A Luke Yaklich Story
March 26th, 2018 at 10:48 PM ^
March 26th, 2018 at 10:58 PM ^
March 27th, 2018 at 10:43 AM ^
unless we get 2 more wins. Then I'll be ok with it.
March 27th, 2018 at 12:10 PM ^
who is the "unsung hero" of the team? Damn, he gets a lot of OP attention!
I agree - pay him and he will stay. 2 years from now he may get poached by a mid-market school. I don't think a P5 scholl would take him without any HC experience.
March 26th, 2018 at 10:59 PM ^
March 26th, 2018 at 11:02 PM ^
I don't think he'd leave, but I do think some schools will give him a call this offseason.
March 26th, 2018 at 11:20 PM ^
Some will call, but after a couple of years of success at Michigan, a much better list will call.
In the meantime, pay the man more than the current list can pay him.
Don't take any chances.
He and Z have some work to do next year.
March 26th, 2018 at 11:49 PM ^
he'll definitely have suitors but not high enough up to make leaving worth it yet. Especially assuming Warde triples his pay like he should.
March 27th, 2018 at 12:06 AM ^
Besides some minor head coaching jobs, it wouldn't shock me if another major school tried to poach him as a lead assistant. I doubt he'd go for it though.
Would not be worth it. Not at this point.
March 26th, 2018 at 11:01 PM ^
March 26th, 2018 at 11:02 PM ^
My guess is that it might be more common in basketball than football, hockey, or baseball. Just a guess.
March 26th, 2018 at 11:09 PM ^
Per his U-M bio, he played at the high school level but was a manager/student assistant at Illinois State.
I think a lot of managers do go on to coach at the high school level as they've got a nice set of contacts to put on their résumé.
March 27th, 2018 at 12:16 AM ^
to being a HS head coach, college assistant or lower level college head coach. Certainly not unheard of for top level college coaches to take this path as well but a little more rare.
March 26th, 2018 at 11:04 PM ^
...for a very long time.
March 26th, 2018 at 11:16 PM ^
throw money at him and keep him around to replace beilein when he retires.
March 26th, 2018 at 11:22 PM ^
Ender from Ender's game (book) is a genious kid at a military training school in space. He's brilliant tactician that finds ways to win by doing things differently. Other commandres in the school try to copy him by watching the same space battles he's watching but have no idea what they are getting out of it.
March 26th, 2018 at 11:30 PM ^
I would gladly buy the man a dozen Home Cut Donuts or maybe he's more of a Chicken 'n' Spice guy.
March 26th, 2018 at 11:58 PM ^
Amy Yaklich is the unsung hero of this story.
Great read.
March 27th, 2018 at 12:38 AM ^
Yak is gone after this season.
He's too smart to just jump at some small school that comes along.
He knows that if he plays it right, he can move into a good situation at a higher level stable program with less risk.
while your family lives in A2 with Michigan able to throw money at you if need be, is a pretty great position to be at. Especially while you train and learn under one of the best. hard to see him leaving before we get three or 4 years out of him.
March 27th, 2018 at 12:43 AM ^
March 27th, 2018 at 12:46 AM ^
Interesting article. The hire certainly seems to be paying off so far this tournament run
Speaking from experience, I was the student/manager for my high school. You learn a lot sitting next to the coaches and get a good feel of what they are trying to do. After high school, the Varsity coach made me the head of scouting. I went all over the place for 2 years writing up scouting reports on our next opponents and having conversations with the head varsity coach.
After doing that for a few years he was able to get me a good coaching gig at the sub varsity level. So it is common for those of us not good at playing basketball to be involved in other aspects of the game.
Luke Yaklich > Luke Skywalker
Thx for posting.
My impression after reading it though isn't that Yaklich will jump from his job as defensive coordinator as Beilein assitstant to becoming a head coach somewhere else. It is one of sustaining what this team has accomplished. After all, it takes certain personnel to adapt to the kind of coaching that enables a team to transform its identity, and in this case, the transformation was hardly overnight. It had to be driven by winning.
It came through learning by doing, trial and error experience. It began with the emergence of Zavier's emergence as the team's leader on the floor who could command the offense and spearhead the defense, because that wasn't happening consistently as the the season progressed toward conference play.
For me, the turning point of the season, regardless of record, and defense adaptability, was beating UCLA at home after trailing by 15.
There were still ups and downs, understanding how to win by playing shutdown defense when your shooting eye is off and your opponent is making a concerted effort running you off the three-point line. As the guys now say, after Saturday's win, defense is our staple. And it is, because defense is about application of principles grounded iby pride through hustle and effort, and knowing that in this game, defense always leads to points and better shots in transition, and winning, no matter what else isn't working.
Because when everybody does their job on defense doing more leads to needing to say less about it. It just happens.
March 27th, 2018 at 10:10 AM ^
I don't understand the people who are predicting that Yaklich would just leave after this season really, and I've talked to a couple so far this week. It seems fare more likely he build on this and have a longer stint at Michigan under Beilein on his resume before he considered offers, mainly because doing so means a better tier of offers, IMHO. At least, it seems like that's what a fair number of assistants elsewhere have done.
Great read, BTW. Thanks for sharing.
If his defensive success continues, what's the potential of Yaklich staying with UM and becoming Beilein's replacement once he is ready to retire?
March 27th, 2018 at 10:34 AM ^
March 27th, 2018 at 10:45 AM ^
Coach B is just awesome in how he operates. He is such a film freak that he even requested film on how his potential coaching hire actually coaches. I wonder how many other coaches out there look for this before making a hire.
March 27th, 2018 at 10:59 AM ^
I say we pay him, naturally, but we also have a similar type of fan section as we did for Evan Smotrycz. Only THIS time: Yakwiches. That's right. Yaks. Between bread.
Make it happen, Maize Rage.
March 27th, 2018 at 12:48 PM ^