For the second time in three years, head coach John Beilein had to replace two assistants on his staff after they left to take jobs elsewhere.
As a result, Illinois State’s DeAndre Haynes and Luke Yaklich were brought in to replace the departed Jeff Meyer and Billy Donlon, respectively.
Yaklich, who has the reputation of being a defensive guru, actually didn’t know much about Beilein before accepting the job in late July.
“I had never met him,” Yaklich said. “We spoke on the phone and things progressed. After three or four phone calls and two interviews, I was lucky enough to be offered the job, and am incredibly excited to be here.”
Although Yaklich and Beilein (and Haynes) certainly have different views on certain coaching techniques and style, Yaklich explained how Beilein makes sure they all mesh together.
“There’s a lot of different ways to be very good, so the key is to be efficient with our practice time,” he explained. “That’s what’s so great about Coach B — we study the practice beforehand and understand what we need to get better at.
“The conversations we have as a staff involve the best way we can get the most out of not only our players, but also our time. We maximize every second by going over things beforehand.”
One thing that won’t change, though, is Michigan’s “no fouling” defensive mindset that it has always had under Beilein.
“That’s the ultimate mark of a well-disciplined team,” Yaklich said. “You can play great man-to-man defense in the half court by pressuring the ball, but it’s the other four guys who have to be doing their jobs.
“Dribble drives and post entries are what cause the most fouls, so those two things can often be taken away by the other four guys who aren’t pressuring the ball.”
While a low number of fouls is an important statistic that Yaklich keeps a close eye on, he revealed which other defensive statistics he deems important.
“Definitely defensive rebounding percentage,” he said. “That tells me the amount of shots they’re getting and the percentage of rebounds we’re getting — we want to be at 75 percent or better.
“Offensively, some teams try to get 30-35 percent of their misses — that was big at Wichita State, where they’d send four guys to the glass. We’ll see teams like that on our schedule this year.
“Deflections are another great sign of defensive activity. If you’re active and in the gaps defensively, that’s a sign of a team who’s playing hard. A third important stat would be the number of times we’re able to get three stops in a row.”
Michigan had an incredibly hard time guarding opposing three-point shooters during the first half of last season, and Yaklich confirmed that will undoubtedly be an emphasis with this year’s club.
“You have to hang your hat on one or two things, and you hope those one or two things will transpire into consistent game performance,” he explained. “A big thing for us will be contested shots — we charted those at Illinois State, and made sure every shot was contested.
“We want to make opponents miss, rather than just hope they miss. From a defensive standpoint, the hardest thing to do is guard the ball and close out. We practice those two things religiously every day.
“Once you get that toughness built up, you have a connectiveness and synergy on defense where each guy knows what his help responsibility is — our phrase for that is ‘the help never gets beat.’”
Although he sat out last season after transferring in from Kentucky, redshirt sophomore guard Charles Matthews earned a reputation as being a lockdown defender for the Wolverines in practice. Matthews will finally get a chance to show the nation what he can do on the court this winter.
“His physical attributes are what make him such a good defender,” Yaklich explained. “He has great length, a toughness about him, a willingness to learn and he wants to be great. A key part to playing defense is wanting to do it, because of how hard it is.
“Charles has a chance to be a really good on-ball and off-the-ball defender for us. He can also be a great rebounder from the wing position, which is a key phase of closing out an offensive possession.
“His versatility will allow him to guard at least two positions for us, and we will try to get to three. He’ll most likely guard the three and the four positions to start, but we’ll try to expand that once he develops his skills.”
While Matthews is known as a defensive stopper, fifth-year senior forward Duncan Robinson’s defense has been a bit of a liability throughout his career.
However, Yaklich said the veteran has made incredible strides.
“His ability to be in good initial defensive positioning is where Duncan has improved the most,” he said. “Positioning before your man gets the ball is huge. He’s also improved his lateral quickness and stopping his opponent’s first move. Duncan understands his strengths and his opponent’s strengths, and can adjust accordingly.”
The Wolverines have another fifth-year senior on their roster in point guard Jaaron Simmons. However, Simmons spent the first four years of his college career at Ohio University, and is learning Michigan’s system for the first time.
“Jaaron just wants to learn each and every day,” Yaklich said. “He’s inquisitive about how to become a good defender, and he takes constructive criticism very well — he also adjusts on the fly.
“The process of becoming a great defensive team is slow and tedious, and there aren’t any steps that can be skipped. Jaaron is a microcosm of who we want to be — come to practice every day, understand what you don’t know, accept it and grow.”
Michigan begins its 2017-2018 campaign just 16 days from now, on Nov. 11 against North Florida.
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