not yet… 
How many Texas fans do you know? I live here, and I can tell you that there is little confidence in Smart. There are already jokes about Yak being next year’s interim coach.
I didn’t intend to imply that they are directly comparable or on any kind of an equal footing at this point in their careers. I was just listing a couple of names, among several others, whom I would have preferred over Howard. It’s a moot point anyway and I don’t want to harp on the subject.
Winning and producing elite results in athletics always necessitates excellent players. You could make that argument about most of the all time greats in coaching. While I feel some may overestimate his impact, I think it’s clear to many that he’s a uniquely talented young coach. He’s going to continue to get big jobs until he screws up. I’ll be interested to see where his first HC gig will be.
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I think some are way too caught up in how many years of experience someone has as an assistant. Yaklick is in his early 40’s and also was a teacher / coach in high school for a long time. He has tremendous experience working with teen age athletes. Instead we hire a coach who has zero coaching experience working with 18 - 21 year old student athletes. A new title as associate head coach doesn’t make him a better coach. Talent is talent, Yaklich is a talented young coach that recruits and current players spoke very highly of. I don’t think Saddi got much consideration because Yaklich is a better coach who cares if Saddi was an assistant longer it doesn’t make you the better coach. I hope Juwan is successful but I think the program would have been better off with Yaklich in the long run.
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I’m not as critical about the Howard hire, but I agree with some of your points regarding taking a chance on Yaklich. I think that the HS ranks have tremendous coaches, and very few ever get the opportunity that Yak got. It’s not like he wasn’t learning how to coach basketball.
Still, I acknowledge my ignorance on the ins and outs of a big time college program. Yak’s inexperience, particularly on the offensive side of the court, was likely too big a hurdle to overcome.
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Good post. 
He has experience coaching 18-21 year olds
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Winslow and Adebayo both 19 when drafted by the Heats
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Honestly I was thinking that could be a major factor that made him take the Texas job over staying. If his d is lights out and Texas still underachieves, Shaka could get the axe and he’d be in a great spot to slide in.
Except that when the head coach is fired, assistants don’t normally get promoted.
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If Shaka is fired, that means Texas had a bad year. Why would they choose to hire Yaklich to replace him after he coached for one year there and it was a bad enough year to fire a coach.
Texas has a great class coming in and Yaklich has a lot of connections down there. Probably just thinks its a better place to showcase himself for another year in a more prestigious role (he wasn’t the No. 1 assistant here and wasn’t going to be) to hopefully land a HC gig somewhere next year.
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Yeah Yaklich doesn’t have much of a chance at the Texas job, for that reason and the reasons he didn’t get the Michigan job. One reason to go to Shaka is that obviously Yak doesn’t think Shaka is a bad coach like some here do. And he also would probably like to be able to do things besides coaching defense. Since Shaka is proven to be able to put good defenses out there, they can share that responsibility and he can get into the offensive side. If you follow Yak on Twitter he’s a basketball geek. His likes are filled with offensive sets, defensive strategy, and coaching principles. He doesn’t want to be a one trick pony, and he knows he can’t be
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Plus, if Shaka doesn’t work out the call from the UT faithful is going to be for a MUCH bigger name than Yak and the folks in Austin seem to not have an issue throwing their money around.
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They could try for Chris Beard in a year. Offer him $6M/year. pay his $6M buyout and Shaka’s $10M buyout.
Comes out to about $10M a year, about the same as the entire football coaching staff.
Big names aren’t easy to get, nor will Shaka be easy to cut loose.
Agreed, but it does happen. Depends on if he really becomes a hot name and the type of impact he has while there. If I was him it would have crossed my mind amongst the many reasons to want to make a move. Also another scenario involving getting the gig. They have large success the next two years , Shaka moves on and your in a great spot as a major factor that got the program winning.
It sounds like getting the ``Assistant Head Coach’’ title was important to Yak. They were willing to give it and we weren’t, from what I read.
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From my reading of the BQ article, it seems like he just preferred leaving and working with Shaka.
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It basically only happens when the coach is fired midseason and someone’s got to be the interim coach. Otherwise, you’re promoting a member of the staff that just did badly enough to get the head man fired.
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I spent some time this morning reading the Phil Martelli biography. I had read the comments posted elsewhere on here from the St. Joes AD mentioning the things she had seen both on and off the floor from Phil, and it gave me pause. I’ve now read the interview Mike Sielski did with AD Bodensteiner and read more of what she said. The fears I had that perhaps Coach Martelli had done something wrong have now been allayed. She had good things to say about his storied history at St. Joes, too.
The outpouring of support and concern for Coach Martelli after his firing touched my heart. It seems he was beloved in the Philadelphia area and in the coaching profession. He received thousands of letters, phone calls, emails and texts of support days after that firing in March. Billboards were erected thanking Coach Phil.
Coach Martelli’s teams won 58% of their games during his tenure at St. Joes. His teams made seven NCAA appearances including a Sweet Sixteen where they came a jumpshot away from making the Final Four. His teams also played in six NIT Championships including winning that championship in 1996.
In 2004 Martelli was the consensus National Coach of the Year. He did as much in the community as he did on the basketball floor. Phil has been described as an old time hustler who’ll beat you in a game of one on one and take your last dollar, but when he discovers that you need that dollar to put food on the table he’ll literally give you the shirt off his back. He is a good man. Read his book, “Don’t Call Me Coach: A Lesson Plan for Life” to learn how important coaching is to him, and how it informs his very way of life. SJU students often talked about their beloved basketball coach saying, “In Martelli We TRUST!”
Not only has Coach Martelli been an important voice and force in Philadelphia and on the east coast, beloved by St. Joes students and members of the Philly community alike, not only can the man COACH, but he has also given back to the game he loves so much, the game that is his life. He has been President of the Board of Directors of the National Association of Basketball Coaches, and like Coach B, he has been a member of the NCAA Division I Basketball Ethics Coalition.
Now I don’t want to jump the gun. I don’t want to get too excited at the prospect of Coach Martelli sitting on Michigan’s bench as an assistant to Coach Howard. I’m sure there are more details to be worked out. But if it happens, if Phil Martelli comes on board, if Juwan Howard and Phil Martelli determine that they can work well together, for Michigan, if it happens, if Coach Phil Martelli is hired to be an Assistant Basketball Coach at Michigan, I will certainly be pleased by that. I think it would be a great hire.
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