Tom Izzo, who IMHO is probably the best coach in today's game is on his way to his sixth Final-4 in last 12 years. His Spartans yesterday beat Tennessee Volunteers in a nailbiter. The game's waning seconds included an Izzo decision which instructed Raymar Morgan to intentionally miss a FT with the Spartans up 70-69 and 1.8 second left in the shot clock. It was correct strategic move because it gave the Spartans the best chance to ice the game either via securing the missed rebound or setting off a mad scramble for the missed FT. Yes, there was also a chance for Tennessee to secure the missed rebound and get another desperation 3 point shot but the decision to miss the FT gave Michigan St the best chance to run out the clock.
So while all sane basketball observers agreed with Izzo's decision, Lav apparently had a different take leaving his ESPN News colleagues dumbfounded. From Larry Brown Sports (apparently Lav was giving play by play when this was happening):
"Well, this actually led to Tennessee having a chance to go length of the court … Hail Mary it’s not going to go as Michigan State moves on … so I’d say in hindsight, Tom Izzo wouldn’t have done that."
And yet there are ADs in this game who are idiotic enough to give this guy a serious look as a head coach.
Lavin either has the itch to get back into coaching or some schools are targeting him because his name has been floated as a potential candidate for several vacancies including but not limited to DePaul and St. John’s. If you check out the dude’s wikipedia page, you’d think he were the second coming of John Wooden. What they’re leaving out is that he had the second lowest career winning percentage of any coach since Wooden, that the longer he stayed the significantly worse the team became, and that he couldn’t get past the Sweet Sixteen with a team that featured four NBA players in its starting five (Earl Watson, Dan Gadzuric, Matt Barnes, and Jason Kapono). That also leaves out how the Bruins suffered some of their most embarrassing losses ever under his watch. Oh yeah, he’s also Baron Davis’ favorite coach. Lavin may have been a heck of a recruiter but he’s obviously not much of a strategist. Just wanted to set the record straight on that point.
Read rest of Larry's post here. The only thing I have to disagree with Larry here is I wouldn't give this clown any credit for being a "recruiter." What he did in his first two years were somewhat of an aberration given he did by taking advantage of the foundation left behind by Jim Harrrick. Once Lavin was done burning UCLA into the ground he left us with guys like Ryan Walcott, Moose Bailey, Michael Fey, TJ Cummings, and Terry Crispin.
It was also well chronicled during his days that in addition to being an idiot he was also lazy. He established a track record of not putting in the work when it comes to recruiting. He was too busy attacking UCLA fanbase and making excuses his consistent under achievements.
I wouldn't wish Lavin on any fanbase. No one deserves that kind of hell. However, if someone is idiotic enough to hire him it will be good to see this fraud get exposed beyond all doubt.
GO BRUINS.
