer from a place like IU, but you're telling me someplace like northwestern is too good to give him a shot???
Absolutely yes. The Michigan fanbase on this blog is fucking crazy about Yaklich. Collins was an assistant for 15 years before NW hired him including 13 years under what many consider to be a top 5 coach of all time and part of multiple national titles. Yak has been in college for all of 6 years an assistant with only two of those (now 3) at the power 5 level.
In comparison Lavall Jordan was an assistant coach for 13 years including 9 in the big ten, was the lead assistant for a team that was top offense in college basketball and was the position coach for a parade of guards that vastly outperformed their recruiting rankings and coached on teams that went to the finals and elight eight. After 6 years at Michigan he got a job at Milwaukee before getting a shot at Butler because it was his alma mater. In what world do people think Yak is getting a big ten level job while Jordan wound up at milwaukee?
Yak's track record may be short, but he has specifically been brought in as a defensive mastermind and his teams have presented strong evidence that he lives up to the hype. I get your point about his lack of experience, but disagree that it's a disqualifying factor. I suspect we'll find out who's right in a couple months...
Now if you're trying to say that Northwestern isn't a B1G level job, well you may just have a point there.
You make some good points, but I would argue the answer to “in what world” is THIS world. A world where people with his resume are being thrown offers all the time. A world where Mel Tucker gets a dump truck full of cash for being mediocre. A world where players on the court are potentially making more money than the assistants involved with the team. I don’t think it’s too far fetched to think that Yak might see some offers if seats stay hot or get hotter. Honestly, it wouldn’t be any surprise if Shaka Smart lost his job and Yak was given an interim role that lasted a season or something. Things like this shouldn’t surprise anyone anymore, and it’s a little more crazy that you find it so absurdly impossible than it is crazy to think it could happen. COULD happen.
Yaklich was at Illinois State for four years so he now has SEVEN at the college level.
And the fact he's been at three different spots and has been very successful at each stop is breadth of experience and in some ways that's more meaningful than duration of experience once you cross a certain threshold of duration.
It's more meaningful for a guy to come in and make an impact that is clearly attributable to him at multiple different stops rather than to come and simply ride an already existing wave.
I don't think Yaklich will get a top or even middle tier P5 head job but he is qualified for a shot at a good mid-major or lower level P5, Northwestern certainly being amongst that group.
I do think his ceiling is very high right now even if he's riskier than some candidates. We don't know that he can delegate and recruit, but if he can, hooboy, he's the next Chris Beard.
A lead assistant at two major programs, who is known as a defensive guru, will get head coaching offers. Probably not a high-level program yet, but there will be mid-majors that will be interested in him for sure, and maybe a low P5 program as well.
He wasn't the lead assistant at Michigan, Saadi was which is why Saadi coached the team while Beilein recovered from heart surgery. Its a fun thing people like to ignore that not even Beilein thought he was ready last year. You know who else is proven defensive coach who has impacted everywhere he's gone including Michigan? Billy Donlon. You know where Billy Donlon is coaching? UMKC. I didn't say he wouldn't get any offers, I said he wouldn't get major conference offers. Look at the lower level of the big ten jobs, Pikiell was a head coach for 11 years before Rutgers, we already identified Collins was an assistant for 13 years at Duke, Pat Chambers had 2 years of head coaching experience and 14 years as an assistant, Rick Pitino even had a year of head coaching experience in addition to eight years of being an assistant across multiple power 5 schools and he got a job he didn't deserve because of his last name. Nebraska just hired Hoiberg who was a successful college basketball coach and had NBA experience. Yaklich would have by far the worst resume of any coach in the conference.The closest in comparison would be Pitino who got gifted a job because of his name and has turned out to be exceedingly mediocre.
If he gets offered jobs this year its going to be at mid-level AAC or high level 1 bid league levels like a Vermont job if that guy gets a new job.
Agreed. Yak is ready. Also, you suppose Like might be put out about the timing and communications surrounding Beileins departure?
Don't mess with Texas.
I'm a New Yorker. I WILL mess with Texas. Anyway...
Hey y'all! Here another of "Clarence Boddicker's FaMoUs MoViE FuN fAcTs":
Did you know!?!
...That the film Robocop was actually filmed in Houston, Texas and not Detroit?
Fun fact: "Don't mess with Texas" is actually an anti-litter campaign.
Robocop was filmed in Dallas, not Houston.
