8 — Tuesday, February 13, 2018
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

The architect of Michigan’s new identity

Zavier Simpson had heard 

Iowa guard Jordan Bohannon’s 
name a few too many times that 
week. 

Resting 
against 
the 
wall 

outside the locker room of the 
emptied Carver-Hawkeye Arena 
following Michigan’s 75-68 win 
over Iowa, Simpson made that 
abundantly clear.

“Defense is a pride thing in 

my opinion,” Simpson said with 
a straight stare and a stern tone. 
“I knew Bohannon was good. 
The coaches love Bohannon, 
to the point where it started to 
become annoying. … Bohannon, 
Bohannon, Bohannon.”

At 
the 
16 
minute 
mark, 

he 
heard 
the 
voice 
again: 

“Bohannon.”

At 
the 
18-minute 
mark, 

“Bohannon.”

The 
35 
minute 
mark? 

“Bohannon.”

But defense being a source 

of vehement pride is nothing 
new for Simpson. Teammates 
frequently use the word “dog” as 
their endearing way to describe 
him. That mindset alone has 
often been his path to playing 
time, even when his offensive 
production sputters. He’ll grab 
any opportunity he can get to 
tell you he takes every defensive 
matchup personally, and that 
you should too.

“I felt like it’s a disease,” 

Simpson said, “so it can spread.”

That bird in his ear? The one 

that drove Simpson to near 
insanity on a frigid January 
night in rural Iowa? The one 
that compelled him to shut 
down Jordan Bohannon and 
then therapeutically grumble his 
name into submission afterward? 
That was Luke Yaklich.

That disease?
Oh, it’s spread all right. Like 

wildfire.

***
When 
Yaklich 
approached 

Joliet 
West 
High 
athletic 

director Steven Millsaps about 
a collegiate coaching offer in 
2013, Millsaps wasn’t surprised.

“Luke’s such a student of 

the game,” Millsaps said in a 
phone interview last week. “I 
remember clear as day, when 
he was talking to me, we came 
off a pretty good season when 

he came to me and talked to me 
about he got offered to go be at 
Illinois State.

“He was very unsure — 

obviously that’s a big jump.”

Yaklich 
was 
comfortable 

at Joliet West. He had built 
a successful basketball team 
and was thriving as a history 
teacher and content specialist, 
overseeing many of his peers 
on staff and implementing a 
program called “Teach Like a 
Champion.” His family was a 
staple in the Joliet community, 
with 
his 
son 
Griffin 
even 

emerging into a talented young 
basketball player himself. 

“Teaching is a pretty good 

gig,” Millsaps said. “We all 
think we’re going to be in our 
positions the entire time. Then 
opportunity and life takes you 
in other places.”

For Yaklich, life took him to 

Illinois State, a program that 
was 21-33 in conference play 
the three years prior and, more 
pertinent to Yaklich, a middling 
defensive team even in its better 
seasons. Yaklich was a coach 
who ran a man-to-man scheme, 
heading off to a program that 
ran a 2-3 zone. 

“You 
have 
to 
design 
a 

system that best allows your 
players to be successful given 
their 
personal 
strengths 
as 

defensive 
players,” 
Yaklich 

said recently. “You are looking 
at your opponent’s strengths, 
your own player’s strengths and 
sometimes the sum of the parts 
is greater than the whole.”

He took a group of parts at 

Illinois State and undeniably 
made them a greater whole, 
branding a hard-nosed defensive 
identity with a roster that 
seemed hardly conducive for 
such. Last season the Redbirds 
had only one player taller than 
6-foot-9, and he played just 12 
games.

In his four seasons at Illinois 

State, Yaklich led a resurgent 
Redbirds defense, capping off 
his tenure with an adjusted 
defensive efficiency that ranked 
19th in the country last season.

This 
offseason, 
when 

Michigan coach John Beilein 
was left scrambling to fill 
two assistant coach positions 
— 
including 
Billy 
Donlon, 

his 
defensive 
confidant 
— 

he sought assertiveness. He 
wanted a defensive voice that 
could command a gym in one 
moment, and calmly instruct an 
individual player in the next. 

Yaklich 
was 
eager 
and 

qualified to oblige.

And he knew both he and 

Beilein — both former teachers 
— 
shared 
a 
philosophical 

wavelength in that regard.

