Lavin Makes It Even Madder

Other coaches work in March Madness.

He is March Madness.

Other coaches talk about the Big Dance.

He does the Big Dance.

A fresh breeze fills the air, failure clutters the ground, and here comes Steve Lavin, industrial broom in hand, ready to sweep another inconsistent season under an increasingly lumpy rug.

Mr. Spring Clean.

“The postseason comes and Coach turns into a mini-Gene Keady,” said UCLA senior Rico Hines. “He gets up in your face. He gets a little spittle on his mouth. He gets after it.”

With his team. With the referees. And, more than anything else, with his critics.

They wanted him fired.

He took them to the Elite Eight.

They wanted him canned.

He led them over mighty Michigan.

They wanted him blackballed from collegiate basketball.

He gave them the perfect game against Maryland.

Five seasons, five firing squads, enough March reprieves that we’ve run out of cigarettes.

Just in time for Lavin to show up at Staples Center tonight begging for a couple more.

Welcome--if you can bear to watch--another uncertain UCLA team faced with two imperative postseason games.

Tonight, the Bruins’ Pacific 10 Conference tournament opener against California.

Next week, the Bruins’ NCAA tournament opener against some team undoubtedly loaded for bear.

An embattled coach of an underachieving team backed into the same dark corner we’ve seen in each of the last five springs, with one exception.

This time, there may be only one way out.

It’s no longer a question of whether Lavin can again summon up enough magic in the next seven days to make much of the last four months disappear.

This time, it’s a mandate.

This time, with UCLA on the verge of hiring a new athletic director who might want to hire his own guy, Lavin’s job may depend on it.

Hold your cheering. We’re not talking immediately.

Lavin could lose both first-round games and, still, the only way he leaves this summer is by resigning.

If the guy didn’t quit last year when Pete Dalis was talking to Rick Pitino while the Bruins were losing by 29 points at Cal, he’s not quitting now, and why should he?

What happens in the next 10 days is about next season, when Lavin will be missing at least three stars and needing all the friends he can get.

In those next 10 days, a new boss will be watching. Somewhere, the new boss will be looking for a reason to keep a guy who has not been embraced by the school, a guy who faces constant public criticism, a guy he didn’t hire.

The only thing certain is, the new boss will be watching a guy who is doing it alone.

That’s the biggest difference between this year’s Lavin and the kid six years ago who wept in the locker room after the Elite Eight loss to Minnesota.

Back then, Lavin had all sorts of shoulders to cry on.

Now, he has considerably less.

Lavin no longer has the point guard who has helped coach the team in so many big games.

No more Cameron Dollar against Iowa State, no more Baron Davis against Michigan, no more Earl Watson against Maryland.

“My point guard is my central nervous system,” Lavin acknowledged this week. “And this year, injuries and inexperience have hurt us there.”

Lavin also does not have the veteran assistant coach employed by many successful young head coaches, an old hand to help ease youthful jitters.

For his entire UCLA career, Lavin has needed such a guy, yet he always said that he was too loyal to fire any of his young proteges to make room.

Well, last summer, openings were created when Steve Spencer and Michael Holton left the staff. Still, no veteran was hired. Lavin is paying for it now.

All of which has added up to one more thing Lavin is missing.

The one thing that has always saved him.

His feel.

For the first time, the hugging, hands-on coach doesn’t have a sense of his team.

“I’ve been more frustrated this year than at any other time here,” Lavin said. “I’ve not been able to put the pieces together and make them work.”

Look no further than last Saturday for proof.

Can you imagine a coach, in a tight second half of the team’s final regular-season game, inserting an entirely new five-man squad of four freshmen and a sophomore to play for a long stretch?

Can you imagine that coach even pondering the same approach in the tournament?

“I know everybody talks about it being hockey substitutions, but it gave us a lot of energy. I might do it again,” Lavin said.

It’s not that the young guys didn’t play well. It’s just that it made the coach look confused.

Don’t even get me started on the failure to call timeouts.

“This has been a hard team to judge,” said Hines. “We are so laid-back. The nicest bunch of guys I’ve ever been around.”

Too nice. With a coach who has been too nice. In a situation where they must suddenly flip a switch and become tough.

Looking up at the words above this sentence, I realize I have written some variation of this same column before every postseason of Steve Lavin’s career.

Every spring, I have forecast doom.

Every spring, Lavin has proved me wrong.

But this spring is different, this time it’s really serious, this time the coach is ... or maybe he’s ... no, wait, he’s ...

Other towns just watch March Madness.

With Steve Lavin, we live it.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com.

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Lavin Era

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