LaVall Jordan

The small, spiral-bound notebooks sit in Michigan basketball assistant coach LaVall Jordan’s home office.

They have traveled with him through three coaching stops and contain recollections of seasons past, reminders of how certain situations were handled and tidbits he heard from coaches.

“Just a collection,” Jordan said. “Something happens and you make a memo and you probably don’t look at it then. But if you’re in a similar situation or doing something that reminds you (of something), you go back and go, ‘Oh, I think I wrote something down.’”

Jordan might jot down notes again Sunday. The 31-year-old has never faced a team full of players he knows intimately — something he’ll do when Michigan (12-9, 2-6 Big Ten) faces Iowa (8-12, 1-7) at 4 p.m. (Big Ten Network). Jordan recruited most of Iowa’s players and coached them for three years.

One notebook is full of research he did when he was hired at Iowa, everything from facility history of other schools in the Big Ten — something coming in handy here as Michigan builds new facilities — to things he discovered about the history of Iowa basketball.

Lickliter was fired at Iowa after last season and Jordan needed a job. An Albion native, he almost landed at Western Michigan. Then Michigan coach John Beilein called.

He interviewed Jordan earlier last summer for the assistant slot he gave to Bacari Alexander. Another spot opened when Mike Jackson left for Purdue. Beilein hired Jordan.

Jordan has taken peeks at Iowa’s performance this year, in part for scouting purposes but also to see how guys like Jarryd Cole, Matt Gatens, Roy Devyn Marble and Cully Payne — players he knew well or recruited extensively — are doing.

“(Just) to see what they are doing now is kind of like an old girlfriend,” Jordan said. “You talk to somebody who talks to somebody who knows what she’s doing just to see if she’s doing OK.”

Jordan has been responsible for grooming guards at Iowa and Michigan, not surprising considering he led Butler as a player to three NCAA tournaments from 1998-2001. As he entered coaching after a brief stint with the Huntsville (Ala.) Flight in the D-League, he took those experiences with him.

He’s young enough where he can relate to current players but has enough experience where they’ll listen beyond the level of coach. There’s a reason both Marble and Gatens called Jordan “a friend” this week instead of just a coach.

Those are the types of relationships he builds along the coaching aspect, like teaching current Michigan point guard Darius Morris about decision making and maturity, Iowa’s Payne about the college game or former Iowa guard Anthony Tucker how to get his shot off cleaner.

There were also times when Iowa didn’t have enough bodies so he’d scrimmage — and Cole said Jordan gave Iowa’s guards, sometimes a decade younger than him, all they could handle.

“It was real easy to bond with him,” Cole said. “… He was always available. You were able to talk to him. He did a lot of things for us. In practice, he would always teach us some things, always emphasized how we could be successful in our own game.”

“He’s definitely helped me ever since his arrival here,” Morris said. “To get me to start thinking and seeing things in a different perspective as a point guard. Just to be a solid leader on and off the court.”

These are all experiences Jordan could scribble down.

As a student, Jordan learned by re-writing notes professors distributed. He continued the practice under Lickliter, who gave his coaches notebooks and told his players and coaches to take notes throughout the season.

His habit intensified after Jordan met legendary college coach Don Meyer, who won 923 games at Hamline, Lipscomb and Northern State before retiring last year, during a scrimmage at Iowa.

“He takes the pages out and puts them in every year and just, he looks back on past seasons, past experiences and saves them all, and it’s just you always try to draw from your past experiences,” Jordan said. “You hear other coaches say some things and draw from experiences, and it hits a cord or you feel something useful so you keep it.

“Who knows when you might use it, but he’s one of the best of all-time. I figured if he’s doing it, it’s probably a good thing to do.”

It isn’t a completely unique thing among coaches.

Beilein has every practice plan he has ever written in files. Marquette coach Buzz Williams takes copious notes about almost everything.

Jordan encourages his players to take notes for educational and basketball purposes. Jordan remembered Lickliter telling his players during Butler’s Sweet 16 run in 2007 he hoped they wrote things down so they’d have those memories.

So the notebooks came with him from Indianapolis to Iowa City and now to Ann Arbor, where the knowledge inside them Jordan figures will help him grow. And help Michigan grow.

“You do the same thing going into any job,” Jordan said. “Any company you take, you do your research on the way in.

“Know what you’re getting into and then you try to see where it’s come from, where it is and where you want it to go.”

At Michigan, he wants it to go one way. Forward. As it does, he’ll write it all down.

Michael Rothstein covers University of Michigan basketball for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at (734) 623-2558, by e-mail at michaelrothstein@annarbor.com or follow along on Twitter @mikerothstein