Lavin Still Dancing

Steve Lavin has done it again and you know what I am not the least bit surprised. Lavin has always been a good coach, case and point his days with UCLA but now he has injected life into a St. Johns program that had fallen on hard times.

Lavin's first head coaching gig was with UCLA, a program that has unrealistic expectations for their teams because of John Wooden. Despite Lavin's impressive tenure as coach it was just never enough and he was fired after seven successful seasons. Just how successful was Lavin's tenure? In his first season with the Bruins he coached them to a record of 24-8 and a birth in the Elite Eight. He was one of only two coaches, the other being Mike Krzyzewski that led his team to five Sweet 16's in six years. Also Lavin had six consecutive 20 wins seasons, his final season was the only time they failed to post 20 wins or make the NCAA tournament. Despite that Lavin still finished with a record of 145-78

So what gives? Well a lot actually when your coaching in Westwood. In his final season the Bruins went 10-19 and Lavin was fired immediately. A coach that had taken his team to five Sweet 16's and posted six consecutive 20 win seasons was canned just like that. That UCLA team was not good looking back at it.

Jason Kapono was their star, when Jason Kapono is your go to guy you should probably call it quits right there. Kapono was a decent college player who had a smooth jump shot but he did not make his teammates better. Kapono led them that season with 16.8 points per game but only dished out 2 assists. The 2 assists a game shows that he was not really getting anyone involved besides himself. Second in scoring on that Bruins teams was Dijon Thompson, who averaged 14 points a game and 4.7 rebounds. Thompson was only a sophomore in 2003 and would go on to average 18 points and 7 rebounds his senior season. T.J. Cummings and Ray Young rounded out the top four scorers for that Bruins team and to be honest with you I could not pick them out of a lineup at this point. From a talent stand point Lavin was not working with much.

Now UCLA fans could read that and say ok well he did not recruit well, if he recruited better than you would not have to rely on Jason Kapono to lead your team. The thing was Lavin was a good recruiter. He recruited Baron Davis, Matt Barnes, Trevor Ariza, Earl Watson, Ryan Hollins, and Dan Gadzuric.

So what was the biggest problem that season? It was their defense. The Bruins allowed 78.6 points per game which ranked 315th that season. They scored 75.2 which was good enough to keep them in games but at the end of the day they had no players that could play defense. Breaking down the players on an individual basis, Dijon Thompson led the team in defensive win shares at 0.7. Defensive win shares is the number of wins a player contributed due to their defense. You compare that to the 2005 UCLA team which lost in the NCAA championship, and they had four players with a dws over 1.7 and had Luc Mbah a Moute with a 3.5. So really Lavin just had a bunch of offensive guys who refused to play defense.

So now here we are, after a good run with UCLA and an excellent seven year run with ESPN Lavin is back. You can not overlook the fact that Lavin was out of coaching for seven seasons. College basketball changed more than ever in those seven years. Back in 2003 the game was powered by Juniors and Seniors, now it is run by Freshmen and fans are more than ever in trenched with recruiting. Everyone now knows who the five star players are and they want their school to get them. From talent to recruiting college basketball did a 360 since Lavin has been gone.

Dwight Hardy has blossomed under Steve Lavin

That makes this run with St. John's magical. In the past three season's the Red Storm went 44-53, in one season with the same players Lavin has them at 16-9. Truly amazing when you see their strength of schedule is ranked 3rd and they are in the Big East. It is a heavy senior laden team with their top six scorers being seniors. Still Lavin has made a guy like Dwight Hardy a go to guy. Hardy averaged 10 points a game last season, this year he is scoring 17. They are 8-5 in the toughest conference in America and have wins over Duke, Uconn, Notre Dame, Georgetown and West Virginia. The Johnnies will be dancing this year as long as they don't stumble down the stretch. With five games left they only play two top 15 teams in Pitt and at Villanova. Their other three are DePaul, USF and Seton Hall. Lavin has made turned this group into winners and brought college basketball back to the big apple. Something many have tried but few have succeeded.