I don’t disagree with the talking radio head btw, obnoxiousness and all, who let’s not miss is a Spartans homer. If you’re going to hire a guy who’s never coached, never recruited, never fundraised why not go ahead and hire Yaklich who at least knows the program and has recruited for the program. It’s no worse of a gamble than hiring Howard, IMO.
In the bigger picture College basketball coaching searches are going through a fad of experimenting with hiring flashy NBA names regardless of what they’ve proved, if anything, from the sideline. Ewing at GTown, Hardaway at Memphis, Stackhouse at Vandy, and now with Howard at Michigan, the surprise is that it’s Michigan succumbing to this fad. Michigan comes across too grounded and traditionally minded to get caught up in the latest fads.
He has six years of coaching. Six more than say Fred Hoiberg. He’s regarded as a good personality in a lot of settings, which tends to translate to recruiting and fundraising. There’s perfectly logical ground there.
And that said, it will most likely fail. Becuase most hires fail. Longtime assistants mostly fail. Guys who turn around mid-majors mostly fail. Guys who had great runs and great teams on lower levels.
It’s interesting because Michigan’s groundedness seems like an illusion. The recent success has kind of obscured. The last hire was pretty outside the box, and it worked. Before that:
successfulish Mid-major coach who learned from a legend for a decade: Big mess
Longtime assistant who was not good at all his last stop: Large mess
Assistant forced in becuase his boss quit and won a title: very good til it wasn’t
Longtime assistant: Mostly good, built title team he didn’t coach
Unsuccessful UMass coach and short-term assistant: kinda good on balance, I think left before being fired?l
