Michigan Basketball: Kenpom rating was off the charts with Luke Yaklich

Reports are flowing in that Michigan basketball assistant coach Luke Yaklich is leaving for Texas. Before he goes let’s look at the insane KenPom numbers he put up with Wolverines.

CBS college basketball Insider Jon Rothstein tweeted out last night that Michigan basketball assistant coach Luke Yaklich will be leaving the team for a position at Texas.

Chris Balas from Rivals ($) is also reporting Yaklich is leaving and he advised assistant coach Saddi Washington will be retained. No official news has been published regarding DeAndre Haynes.

While we wait for the press conference tomorrow for the Wolverines and Athletic Director Warde Manuel to announce the new head coach as Juwan Howard, let’s take a look back at what Luke Yaklich did for Michigan Basketball.

KenPom

According to KenPom‘s advanced analysis of college basketball, Michigan’s adjusted defensive efficiency for the three years prior to Luke’s arrival are as follows: 2013-14/94.0, 2014-15/100.5, 2015-16/100.5. After Yaklich arrived in Ann Arbor, the efficiency rating skyrocketed year after year: 2016-17/99.2, 2017-18/90.5, 2018-19/86.2.

I thought surely Michigan would have had this type of defensive production in the past so I checked the chart and since 2002 the Wolverines have never been below a 90 defensive efficiency rating; in fact, they generally stayed somewhere between 95 and 105.

Raw stats

According to SportsReference, the raw stats backup KenPom’s analysis in that the scoring was rising before coach Yaklich took over and produced record-setting numbers for the maize and blue.

Opposing points-per-game:

2013-14/65.1, 2014-15/64.0, 2015-16/67.4.

2016-17/66.4, 2017-18/63.3, 2018-19/58.3.

The Yaklich File

Few coaches can go anywhere and have such an immediate impact especially with a big-time program like Michigan but Yaklich did it and I’m sure he will do the same in Texas. Before he leaves Michigan basketball, here’s a look at where he came from.

Yaklich began coaching as the head girls’ basketball coach at La Salle-Peru Highs School in 1999 and became the head coach of the boys’ basketball program a year later at Sterling High School. He came back to La Salle-Peru to coach the boys’ team in 2003 and left in 2008 to coach at Joliet West.

In 2013, coach Yaklich was hired by his alma mater Illinois State University where he went from assistant coach to associate head coach after three seasons. While at ISU, he and head coach Dan Muller “set program records for overall victories (28), regular-season wins (25) and conference triumphs (17)” which included ” three postseason berths — the 2015 and 2017 National Invitation Tournament and 2014 College Basketball Invitational.”

Finally, in 2017, Luke made his way to Ann Arbor to change the way the game is played, instituting an entirely new scheme and becoming the man who placed Michigan atop the Big Ten in defense year after year.

Replacement

As reported by Watch Stadium’s Jeff Goodman, Howard Eisley’s name is in the mix for a potential assistant coaching position.

Eisley was High School teammates with Jalen Rose in Detroit and is currently a New York Knicks assistant coach. Prior to the Knicks, Howard was an assistant for the Washington Wizards and Los Angeles Clippers.

There’s also a lot of speculation that since Howard took on such a small contract he might use the extra money the Wolverines saved to bring in analysts just like the major college football programs are doing.

While we don’t know for sure what personnel decisions Juwan will make, rest assured the defense should be just fine under the new head coach who was widely regarded as one best defensive big men in the country in college and acted as the defensive coordinator as the assistant coach at Miami.

However, I don’t expect KenPom numbers below 90 or opposing points-per-game to remain below 60.