Jordan will become next coach at Butler
For the third time in three seasons, UW-Milwaukee’s men’s basketball team will be playing for a different coach.
LaVall Jordan, hired a little over 14 months ago to replace the fired Rob Jeter, has agreed to become the next head coach at Butler.
The Butler job opened late last week when Chris Holtmann left for Ohio State. The 38-year-old Jordan immediately jumped to the top of the list of potential candidates to replace Holtmann at Butler because of his ties to the school.
He played guard for the Bulldogs from 1998-2001 and later spent four years on the coaching staff, including three as an assistant from 2004-’07.
“The past 14 months have been some of the most rewarding of my coaching career,” Jordan said in a statement released by UWM late Monday night.
“As our players embraced our staff’s vision for Milwaukee basketball and continued to develop, they took us all on
a special journey. I want to thank (athletic director) Amanda Braun, (chancellor) Mark Mone and the Milwaukee athletic department for giving me that opportunity.
“I also want to say thank you to the players – past and present – that I built great relationships with, along with Panther fans and the Panther community.”
Said Braun: “With LaVall having been at Butler as a player and a coach, we understand his desire to make this move. On behalf of everyone involved with Milwaukee athletics, we wish LaVall, (wife) Destinee and his family a successful transition.
“We will work quickly to identify our next head coach.”
Jordan was hired by Braun and announced as UWM coach on April 7, 2016. He came to the school after spending the previous six seasons as an assistant at of Michigan, and had no previous headcoaching experience.
His hiring came roughly three weeks after the firing of Jeter, which led to the transfer of what would have been the three top returning scorers in the program.
Jordan was left to pick up the pieces with an undersized, inexperienced and undermanned roster that played hard but struggled to an 8-23 overall record in the regularseason. The Panthers also went 4-14 in the Horizon League, which left them last in the 10-team conference.
UWM saved its best basketball for the postseason, however. The Panthers became the first 10th-seeded team to win a game in the Horizon League Tournament by knocking off seventhseeded Detroit in the first round, then went on to upset second-seeded Valparaiso and sixth-seeded Illinois-Chicago to reach the finals.
The Panthers’ improbable run to a fifth NCAA Tournament berth fell one game short, however, as they lost to fourth-seeded Northern Kentucky, 5953, in the championship game. UWM finished the season with a 11-24 overall record.
Jordan was an upbeat and enthusiastic presence throughout the season, and the marked improvement of players such as guard Brock Stull – who went from a seldom-used reserve in 2015-’16 to the Panthers’ leading scorer and rebounder last season – spoke to his player-development skills.
He was coaching at UWM under a five-year contract that paid him $350,000 annually. His buyout will be $700,000, half of the remaining value of the contract.
The timing of Jordan’s departure is tough for UWM, considering the turmoil surrounding the program over the last 15 months. In his short time at the helm, Jordan appeared to be everything the school and team needed to move forward and return to relevance in the Horizon League.
“Even though the time we had together was short, we are proud to have brought in a coach that embodies such character and a great sense of leadership,” Braun said in the statement.
“He has been an integral part of setting the building blocks in place for the success of our program. We are confident we will continue to build on his success and look forward to the future.”
Braun and UWM may choose to use a search firm for her next hire as they did with Jordan. But Jordan’s top assistant, Todd Townsend, is considered to be a rising young star in the coaching ranks who would also provide some much-needed continuity.