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Lavin has St. John’s buzzing
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By Jason King
October 20, 2010
New York, NY — Six months into his tenure, St. John’s basketball coach Steve Lavin has already racked up quite the expense bill.
Plane flights to AAU tournaments, hotel stays, dinner with prominent alumni – and cell phone chargers. Yes, cell phone chargers. Lavin has gone through five of them since his hiring in April.
“It’s not like he’s losing them or breaking them,” said Mark Fratto, Lavin’s publicist. “He’s just wearing them out. He’s even burned through three actual phones”
Anyone who has spent time around the former UCLA coach can understand why.
When Lavin isn’t on the court coaching his new team, he’s usually busy texting a recruit. And if he’s not texting one, he’s either talking to another or contacting a booster in hopes of increasing the $2 million pool he’s already raised for the Red Storm program.
“He’s intense,” athletic director Chris Monasch said. “He’s 24-7. That’s what we love about him.”
About the only thing Lavin doesn’t do is Tweet – mainly, someone jokes, because it’d be impossible to limit him to 140 characters. Lavin’s approach is deeper and more philosophical than that, and so far it’s paid off big time for St. John’s.
Season ticket sales are up and team morale is as strong as it’s been in years. More than 4,000 fans (including 1,900 students) crammed into the 5,600-seat Carnesecca Arena for Midnight Madness, which drew some sorely needed national television exposure for a program that hasn’t been to the NCAA tournament since 2002.
Most importantly, recruits have stopped hitting the “Ignore” button when Red Storm coaches call their cell phone.
Lavin has already gained commitments from five players – including three in the Rivals.com Top 50. He can sign a total of 10.
“I’m just taking the baton from Norm Roberts and continuing to try to move this program forward,” Lavin said of his predecessor, who was fired after six seasons. “I’m trying to take the foundation he put in place and elevate it on all fronts.”
Well liked as Roberts was at St. John’s, he was never able to get the Red Storm into the NCAAs. That’s a feat the 46-year-old Lavin may accomplish in his first year. St. John’s returns all five starters from a squad that went 17-16. There are 10 seniors on the roster, including two (D.J. Kennedy and Dwight Hardy) who averaged double figures as juniors.
St. John’s was picked to finish sixth in the Big East in the preseason coaches poll.
“I think he’ll be able to get us over that hump,” point guard Malik Boothe said. “Just look at his resume. It speaks for itself.”
Lavin teams posted 21 wins or more in each of his first six seasons at UCLA, where he coached from 1996-2003. All but one of those squads reached the Sweet 16. Lavin was relieved of his duties following a disastrous 10-19 season in 2002-03.
Although he spent the last seven years around the game as a television analyst, Lavin always had the itch to get back on the bench.
“He talked about that from time to time,” said former Purdue coach Gene Keady, Lavin’s mentor. “He didn’t dwell on it, but when certain jobs would open up he talked about how he might be interested. He has such a passion for this. You can tell he really enjoys being at work.”
That’s why Keady didn’t hesitate to come out of retirement when Lavin asked him to join the St. John’s staff as an advisor. Keady, who hired Lavin as a Purdue assistant in 1988, recently made the temporary move from West Lafayette, Ind., to New York.
“I was very happy with what I was doing, which was basically nothing,” Keady said. “I was playing a lot of golf and doing some work for the Big Ten Network.
“It was hard to leave, but I only would’ve left it for one guy, and that’s Steve Lavin. We just click.”
Keady, who Lavin calls his “personal Mr. Miyagi,” is one of three former NBA assistants on the St. John’s staff. As much as it’s job to coach, Lavin said the process of reviving a program requires so much work off the court that it’s imperative to hire the best possible teachers to work closely with the Red Storm players.
“A head coach in college basketball is now more of a CEO than ever before,” Lavin said. “They’re your foot soldiers. They’re an integral part of implementing your curriculum.
“You have to think of it from an educational standpoint. The principal creates the culture and hires the teachers. Then he has to recruit the students. If you deliver the product to your students, you develop a reputation, and more students want to come to your school.”
The philosophy is apparently working.
Last week Lavin gained a commitment from D’Angelo Harrison, a standout guard from Texas who is ranked as the 41st-best prospect in the Class of 2011 by Rivals.com. Three other Top 100 players (No. 44 Jakarr Sampson, No. 45 Maurice Harkless and No. 81 Dominique Pointer) have also pledged to the Red Storm.
If Lavin ends up filling all 10 of his open scholarships, it’s likely he’ll end up with the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class for the third time in his career.
One of Lavin’s main goals is to improve the Red Storm’s recruiting efforts in the New York area. In the meantime, he said the credit for St. John’s success thus far should go to his entire staff.
“We take a gang-tackle approach to everything we do,” Lavin said. “We full-court press and gang-tackle those prospects and their families. It helps that we’ve got a lot to offer, a lot to sell.”
Indeed, St. John’s has shown in the past that it will support a winning program. And Lavin has shown he knows how to get players into the pros. From 1997-2006, at least one of his former UCLA players or recruits was selected in the NBA draft.
Lavin believes he can achieve similar success at St. John’s, although he’s cautioning fans to be patient. With so many senior holdovers from the Roberts regime, Lavin said it may be unfair to completely change St. John’s style of play in his first season.
The Red Storm have said they want to play Lavin’s up-tempo style. But the coach said that’s easier said than done.
“You can sell that in recruiting,” Lavin said. “You can have slogans and print bumper stickers about it. But until you start getting stops defensively you’re not going to be able to make it happen.
“Duke, UNLV, Kentucky – they all ran off their defense. If you’re not getting stops and shutouts, you’re not getting run-outs.”
Lavin smiled.
“Gradually,” he said. “we’ll implement our own style of play and our particular brand of basketball. Right now it’s a give-and-take. But we’ll get there.”
• NCAA Basketball News Archive Index:
2010, 2009
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