BUT CAN HE COACH? : There Will Be No Mercy for Steve Lavin This Season if His Bruins Underachieve in the Tournament Again

Steve Lavin saw him in a hotel lobby. It was summer. They had not spoken in nearly three years.

Where there was once a bond, there was now bitterness. Where there should have been a thread, there was only a bit of broken, unraveling rope.

Lavin saw him waiting for an elevator. He decided enough was enough. He took a deep breath and approached.

“Hey there,” Lavin said, sticking out his hand. After a long pause, Jim Harrick took it.

“How you doin’?” said Harrick.

“Hanging in there,” said Lavin.

“It’s not easy, is it?” said Harrick.

*

Year Four of the Steve Lavin Era begins next week, and one observation sticks out like a piece of gel-free hair.

This young, hip, lineup-juggling, freelance-coaching, black-uniform-pushing guy has been the curator of this town’s most traditional basketball treasure long enough to call it an era?

Swear to Pauley.

Hurriedly pushed to the end of the bench to warm a seat while his bosses found a replacement for Jim Harrick, Lavin has remained in that seat longer than all but two of the six coaches since the departure of John Wooden.

This year he’ll equal Walt Hazzard’s tenure, and his new six-year rollover contract could mean he will eventually surpass Harrick’s eight-year term.

It’s not a joy ride, it’s not an interruption, and--contrary to the wishes of about half the gym on most of the nights--it’s not going to end any time soon.

It’s an era.

But what kind of era?

This is the season when we can finally, fairly figure that out.

Steve Lavin’s honeymoon officially ended on a cold Indianapolis night last March.

He steps back on stage Tuesday with a sink full of dishes, with the dog running loose, with the bills overdue, with reality in the mirror.

This is not a landmark season in terms of job security (he has it), or graduating seniors (there’s only one) or schedule (same as always).

This is a landmark season in terms of the one thing that seems to frustrate Steve Lavin more than any of that.

It’s about perception.

The guy can sell, with a pair of national top-two recruiting classes in his first two off-seasons.

The guy can win the games UCLA is supposed to win, the first coach in school history to win at least 22 in each of his first three seasons. But can the guy coach?

He can win games early with talent, but can he win them late with teaching?

He can work an inner-city living room, but can he work a Maples Pavilion sideline?

He recruits great slam-dunkers, but can he convince them to execute a half-court offense?

There is structure to his hair, but what about his defense?

Can he turn what at times appears to be an NBA farm club into a legitimate national contender?

And can he do it now?

For the sake of this perception, he must do it now.

This is the first year in which his six top players--considered among the six best in the country--were recruited and taught by him. And only one is a freshman.

This is his fourth year with a young coaching staff that has surely grown up by now.

And this is only eight months after the sort of loss that was the beginning of the end for his predecessor.

Last March, first round of the NCAA tournament, a 56-53 defeat against Detroit Mercy.

Emphasis on first round.

The loss, by a fifth-seeded team to a 12th-seeded team, was a dreary monument to underachievement and ill-preparedness.

The Bruins blew a six-point lead in the final 6:21.

The Bruins scored only one basket during a late six-minute stretch.

A bunch of anonymous kids from the Midwest seemingly outsmarted them. (Maybe this is something Lavin and Harrick can discuss at the meeting they agreed to during last summer’s brief encounter.)

Yet, a month after the tournament loss, Lavin was given a new deal that will pay him $578,000 a year on a six-year contract with a clause every season that can keep it at six years.

The new deal, despite the loss, was an example of how, for every great achievement of the Steve Lavin Era, there has been a horrific setback.

Pro: In his first season, he led the Bruins to the Final Eight.

Con: An earlier loss by 48 points to Stanford and Mike Montgomery.

Pro: In his second season, the Bruins advanced to the Sweet 16.

Con: An earlier loss by 36 to Duke and Mike Krzyzewski.

Lavin is a strong disciplinarian off the court, but sometimes he lets players get away with one-on-one murder on the court.

His players can do fabulous things, but often they don’t do fundamental things.

Harrick was right.

For a guy who strives to make everything look easy, Lavin’s tenure has been anything but.

Lavin knows this. He should know it, he hears it every day.

It has not yet aged his clean 35-year-old face, or grayed his trademark slick black hair, or even added weight to his consistently sweat-suited body.

But he hears it. You know he hears it, because he consistently defends himself against it.

