Luke Yaklich fired after four seasons as the head coach at UIC

UIC announced on Monday that head men’s basketball coach Luke Yaklich is out after four seasons at the helm. The Flames went 12-21 this past season and 47-70 overall during Yaklich’s tenure.

“After a thorough evaluation, we determined the time has come for a change,” AD Michael Lipitz said in a statement. “We sincerely thank Luke for his leadership over the past four seasons. He is a man of integrity and is genuinely invested in the wellbeing of his student-athletes. We wish him and his family every future success.”

The UIC program moved from the Horizon League to the Missouri Valley in 2022 and have struggled in their new league, finishing 11th out of 12 in both of the last two seasons. This year’s squad had some momentum early, at one point sitting at 5-2 after just nearly losing the Nassau Championship final in November, but the wheels fell off after that and the Flames would win just four games in the MVC play. They pulled a surprise upset in 2OT over Southern Illinois in their opening MVC Tournament game before losing to Bradley by 27 on Friday.

credit to UIC Athletics for the image