Kiefer Haffey looks to take Detroit Mercy women’s hoops to next level: ‘We want more’

Detroit ― The last several times Detroit Mercy went looking for a new head women’s basketball coach, school officials were seeking a culture changer to oversee yet another rebuild.

This time was much different. The foundation had been laid by the work of Kate Achter and her staff, so when she left for Western Michigan last month, Detroit Mercy went through a national search ― but settled on continuity.

That led to the promotion of Kiefer Haffey to the head-coach’s office in Calihan Hall. Haffey, who at 31 is one of the youngest head coaches in Division I, was on Achter’s staff all three seasons with the Titans and he was an overwhelmingly popular pick among the players to succeed Achter.

“I’m excited that it’s not taking over a position somewhere where I’m trying to learn the lay of the land,” Haffey, in a gray Titans sweatshirt and a backward baseball cap, said the other day on campus. “You know, both with the roster, with the staff, with the university itself, with the people ― we get to pick it up and keep it moving.

“We have some consistency and some continuity moving forward. In my perspective of college basketball at every level, the teams who compete to win championships have consistency and continuity, right?

“We know what we’ve got and now we get to identify what we feel is the right way to do it to take it to the next level.”

In the five years before Achter arrived as head coach, Detroit Mercy women’s basketball had won just 11 games. The Titans won five in her first season, then went 17-16 in her second and 15-15 this past season, her third. She was a hot commodity in coaching searches after every season at Detroit Mercy, and finally was wooed away by Western Michigan, with a higher salary ($275,000) and pledges of more resources, including in the NIL landscape.

Detroit Mercy conducted a national search for her replacement, using the same firm that helped them land men’s head coach Mark Montgomery a year ago. There were 50 initial candidates, cut down to 10, then four, then two.

Haffey was a strong candidate from the get-go, as athletic director Robert Vowels learned in his first meeting with the players following Achter’s departure.

“Kiefer was always in that max,” Vowels said. “And what was important for us, he had been here through the start of the rebuild, and we knew that this wasn’t going to be a rebuild.

“He has everything we’re looking for.”

That “everything” started with his connections, particularly locally. He’s spent his entire life in Michigan, growing up in Novi, where he first got the bug to coach ― and debuted as an assistant coach for a youth parks-and-rec team at 14 or 15, as part of volunteer curriculum when he was attending Detroit Catholic Central. The team lost every game. but that didn’t discourage him. The next year, he had his own team, a fifth-grade church “B” team.

The journey continued, through high school and college (he graduated from Novi, then earned a bachelor’s at Wayne State). On the AAU circuit, he helped coach the Michigan Storm. At Wayne State, he was a student manager.

After graduating from Wayne State, though, Haffey didn’t have any imminent basketball opportunities, despite “having bugged as many people as I could.” So he went to work for Meritor, an automotive logistics company based in Troy. He was good at it. He made really good money. They offered to promote him. He told them not to. He knew the job wasn’t for him, it wasn’t his passion, it wasn’t basketball.

“I hated it,” Haffey said, who also has a master’s from Michigan. “For some reason, they thought I was really good at it.”

Haffey got connected with Thad Sankey, then the head women’s coach at Concordia University, an NAIA school in Ann Arbor, and gave Haffey a spot on the staff. It paid a $1,000 stipend, a “salary” Haffey was able to work with thanks to the support of his parents, with whom he was able to live. The leap of faith paid off, and not that far down the road. In 2018, Sankey took a job as head coach at Jamestown University in his home state of Nebraska, and Haffey, then 24, was promoted to head coach (which paid a little over $40,000).

Concordia was 8-23 in his first season, progressing to 19-12 in his last, before taking the job at Detroit Mercy. He was 61-58 in his four seasons as a head coach.

At Detroit Mercy, he proved key to Achter’s recruiting efforts. He had the relationships on the youth circuit, and he also proved quite good at building relationships with the players, pre- and post-commitment. As he said, “If we don’t win the relationship part of recruiting, shame on us.”

“He builds a personal connection off the court, and it just translates onto the court,” said guard Aaliyah McQueen, who will be returning for a sixth year of college ball. “(He’s good at) recognizing how everyone plays and how everyone is, in their own different way, and adjusting to that, coaching us to where it makes each person better individually.

“I think that’s really good for us, coming into this next season.

“It’s a positive outlook for us.”

Said Achter, on Haffey: “He’s well-liked with the players. He has a good rapport with the kids.”

McQueen, a Grand Blanc native who averaged 13.5 points and 7.3 rebounds last season, will be the leading scorer and rebounder returning for the Titans, but Haffey worked fast to secure commitments from the active roster. Eight players are set to return from last season’s team, including sophomore guard Makayla Jackson, who averaged 8.7 points and was contemplating making the move to Western Michigan with Achter.

Also back are junior guard Myonna Hooper (West Bloomfield), who started 17 games last season; graduate-student forward Jasmine Edwards (Westland), who started 25 games; and senior guard Katie Burton, who started nine games. He’s kept the commitment of freshman forward recruit Cameron McMaster, from Canada, and added a commitment from freshman guard/forward recruit Rayven McQueen, Aaliyah’s sister. They will play together for the first time.

Haffey also is keeping much of the coaching staff in place, including assistants Juanita Cochran and Antonio Capaldi, and adding Kevin Mondro, a longtime staple in the Metro Detroit hoops community who has had long stints on staff at Eastern Michigan and Detroit Mercy. Most recently, he was head coach at Cleary University, an NAIA school in Howell.

Walking through the coach’s corridor on the upper level of Calihan Hall, not a whole lot seems to have changed ― except, of course, Haffey is in the bigger office, across the hall ― and that’s by design. The program, unlike four years ago, is in a good place, even if there always will be obstacles, including outdated facilities and a lack of NIL resources. Achter barely had $10,000 to work with on that front. Haffey should have more to work with, through additional buy games and designating a couple of back-end scholarships toward that fund, but it’s still Detroit Mercy, a program that hasn’t been to the NCAA Tournament since 1997. Haffey and Co. aren’t selling history, though recent history ain’t bad.

“We are all obsessed with the game of basketball,” said Haffey, who lives in Plymouth with wife Eliza, a dietician at the University of Michigan. “And the fun part is when kids say ‘yes’ to that.

“Like, 15-15, four years ago that probably would’ve been great, right? But for us, it’s just enough. It’s just not enough.

“We want more, and I think we always will.”

Haffey signed a four-year contract as head coach, with a salary believed to be worth at least $200,000 a year. Detroit Mercy is a private institution and, thus, doesn’t have to disclose contract terms.

Division 1 women’s basketball coaches in Michigan

➤ Michigan: Kim Barnes-Arico, hired in 2012

➤ Michigan State: Robyn Fralick, 2023

➤ Central Michigan: Kristin Haynie, 2023

➤ Eastern Michigan: Sahar Nusseibeh, 2024

➤ Western Michigan: Kate Achter, 2025

➤ Detroit Mercy: Kiefer Haffey, 2025

➤ Oakland: Keisha Newell, 2025

tpaul@detroitnews.com

@tonypaul1984