Texass can jump up bite my [bleeeeep]
[redacted]
[redacted]
mother [redacted]
Texas is the kindest, warmest, bravest most wonderful state I have ever known.
...and it is safe to drive around C-Bus in the fall with Michigan license plates w/go blue bumper stickers.
While last year was impressive defensively, it was painful to watch a lot of times. I don't know if it was just bad offense, or getting gassed on defense and having it affect the offense. I like the balance we have now. Somehow Juwan has managed to be Top30 in Kenpom offense with atrocious three point shooting, and Top30 in defense with no real lockdown wing defender. I only see 6 other P5 teams that are Top30 in each category (Kansas, Duke, Baylor, MSU, Maryland, Ohio State).
None of that is a shot a Yaklich. Just appreciating the balance we have so far with Juwan & Co.
It wasn't bad offense, it was the pace of the offense.
The crazy thing about this years offense is that it's almost identical in every way to last years offense: 21st in efficiency vs 22nd last year on Torvik. Shooting an identical 34.2% from three which is relatively better this year (130th in D1 vs 179th last year) since the line was moved back and the average got worse.
Still protecting the ball extremely well: 12th this year, 4th last year.
Tactically there are small differences like posting up a bit more and doing isos less and running some different actions off the pick and roll but the overall result has been basically the same as last year.
The only major difference this year from last year? Tempo. Michigan was painfully slow last year at 321st in the country. They're an average paced team this year at 161st.
I think that's why it feels so much less painful. And I think you're appreciating the pace, not necessarily the balance this year since they had better balance last year as top 25 units on both offense and defense.
For all his strengths, Beilein's snail pace was a bit brutal to watch when so many of those possessions ended up with late clock heaves anyway. I do love that this year they're firing it earlier in the shot clock and maintaining a top 25 offense.
But FYI, having a good / better defense only makes your offense better. More turnovers and fewer made shots means more chances to get out and run. It is definitely not a tradeoff all else equal.
I think a difference is performance against good defenses. There really haven't been defenses that have stalled our offense this year, like they did last year. We had games like Texas Tech and MSU where our offense couldn't do a thing. I haven't noticed any of that this year -- it seems like the open shots are always there, but sometimes we just don't hit them. Last year there were a lot of end of shotclock heaves from Poole or late clock isos for Matthews. This year it seems like the "bad" offensive performances are just when Eli/Franz/etc continually brick clean looks. Either way, it's good to see Juwan post a Top30 defense despite facing the #1 adjusted offense strength of schedule. I assumed he'd have a decent defense since he was Spoelstra's "defensive coordinator".
That top 30 defense is adjusted for the quality of offenses faced. So was the #2 defense last year. So to say "despite" facing the #1 adjusted offense SoS isn't really meaningful. It's a top 30 defense after adjusting for that difficulty.
I disagree about performances against good defenses, and the number support that disagreement.
Michigan didn't have a more difficult time generating shots last year against TTU than they did this year against Louisville. The numbers are worse for this years Louisville game than that TTU game despite making more of their three pointers but those two games are pretty equally terrible.
M's three games against MSU last year were all better than expected based on the quality of both offenses and defenses. In each game Michigan scored 0.95 or more points per possession which is good against a defense of that quality and in their first game against MSU last year they scored 1.12 ppp. This year Michigan only scored 0.92 points per possessions in the game at MSU - worst performance in both years despite MSU being a far worse defensive team this year than the were last year.
Two good defenses to shut M down this year: PSU in which Michigan only scored 0.85 ppp and OSU at home when M was under 0.9 ppp. In only two games last year was Michigan held under 0.9 ppp: Holy Cross and at Iowa. Both decidedly bad defenses. So that assumption is definitely not true.
Your perception is likely skewed by the recency and lasting effect of the Texas Tech game and the pain of MSU losses. And perhaps that the pace means Michigan is scoring more points now which makes it seem better but they're not more efficient and they're not doing better against good defenses. It's amazing how similar the offenses have performed.
Maybe you like Teske post up misses early in the shot clock better than late clock Poole pullups. Dunno.
I appreciate the info, and you're showing me a lot of interesting information. I definitely missed the fact that the Adjusted D is "adjusted" for that offensive SoS.