But Yaklich wasn’t going 

to 
passively 
wait 
out 
the 

exhaustive hiring process. He 
wanted to take matters into his 
own hands. 

“We didn’t know each other,” 

Yaklich said. “So one of the 
things (Beilein) wanted to know, 
he used to always say, ‘Do you 
have that voice? Do you have 
command?’ ”

Yaklich instructed a video 

staff member at Illinois State 
to send him clips from practice 
showing him in action, which 
he then relayed to Beilein. 
Player film is one thing. This 
was coaching film. Beilein’s 
skepticism 
vanished 
shortly 

after. 

“He goes, ‘Is that how you are 

all the time?’ ” Yaklich recalled. 

“It was a great line. I said, ‘Yes, 
Coach. I’m comfortable between 
the 
lines 
and 
comfortable 

teaching.’ … I knew when he 
asked me that question, I said, 
‘Man, if that’s the hangup, I 
think I’ll be able to make a good 
impression there in the first 
couple days.’ ”

***
Yaklich was hired last August, 

along with another Illinois State 
assistant, 
Deandre 
Haynes. 

Yaklich 
instantly 
immersed 

himself in tape from previous 
seasons. By the time the team’s 
media day rolled around, he was 
able to discuss, in length, the 
team’s defensive strengths and 
weaknesses, how he hoped to 
deploy individual players and 
tangible goals for the defense he 
had already begun build.

In practice, his entire focus 

was on the defensive side of 
the ball, allowing Beilein the 
freedom to work with individual 
players.

“(Defense is) all he thinks 

about,” Beilein said on Feb. 2, 
the day before the Wolverines 
played 
Minnesota. 
“That’s 

really good for our coaching 
staff. As a head coach you’ve got 
to think of everything, but when 
I’ve got a guy who doesn’t care 
what we’re doing offensively — 
he does care, but he (doesn’t) 
worry about that — keeps me on 
point toward what we have to 
do. … We do almost everything 
he suggests.”

Just 24 hours later, Yaklich 

would make one his boldest 
suggestions of the season.

The Wolverines trailed the 

Golden Gophers 50-40 with 
11 minutes left, as Minnesota 
guards 
Nate 
Mason 
and 

Isaiah 
Washington 
made 

Crisler Center their personal 
playground. Yaklich implored 
Beilein to unleash a previously 
unused zone. It was a zone 
Beilein 
said 
they 
practiced 

“every other day,” but had yet to 
use. In the heat of the moment, 
with an upset loss staring them 

in the face, Yaklich decided the 
time was right.

Minnesota went over three 

minutes before scoring next, 
allowing a sluggish Michigan 
offense to regain its footing. 
Over the next eight minutes, 
the Wolverines strung together 
a 17-6 run, capturing the lead. 
They finished the game in the 
zone, pulling out a 76-73 win in 
overtime.

“That was Luke Yaklich all 

the way,” Beilein said after the 
game.

Before 
Yaklich 
arrived, 

Michigan had never finished 
higher than 37th in adjusted 
defensive 
efficiency 
in 
the 

Beilein 
era. 
This 
year 
the 

Wolverines are 25th. 

They 
didn’t 
do 
it 
by 

reinventing the wheel, either. 
Yaklich came in wanting to 
rebound at an elite rate and 
contest every shot. 

“You 
can’t 
emphasize 

everything 
defensively, 
you 

have to hang your hat on one or 
two things,” Yaklich said. “You 
have to be able to guard the 
dribble and rebound the first 
shot. I think those two things 
take you a long way in February 
and March.”

Check and check.
Yaklich 
inherited 
a 

historically poor rebounding 
program — and a frontcourt 
with 
plenty 
of 
rebounding 

deficiencies. 
He 
aimed 
to 

have a defensive rebounding 
percentage over 75 percent. The 
team’s 
defensive 
rebounding 

percentage currently sits 13th 
nationally at 78.8 percent. The 
previous best in the Beilein era 
was 2015, when the Wolverines 
finished 49th nationally at 75.6 
percent.

Michigan is also allowing just 

63.7 points per game, the fewest 
the Wolverines have averaged 
since the 2012-2013 national 
runner-up, when the shot clock 
was 35 seconds. 

