Could It Be He’s Missing Something?

Everybody else seems to observe Steve Lavin with a different viewpoint than mine. I see a young guy who lucked into a temporary coaching job, in way over his head, who did the best he could. Others see someone whose 13-7 record, with all five starters returning from a 23-8 team, makes him worthy of landing college basketball’s greatest job on a permanent basis.

I don’t get it, but I’ll go along. Lavin has a gee-whiz enthusiasm that makes me root for him. Therefore, if UCLA’s administrators see fit to entrust him with this priceless gem of a program, I will defer to their judgment, same way I did to Jerry West’s when he gave the Laker job to an untrained Pat Riley (who worked out just fine) and to an equally green Randy Pfund (who didn’t).

Explain it to me, though, won’t somebody? What are Lavin’s qualifications again?

Using six regulars from the 1995-96 conference championship team, UCLA lost (at home) to Tulsa, lost to Illinois, lost (big) to Kansas, lost (bigger) to Stanford, lost to Louisville, lost to Oregon and lost (at home) last week to California, for which Lavin was promoted five days later from interim to full-time coach. I am delighted for him, really, but I honestly don’t comprehend.

Nice guy? Yes, he is.

Hard worker? You bet.

Knows basketball? Sure, but which coaches don’t?

Somebody tell me, what would the Bruins have needed to do, up to this point, to keep Steve Lavin from keeping this job? Go 7-13? Lose to Stanford by 68 points, rather than 48? Or possibly lose to Cal State Northridge, Ohio University, Jackson State, St. Louis and Morgan State . . . the five marshmallow nonconference opponents UCLA defeated from November to February.

Here was a UCLA team projected coast-to-coast as one of the nation’s elite, ranked No. 1 by some and top five by most. Yet without injury--while top-ranked Kansas and Kentucky were losing their key players and still going 23-1 and 22-3, respectively--Lavin’s team spent much of this season out of the top 25 rankings altogether.

For this, he’s now the man?

In early November, UCLA is publicly announcing a search for a permanent coach, but by February, a 32-year-old temp with a 13-7 record has proved his superiority to available NCAA Division I coaching candidates who dreamed of coaching UCLA some day, the same way Lavin had?

Actually, even Lavin never dreamed that dream.

He said Tuesday his goal was to be an NCAA head coach, but “I never thought my first job would be at a school like UCLA.”

Well, I suppose if Steve Mariucci can go directly from Cal to the San Francisco 49ers, anything’s possible.

Welcome to the Golden State, land of opportunity.

UCLA’s players were over the shock of Coach Jim Harrick’s departure by mid-December, latest. And was the game really so different without him? Lavin was an assistant to Harrick. He didn’t force Toby Bailey, Cameron Dollar, J.R. Henderson, Kris Johnson, Jelani McCoy and Charles O’Bannon to learn an all-new playbook. They were not babies who couldn’t function without anyone but Jim Harrick in charge.

These were worldly young men, five of whom (all but McCoy) played in the 1995 NCAA championship game.

Whenever I watch UCLA, I watch a team with no set offense. Even the astute point guard, Dollar, pointed this out once. He sees teams like Kansas doing things the Bruins never do. UCLA has no perimeter game. Possessions are impatient and chaotic. Whatever recent success UCLA has had is due to O’Bannon, who is playing the best ball of his life.

I give Lavin credit for several things. He worked his tail off. He maintained order. Either he would get the team’s respect or he wouldn’t, but he didn’t turn into a mouse. He didn’t act like some part-time coach. I am sure UCLA’s administration admired this quality in Lavin, as well as his undeniably winning personality. For this, he earned big points.

Me, I would have waited a little longer, had I already waited this long.

I would have seen how the remaining Arizona, USC, Duke games turned out, see if UCLA blew its NCAA tournament opener to a Northeast Louisiana, a College of Charleston, a Gonzaga, or knocked off a Wake Forest in the regional final and wrapped the net cords around Lavin’s neck.

Too late for that.

As they say in golf, Steve Lavin, you the man. Nothing for me to do now but sit back and hope, same as you do, that UCLA knows what it’s doing.