For three weeks me and my fellow St. Johns supporters have been eagerly awaiting the announcement of a head coach for this St. Johns team. First we had our hopes for Billy Donovan. He said no. Paul Hewitt would follow in the steps of Donovan and turn down the job stating he did not want to move his family from their comfortable environment. Then we turned to Seth Greenberg, Al Skinner and Fran McCaffery. Greenberg was a no, McCaffery signed with Iowa and Skinner was never offered a deal. It got to the point were we could open the newspaper, go to the job listings and you would see "St. Johns Head Coaching position - we don't care if you don't have experience we just need a coach." Well someone came calling. Whom you may ask. Non other then Steve Lavin.
Steve Lavin was the former UCLA coach from 1996-2003. He had a record of 145 wins and 78 losses. He took the Bruins to six NCAA appearances and five of the six times he brought his team to the Sweet 16 including an Elite 8 bid in 1997. He guided UCLA to also six straight seasons of twenty plus wins and in the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament he is 10-1. So his track record shows everything St. Johns wants in a coach. Not to mention he recruited NBA Stars like Trever Ariza, Baron Davis, Jason Kapono and a slew of other players. The only main problem is he hasn't coached since '03. He stepped aside from coaching and joined ESPN as a College Basketball Analyst.
He may be a little rusty but you can expect him to be on his A game and hopefully bring St. Johns back to basketball royalty in the next couple years. With a bunch of seniors next year and 7 scholarships to play with after next year Steve Lavin has the chance to start great and just go up from there.
-Kujtim 'Timmy' Dimas
As always follow me on Twitter @TCaspDeez for all coverage of sports news.
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