I totally put that Louisville game out of my mind, but you are right -- that was Texas Tech level horrible to watch. I thought some of that was bc of the short rest and travel after the grind in the Bahamas (and basically tossed it from my mind before it was over). The other factor is Livers being out and how that affects numbers on both ends. I thought the Louisville game and this most recent OSU games were the worst offensive games we've had with Livers in the lineup. I also wish we could know what last year's coaches would've done with this year's players, and vice versa. By what this year's team has done, it seems like last year's should've been better. The tradeoff was basically three NBA/GLeague level players for Franz Wagner. Or even what this year's team would look like with Livers all season. It's far and above what I hoped for from Howard, especially when you couple it with the recruiting.
As for early Teske post ups -- I think that's just Juwan being an old school post player and subscribing to an old school belief that you get your big man a touch right away to get him involved in the game, and possibly put a quick foul on the opposing big. Definitely outdated, but I can live with it bc Teske is obviously a guy who can elevate the team if he plays like he did in Atlantis. At least Teske shooting early is something you're trying to do, whereas Poole pulling up late is something you were forced to do. Juwan is getting the shot he wants, it's just not working bc his 7 footer got his wires crossed somewhere along the line.
Yeah, Livers being out almost certainly makes this year's offensive numbers worse than they otherwise would have been.
I'm mostly pointing out that last year wasn't nearly as bad as it feels like it was because that TTU game lingered all off-season and it was a slower paced unit.One thing I love about this year's offense compared to last year's: the players seem to share the ball better and understand their roles better so you get better passing and more free-flowing offense.
Last year Michigan had two ball-stopping players (maybe even all three if you put Matthews in this category) and their teammates didn't love that aspect of their games. Even though they were talented, that caused problems. This years offense is much better team basketball.
It was not a swap just for Wagner. It was a swap of three G leaguers for Wagner, Jr. Brooks (whose minutes doubled), So. Johns and So. DDJ (who both went from not playing to playing half of M's minutes after getting a year of college under their belts). Johns and DDJ are both top 100 recruits with plenty of talent and should have / did become good players in their sophomore years. Johns and Wagner both have higher ceilings than anyone that left last year.
So I like this year's roster as much or more.
You’re not doing it right. Surely there must be some negative complaint amongst all of the rational discussion points you made.
I mean Smart decided to hire Yaklich so I think he realized he needed to make a drastic change to save his job. I think Yaklich will be ready for his own gig soon and maybe he will make his way back to Michigan someday.
I would yak massive quantities if Yak ends up at the landfill to replace the imp when he finally leaves/gets indicted.
I don't think you'll be yakking too much, because Yak is a hundred years from sniffing an MSU offer. Unless all of the proven coaches that want a step up blow off MSU, Yak won't even get an interview. He's too green (no pun intended) - hasn't even coached his own team, yet, on any level! No way in hell he steps right into MSU...
Whaaat?...
What's funny is yesterday it dawned on me to look at Texas' results to see if Yaklich was making the same impact he made at Michigan with no Matthews and Simpson on the team. They had a couple of games where they got their asses kicked but they do have a lot of games where they are holding teams under 60. I have to assume some team out there will hire him soon.
Juwan is the man for Michigan-any statements or insinuations to the contrary are misguided.
Who?
Shaka Smart is a mediocre-at-best power conference head coach. His shine faded very quickly. Same goes with Archie Miller, who I personally in 2017 after that horrific OSU home loss thought should be considered to succeed JB.
Coaches with mid-major success are always a crapshoot. I'm not sure Texas fans wouldn't trade Smart to have Barnes back, even though he greatly underachieved given the talent he had.
To me a better question might be, is Beilein at the stage in life where's he's ready to do a Martelli and maybe take an "associate HC" role to Yaklich's first HC gig? I can't remember any details on how tight the relationship was between the two, or if it was simply a business arrangement that worked really well.
Actually not a bad idea. But has Beilein ever been an assistant before? To my knowledge, this topic has never been discussed.
Think he'd rather retire than do that esp considering he's never been 2nd fiddle anywhere before
There are few things more annoying than the yaklich fan club on this board. He was a good coach, not the second coming of christ and was in no way ready or qualified to be a head coach of a major program.
Maybe so, and one of the things more annoying than the Yak fan club is definitely you.
We always follow former coaches around here, and what Texas has done in the past 2+ weeks is notable, particularly because they're doing it all with defense. He's doing well as a DC with yet another team. Good to see from a good guy that did remarkable things at Michigan.
Nothing about the post says anything about him as a head coach or his candidacy at Michigan or anywhere else so not sure why you're even going there. Oh, wait I do. Because you're insufferable.