Sitting in his cheerful office this week, Lavin leans back on a couch and smiles.

“This has never been smooth sailing,” he says. “There has never not been somebody out there attacking you. That’s OK, I can handle it.

“I can’t have it both ways. I can’t want to be a great school that can attract great player, yet not be willing to accept the constant heat that you feel there.”

In front of him is a coffee table covered in bowls filled with candy bars, to encourage his players to hang out.

Outside the office, laughing and joking with their caps on backward and jeans hanging low, his players are indeed hanging out.

Part of his value to the university is that he recruits mostly good, decent kids.

Another part is that, even amid the storms, he remains a charming public figure, part salesman, part school principal, all smiles.

But can the guy coach?

Lavin, as usual, counters criticisms with statistics.

Can he lead?

Lavin notes, until him, not in 20 years had a Bruin coach led his team to at least 24 victories in consecutive seasons.

Can he run a game from the sideline?

Lavin notes, until him, not since Wooden had a Bruin coach won at least five NCAA tournament games over consecutive seasons.

Can he make great players better?

“I guess if I had a better program, Baron Davis would have been the first or second overall pick instead of the third?” he notes wryly.

You mention late-season losses.

He notes that not once in his three seasons has his team had full use of its center during the spring.

Jelani McCoy was injured his first year, suspended his second year, and Dan Gadzuric was injured in his third.

“Nobody can win those big games without their big men,” he said.

You mention his agreement to incorporate a black uniform last season, a move that miffed longtime Bruin fans, including Wooden.

He notes that it helped recruiting and, besides, “How come Duke and North Carolina and Connecticut all go to a third uniform, and nobody says anything?”

For the record, UCLA has a deal with a different shoe company this year, so the third uniform will no longer be black, but a different type of blue and gold.

Not that Lavin will apologize for trying to relate.

For those who wrongly think he should look like an old coach and act like an old coach--in a basketball era in which old doesn’t sell--he won’t apologize for that either.

“Look at some of the magazine covers this year--they show our kids in those black uniforms,” he says. “Recruits love it. You have to do what gets the kids, as long as you don’t offend people, and we’re not wearing the uniforms at any home games. . . .”

Mention Detroit Mercy, though, and Lavin pauses.

He is smart enough to know there are no answers for that.

He acknowledges that the theme of this year’s team is something that could have helped last year’s freshman-dominated group.

“Our first practice, we talked about maturity,” he says. “We need to grow with maturity. All of us do.”

“I have learned more from my failure than my successes. I will keep learning.”

Fans will buy that.

Anything else?

“I think I’ve also learned about trying to be too dominant,” Lavin says. “I’ve tried to do everything, instead of relying more on my coaches.”

About those coaches, they are great guys and great recruiters, and all could be leading programs soon.

But they are all young like Lavin. Many, myself included, feel Lavin has suffered in big games and long practices from not having a veteran presence at his right elbow.

Showing the type of loyalty that also endears him to his UCLA bosses, Lavin refuses to budge.

“The coaches were here my first year, they were good enough to get us to the Final Eight, yet I was supposed to replace one of them?” he says. “Then the second year, we get to the Sweet 16, so again I’m supposed to fire somebody?”

And so the fourth season of the Steve Lavin Era begins as the others began, a bit combatively, a bit defensively, but with at least 20 wins worth of emotion and energy.

The rest, however, will have to come with coaching.

This is the year we learn.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at his e-mail address: bill.plaschke@latimes.com.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Steve Lavin’s Record

Steve Lavin’s head coaching record at UCLA (* Pac-10 champion):

*--*

YEAR W L POSTSEASON 1998-99 22 9 NCAA first round 1997-98 24 9 NCAA final 16 1996-97 24 8* NCAA final 8 TOTAL 70 26 .729 Win Percentage

*--*

THE REST

UCLA 8

USC 9

TOP 25 10

BIG WEST 11

LONG BEACH 11

FULLERTON 11

IRVINE 11

WEST COAST 12

PEPPERDINE 12

LOYOLA 12

NORTHRIDGE 12

WOMEN 13

USC WOMEN 13

UCLA WOMEN 13

EARLY EXITS CHANGE FACES OF COLLEGE GAME

With more and more players leaving school early for the big money payoff of the NBA, the college game is no longer what it used to be. Well, it isn’t the same very long, anyway. The names are coming and going faster than ever. Page 7