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Give Lavin a break
Steve Lavin just can't win -- even when he wins. The victories are never as frequent or sizable as they should be. The losses are never excusable. Things go right, it's despite Lavin. Things go wrong, it's all his fault. Tom Izzo loses to Wright State last year and, well, Stuff happens. Lavin loses to Cal State-Northridge earlier this season and it's, Off with his gelled-up head! Even my partner in cybercrime, Albert Lin, joined the fray this week and fired a brutal salvo suggesting that Lavin needed to go to the Final Four to save his job. Gee, Albert, think you're setting that bar high enough? At the heart of the criticism lies the belief that UCLA is teeming with talent, but anyone who thinks that obviously hasn't talked to an NBA scout lately. You say Dan Gadzuric was highly rated coming out of high school? As Derrick Coleman once put it, "Whoop-dee-damn-do!" Chris Burgess was also the No. 1-rated player in his class. Should Duke go ahead and fire Coach K because Burgess didn't pan out? Matt Barnes, Jason Kapono, Ray Young and Earl Watson -- they're all good college players, but to paraphrase a certain unemployed NBA coach, Bill Walton and Lew Alcindor are not going to come through that door. And neither -- hul-lo? -- is John Wooden. Sure, Lavin's teams do look disorganized at times, and it would be nice to see him show a little tough love once in a while. And I was disturbed by the story that surfaced this week that Lavin helped the son of a prominent high school coach -- a guy who has sent a long list of players to Westwood -- get into UCLA as a walk-on, even though the kid isn't nearly good enough. But the only thing more suspect than that kind of undue influence is the timing of the report. I mean, I know you folks in the athletic department are out to get the man, but can't you at least be subtle about it? The problem with Lavin is that he doesn't win enough to quiet his critics, but doesn't lose enough to get himself fired. Wouldn't it be funny if, after all this, he pulls that off again? OTHER HOOP THOUGHTS Sports Illustrated staff writer Seth Davis covers college basketball for the magazine and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com. Hoop Thoughts will appear each week throughout the college basketball season.
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