Oh no a personal attack that has no substance, that is so weird and uncommon when an unpopular opinion is brought up. Yaklich gets brought up because people wanted to hire him and people want to prove that was the right opinion. It was and always will be a ridiculous opinion when looking at his resume compared to other major programs head coaches.
Nobody was talking about how Bacari Alexanders coaching career was going before his personal problems, not a lot of posts on this board about Lavall Jordan and Butler, and I must have missed the post on Deandre Haynes and his work getting MD basketball to the top of the conference and Anthony Cowan on Wooden award lists.
My personal attack has much more substance than your attack of the Yaklich fan club which is made of persons on this site, and is hence personal. You called us annoying, and I'm calling you annoying. Yes, I'm a fan of a guy that did great things at Michigan and I root for him.
I haven't seen a Yak mention in months but a five game winning streak to likely punch a ticket to the dance in which the defense gave up less than 60 points in each game is mention-worthy. If that's annoying to you, well, can't help you there.
And yes, your insufferably negative posts in which you call positive segments of the fanbase annoying, make you insufferable. That might be a me problem but when the majority of the site feels the same way, it again might be a you problem.
There have been lots of posts on Lavall and Butler since he left. Same with Bacari.
As for Haynes, the posts are proportional to their impact at Michigan. Yak was the defensive coordinator. He was directly in charge of half of Michigan's on-court performance. It's like talking about OCs and DCs after they leave compared to position coaches in football. Of course we talk about Pep and Jedd and Drevno after they've left more than we talk about random position coaches.
What are you even trying to give Haynes credit for? Cowan is shooting worse from every level than his sophomore year, he's getting steals at a lower rate, he's getting rebounds at a lower rate. He's been essentially the same player for three years. Being on a Wooden award list has more to do with whomever else might have been on that list and the team's "success" which, about that:
Maryland was the 26th best team in Torvik last year, they're 28th this year. They were 13-7 in the big ten last year they're 13-6 so far this year. Are they even a better team? The fact they're in position to share a conference title is simply that Michigan and MSU fell back to the pack this year. Maryland is the same team they've always been, right down to the late season collapse.
Why is it so deeply annoying?
I miss him
Shaka's ridiculous contract and $10M buyout are the only reason he still has a job.
Here are 2 good interviews with Yak discussing his philosophy.
Still at Michigan
Now at Texas
I won't ever understand the reverence some folks on this blog have for Yaklich. The fact that some people were advocating for him over Juwan during the search is insanity to me.
Well yes, that was outright bonkers. But the fact that a few lost perspective there so grossly hardly means we shouldn't celebrate the man as a very noteworthy assistant on the rise. It doesn't seem implausible to me that he could very well find an interesting HC job in the very near future.
Major respect for Yak and I think he's an excellent coach that I would have liked to keep. That being said, it seemed like the ultimatum was that he was going to be head coach or he was going to leave Michigan, but he was not going to stay as an assistant. If those were my choices, I think I'd still pick Howard. Defense is nice, but Beilein was the brains behind the offense and I can see how badly Michigan could fall with lackluster recruiting and no offense. I'll take a solid offense and crazy recruiting over a top defense with no talent any day
I think Yaklich is a good defensive coach but Texas's 5-game winning streak came against the nation's 127th, 174th, 71st, 49th, and 69th offenses. For comparison's purposes, Michigan has played the nation's 14th, 36th, 51st, 61st, and 72nd offenses the past 5 games. Texas has improved somewhat this year, but the Big 12 is also a step behind the Big 10 once you get past Baylor and KU, and given the talent disparity Ut should enjoy versus most other teams in the conference this isn't some shock.
Sigh.
Kenpom numbers are opponent adjusted. So rationalizing the number by talking about an easier or harder schedule is pointless. That's all baked in. Those numbers account for the big 12 being worse (if that's the case of the offenses) and based on those numbers Texas is a better defensive team this year than they were last year (26th last year vs 18th this year).
It's not shocking if you believe Yaklich is a very good defensive coach but many around here thought his success at Michigan was due to Charles Matthews and the players, and make no mistake they deserve a lot of credit. But Yak was the difference between them being good vs them being great.
While it's not shocking, it is very impressive in my opinion. Texas is a much less talented and more inexperienced team than they were last year. Plus, and again, they turn it over an insanely high number of possessions which will tend to depress defensive numbers. And yet, despite all that, they're a really good defensive team, better than they were last year. Truly impressive.