Steve Lavin

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**Steve Lavin**
Coaching positions

Former UCLA head coach and current ESPN college basketball analyst Steve Lavin.
Date of birth	September 4, 1964
Sport	Basketball
College	Chapman University
Title	Head Coach
Overall Record	145-78
Awards	2001 Pac-10 Coach of the Year 1997 National Rookie Coach of the Year
Championships won	1997 Pac-10 Champions
1997-2003	UCLA

Steve Lavin (born September 4, 1964) is an American basketball coach and TV analyst. The San Francisco, California native was the head coach of the UCLA Bruins men's basketball team from 1996-2003.

1 Background
2 UCLA Tenure
3 Criticisms
4 Television Career
5 See also

[edit] Background

Lavin's coaching career began in 1988 when he was hired by legendary Purdue coach Gene Keady as a graduate assistant (and future assistant coach). While at Purdue, Lavin coached alongside Keady assistants and future head coaches Bruce Weber and Kevin Stallings. He would leave Purdue in 1992 to take an assistant's position with UCLA. After four years on the Bruin's staff, Lavin was named the head coach at UCLA in late 1996 shortly after Jim Harrick was fired for a recruiting scandal. At age 32, Lavin became one of the youngest head coaches in America.

[edit] UCLA Tenure

Lavin was scrutinzed by UCLA fans from the beginning of his tenure. Originally intended to be an interim head coach, Lavin coached the Bruins to the Pacific 10 Conference Championship and the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament in 1997 (his first year) and was subsequently signed to a long-term deal worth more than $2 million. The Lavin years would produce six 20-win seasons with five Sweet 16 appearances. Despite UCLA's success, Pac 10 rivals Arizona and Stanford overtook UCLA as the dominant teams in the conference, with Arizona winning a national title in 1997 and reaching the Final Four in 2001, and Stanford becoming an almost perennial number 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. After the 1997 season, none of Lavin's teams received higher than a 4 seed.

[edit] Criticisms

Overall, even while winning, most UCLA fans considered Lavin's teams to underachieve. Despite bringing in incredible recruiting classes every year (two classes were the best in the country), Lavin's teams often lacked energy and spirit and would often play their ways out of contention. Rumors floated that the team's practices were little more than glorified shootarounds. Lavin's substitution patterns were unusual -- at times, he would send five new players on to the floor at one time, seriously diminishing any momentum his team might have built. On top of that, players never seemed to develop, the best example being Jason Kapono who seemed to regress from his freshman to senior year under Lavin. (Baron Davis has publicly criticized Lavin for not helping his players grow). However, his teams would make amazing run at the end of the conference season and make it back to the Sweet 16 where they would promptly exit- an example of the frustrating inconsistency under Lavin would be their demolishing of a good Maryland team in the 2nd round of the NCAA tournament in 2000 followed by a weak performance in the Sweet 16 against Iowa State. Nonetheless, his late season success and consistent appearances in the Sweet 16 made it impossible for the UCLA administration to fire Lavin, despite his lack of popularity with students. Some apologists for Lavin maintain that he was a successful coach due to his ability to reach the Sweet 16 every year and call UCLA fans' standard of success unreasonable, but this view appears to be decidedly in the minority given the quick success and popularity of his successor, Ben Howland.

The lackluster 2002-2003 season finally provided the UCLA athletic department the excuse it needed to part ways with their much maligned coach. After compiling a 10-19 record, one of the rare losing campaigns in UCLA men's basketball history since the Wooden era, it was announced that Lavin's replacement would be sought after the team had completed its slate of games. Of these final games, the penultimate was undoubtedly the season's highlight. After barely qualifying for the Pac-10 Tournament with its lowest seeding ever, #8, UCLA took Pac-10 and national #1 Arizona to overtime on a last-second three-pointer by senior guard Ray Young. In the extra period, the Bruins pulled the upset and defeated the Wildcats but promptly lost their subsequent game, the last of the season, to Oregon. Lavin's tenure ended with a perfect example of the puzzling inconsistency and underachieving that led to his dismissal. However, as that painful season wore on, many commentators realized that he would be fired. Lavin himself seemed to realize this, but handled the situation with equanimity. He has never expressed bitterness towards UCLA or any of his athletic directors, even during the 2001 "Pitino Incident," in which UCLA's athletic director, Peter Dalis openly admitted that he had been speaking with then-unemployed basketball coach Rick Pitino. Lavin avoided being fired that season by coaching the Bruins into the Sweet 16 where they lost a competitve game to the eventual national champions, Duke.

[edit] Television Career

After being relieved of his duties at UCLA, Lavin signed a multi-year broadcasting deal with ESPN. Lavin makes regular appearances on ESPN College GameNight and also provides color-commentary alongside Brent Musburger and Kenny Dumont at primetime college games around the country.

North Carolina State University reportedly offered Lavin its head men's basketball coaching position for the 2006-2007 season, but ESPN reported on April 26 that Lavin refused the job and would remain with the network.