Dalis Learned a Lot About Lavin in a Hurry

Regardless of the outcome in UCLA’s game against Iowa State, Athletic Director Peter T. Dalis said Coach Steve Lavin’s team has wildly surpassed his expectations at the beginning of this turmoil-plagued campaign.

“I actually thought it was going to be a very troubled season,” Dalis said Thursday afternoon. “I did.”

When Dalis and Chancellor Charles E. Young fired Jim Harrick and installed Lavin as interim coach two weeks before the first regular-season game--followed by the Bruins’ dropping two of their first three games--Dalis said he could not have imagined a trip to the Sweet 16.

But he said he began noticing a change in the team early in the season, most notably when he watched Lavin interact with the players in the Pauley Pavilion locker room immediately after games.

“What I saw was that Steve was continuing to teach even after the game in the locker room,” Dalis said. “There was a focus on the game, focus on everyone’s effort, good or bad, and I had not seen that before anywhere else in sports.

“It’s an unusual thing to continue to happen well after the game is over--rather than everybody just dressing and showering, they’d wait and listen and Steve would be on the blackboard teaching.

“And I sensed at that point there was increasing focus and attention being paid to the team effort. I guess that’s a tribute to Steve. And that’s when I first started noticing a different attitude, if you will.”

Once the Bruins made the NCAA tournament, did Dalis think they had a chance to go to the Final Four?

“I’m not sure I had those thoughts, but I knew we were getting better and better every week,” Dalis said. “I was pleased with the position Steve had put the team in.

“I sense that the players are closer than they’ve been, similar to the ’95 team. People understand their roles--they’ve melded more as a team.”

Meanwhile, Dalis said he was unhappy with recent comments by former UCLA assistant coach Mark Gottfried, now the head coach at Murray State, who said that Harrick probably would not have been fired if he or former assistant Lorenzo Romar were still on the staff.

The comment was taken by many in the Bruin athletic department to imply that Lavin--purposely or not--did not do his best to assist and protect Harrick.

“I’m disappointed in Mark Gottfried’s comments,” Dalis said, “because he doesn’t have all the information.”

Lavin brushed off the Gottfried comments, saying he had no time to discuss statements by “a coach from Murray State in Kentucky.”

Interestingly, as speculation swirls that UCLA is quietly trying to block Harrick from getting another coaching job, Dalis said he has written an open letter “focusing on his accomplishments at UCLA” for any other athletic director to read.

“I’m trying to help him,” Dalis said. “In our final meeting for the settlement [of Harrick’s contract situation], I told him I’d do anything I could to help him get a job, including writing a letter. Which I’ve done.”