It looks like ESPN has an opening for a college basketball analyst…
Lavin has been with ESPN the past six years after being fired at UCLA in 2003. He coached the Bruins to the NCAA tournament six times in seven seasons, including one Elite Eight appearance and five trips to the Sweet 16. He inherits a team that could return 10 seniors for 2010-11.
St. John’s has been searching for a big-name hire to increase the team’s profile in the New York media market. The university made an overture to Florida’s Billy Donovan and a formal offer to Georgia Tech’s Paul Hewitt, who declined.
The Red Storm also interviewed former Boston College coach Al Skinner and former Siena coach Fran McCaffery, who took the Iowa job, and were interested in talking to Rhode Island’s Jim Baron.
I always thought St. John’s should be better since it is THE biggest name in New York City college basketball, and the city is a hotbed for high school hoops.
But the last St. John’s player to have any success in the NBA was Ron Artest. Before that, it was Mark Jackson and Chris Mullin, so we’re going way back. (By the way, I wonder if they considered Mark Jackson, or is he just waiting for an NBA job to open up even though he has zero experience coaching a team?)
St. John’s hasn’t been to the NCAA tournament since 2002, during the tail end of the Mike Jarvis era. Jarvis led the team to the Elite 8 in 1999.
Lavin always drove me nuts as a coach because of the slicked-back hair, but his teams always played pretty well in the tournament, when the lights were the brightest. There were a few seasons where he went into the tourney with his job on the line, but the Bruins would make a Sweet 16 or an Elite 8 run that saved his job. His analysis on ESPN has always been good, so it will be interesting to see how he does in the Big Apple.