The 
prudent 
defensive 

adjustment against Minnesota 
was “Luke Yaklich all the 
way.” And maybe this is all 
Luke Yaklich. Maybe this is the 
emergence of a future high-
end head coach. Maybe — just 
maybe 
— 
Beilein 
stumbled 

upon one of the pre-eminent 
defensive minds in the small 
town of Normal, Illinois.

***
Yaklich cracks a wry smile, 

breaking through his even-
keeled demeananor when he 
hears the story about Simpson 
and Bohannon. He can’t help 
himself.

“X is great,” he says, before 

jolting 
back 
into 
character, 

diving 
into 
a 
psychological 

breakdown of his defensive 
mentality. 
Yaklich 
doesn’t 

say 
whether 
the 
Bohannon 

saturation was an intentional 
motivational tactic. He doesn’t 
have to.

“(Simpson) brings it each and 

every night, and I’m glad he 
takes some of those challenges 
from 
the 
coaching 
staff 

personally.”

Simpson 
is 
a 
player 

engineered to play for Yaklich. 
But while there’s a degree 
of predictability in a close 
relationship between the most 
avid 
defensive 
competitor 

and the de facto “defensive 
coordinator,” the rest of the 
team came into the season with 
defensive questions littering the 
roster.

Yaklich’s 
biggest 

accomplishment 
doesn’t 
rest 

in an uber-motivated Simpson, 
but in a team-wide attitude 
shift. Michigan has had elite 
defenders under Beilein — D.J. 
Wilson, Jordan Morgan and 
Zack Novak spring to mind. 

But it’s not simply a rarity for 

a Beilein-led Michigan squad 
to have an elite team defense. 
It has never had an elite team 
defense.

“We 
were 
either 
pretty 

good offensively or bad in both 
(offense and defense),” said 
former 
Michigan 
basketball 

player Anthony Wright in a 
phone interview. Wright played 
under Beilein from 2007-2010.

“Before, Beilein would always 

say, ‘Hey, look, you may have 
a mismatch when we have to 
guard bigger guys, but they’re 
going to have to guard you, too.’ 
That was the mindset.”

That transformation extends 

far beyond some overhaul of 
the previous system or grand 
change in scheme. This has 
been about a renewed emphasis 
and hyperfocus, not exhaustive 
change.

For the players, the attitude 

comes with a dose of direspect 
and 
a 
modicum 
of 
talent 

compensation.

“We may not have the same 

talent offensively as years past,” 
said senior guard Muhammad-
Ali Abdur-Rahkman after a 
58-47 win over Northwestern 
Jan. 29. “But we’re still a good 
team. We’re just playing to 
our strength — we have a lot 
of athletic guys that can play 
defense. So we just play to our 
strength.”

The sky is orange. Water is 

dry. Michigan’s defense is its 
strength.

“Coach Yaklich was really on 

that from the beginning of the 
year, ‘We’ve got to play defense, 
we’re not going to win games 
if we don’t play defense,’ ” said 
freshman guard Jordan Poole. 
“But then the players started 
buying in, saying, ‘All right, he’s 
right, but we’re the ones playing 
out there so we’re the only ones 
that can really make a difference 
about this.’ ”

It made a difference in a 

stifling performance in a 59-52 
win at Texas, in the marquee 
non-conference 
win 
of 
the 

season. It made a difference 
in a 58-47 rockfight against 
Northwestern at home. It made 
a difference in the one-point 
victory over Maryland. It has 
made a difference all season 
on one of the worst offensive 
squads of the Beilein era.

Twenty-seven games in — 20 

wins later — this is no longer a 
mirage. It’s February now. This 
is who the Wolverines are.

“I think we have the right 

personnel, the right mentality 
(defensively). … That’s the way 
we practice, that’s the way we 
play,” said junior center Moritz 
Wagner 
before 
pausing 
to 

consider the peculiarity of what 
he — a team captain and the 
voice of the team — said next.

“It’s kind of our identity.”

KATELYN MULCAHY/Daily

Michigan assistant coach Luke Yaklich has focused entirely on the Wolverines’ defense, and it’s resulted in a drastic improvement from past seasons.

MAX MARCOVITCH

Daily Sports Editor

RYAN MCLOUGHLIN/Daily

Sophomore guard Zavier Simpson’s tough style of play has married well with Yaklich’s defensive vision.

