Michigan Basketball: First thoughts on Juwan Howard’s coaching staff

Michigan basketball has offered Juwan Howard its head coaching position according to sources. A deal is expected, now there is talk of assistant coaches.

While there still has been no official announcement, Warde Manuel has reportedly offered Juwan Howard the Michigan basketball head coaching job.

This is coming from multiple sources. On Tuesday, Five Reasons Sports and The Wolverine both reported that Howard was expected to be the next Michigan basketball coach.

However, on Wednesday morning, there was still no announcement. There were even some rumors circulating that another candidate, most likely Shaka Smart, was still being talked about.

Yet, more reports started coming out that Michigan had indeed offered Howard the job. This is according to both Sam Webb of the Michigan Insider ($) and Nick Baumgardner of the Detroit Free Press.

It sounds like the two sides are negotiating and working out the terms of the agreement. Webb, who has been on top of this story the entire time, reported that Michigan offered Howard a four-year deal, while the industry standard tends to be five. That could be a sticking point.

Yet, there doesn’t seem to be anything that will hold up a deal. Howard’s wife also made things feel official when she put up this tweet:

Now the focus is shifting to who will be on Howard’s staff. The first big question is whether or not Michigan basketball can retain Luke Yaklich, who interviewed for the head coaching job but also with Smart for an assistant job with Texas.

If Yaklich is going to stay, a couple of things probably need to happen. For one, Manuel will need to pay up and make him one of the highest-paid assistants in the country. The other thing is that Howard needs to recruit him. Put on the full-court press as Smart and the Longhorns did.

Otherwise, Yaklich is probably going to leave. But even if Howard does try to keep him, it’s not easy to work for a guy that just beat you out for a job, so I wouldn’t give Yaklich better than a 50/50 chance of returning.

It does sound like Michigan wants Howard to keep some of the current assistants on staff and that’s a good idea. Saddi Washington is a great assistant and keeping him on would be a great transition plus it could aid recruiting.

DeAndre Haynes is another guy I would like to see kept. Jordan Poole gave him a lot of credit and his work with perimeter players would be valuable for Howard, who is known for working with bigs.

Beyond those two, it seems important for Howard to get an assistant coach with head-coaching experience. Beyond recruiting, there are a ton of little things a head coach is responsible for and Juwan will need someone to advise him and guide him through learning all that.

That’s why I can’t see all the assistants coming back. Howard should have the ability to find at least one guy close to him to bring onboard, a trusted elder adviser like John Beilein hired in Cleveland with Bernie Bickerstaff.

The good news is that it feels like an announcement is coming, hopefully by the end of the day. There are some things to tie up but it’s a near certainty now that Howard will be UM’s head coach.