Lavin in right place at right time to give St. John's a boost

'I TELL THE KIDS to Google everything," Steve Lavin said over the phone last night. It's a great way to accelerate time, he has found, a good way to bridge the past, present and the future with the click of a button.

When he talks about Walt Frazier. When he references the music of Benny Goodman. When he tells the kids they don't have to ignore the hoopla about St. John's basketball resurgence, they don't have to walk around the city that never sleeps acting like "Mr. Magoo."

Mr. Magoo?

"Google it," the coach said.

You learn things when you step back from coaching, or in Lavin's case, when you are knocked backward. Seven years ago, he was unceremoniously dumped as the head basketball coach at UCLA, after finishing with a losing record for the first time in his seven seasons as head coach there. He started analyzing and broadcasting games for ESPN, became good at it, and after a while you kind of lost sight of those five Sweet 16s he took the Bruins to, lost sight of his pedigree as a coach.

But even his harshest critics on the left coast would agree: Steve Lavin is a people person first, coach next. Which is why we should have seen this one coming, from the moment ESPN's most-gelled analyst inked the contract last March 30 to replace Norm Roberts as the coach of St. John's once-proud basketball team, a team that hasn't made the NCAA Tournament since 2002, and couldn't even win an NIT game last year.

"The perfect storm," Villanova coach Jay Wright said yesterday of 23rd-ranked St. John's, which plays the 'Cats in a Wells Fargo Center matinee tomorrow at 2.

Jay wasn't trying to be cute. Ten of Lavin's players are seniors, a friendly formula for a coach with little time to sell concepts. One misleading line, one self-promotion, and he could lose them. When he was fired at UCLA, the players he recruited either adjusted to how his successor did things, transferred out, or found themselves in some type of confidence limbo.

"Having been fired in 2003 and having another coach come in, I am uniquely qualified to understand how difficult that is for players who were recruited by another coach, and the anxiety over the transition and change," Lavin said. "This group of seniors, there aren't too many coaches in the country who are as uniquely qualified to have the degree of empathy I do, or to help them navigate through it."

The Red Storm isn't perfect, but its record against big shots nearly is. It is 18-9 this season, 10-5 in the Big East, with victories over five teams ranked in the Top 15 when they played - Georgetown (13), Notre Dame (9), Duke (3), Connecticut (10) and Pittsburgh (4) last Saturday.

"You start with all those seniors," Wright said. "Add in Steve's ability to get along with people. And you're able to pull this together quickly."

Lavin had some help. Gene Keady, the longtime Purdue coach who gave Lavin his start as a graduate assistant in 1988, now assists his pupil. Keady, 74, is deliciously old school, scribbling notes on legal pads during games the way it was done over his 5 decades as a coach. Keady retired from Purdue after the 2005 season with 550 victories, which is why Lavin referred to him as "My Oracle" recently.

The players didn't get that part of it. Until they Googled him.

"They've found on YouTube some of his classic highlights, throwing off his coat, walking off against Illinois," Lavin said, laughing.

You ask him whether the time in the booth changed him, he refers you to assistant coach Rico Hines, his first recruit when he was promoted to head coach at age 32. Press him on the topic, though, and he will tell you about going to practices in places like Kansas, and Duke, and, yes, Villanova.

"Observing the best coaches and programs at work as they prepared to play games," he said. "At the highest level of competition. So, by the sheer exposure to the great coaches and that level, you increase your knowledge and acumen base, and you're able to bring that back for a second tour of duty."

With his team an NCAA Tournament lock and the Big East Tournament once again being held in the arena of the school's greatest conquests, Lavin is now in the enviable position of upgrading the goals he and the team set before this season. But his run in Westwood and subsequent travels also informed an appreciation of living in the moment. The buzz in New York is not just about Carmelo Anthony or Amar'e Stoudemire these days. The Red Storm is playing to big houses these days, and enjoying the unlikely ride.

"It would be good to beat a team like Villanova in that environment on the road," Lavin said. "It would be to our advantage to win this game, going into the Big East Tournament." *

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