Very Early St. John’s Red Storm Players and Coach Report Card
By Joe Nardone
Steve Lavin
Mandatory Credit: Anthony Gruppuso-USA TODAY Sports
Lavin is really in a make or break year. His first recruiting class is about to graduate and his only NCAA Tournament appearance was with someone else’s players (hello there, Norm Roberts). The fact that his 2015 recruiting class has been really slow to become a tangible thing has made some people uneasy. Still, Steve Lavin is one of the most likable guys on the entire planet and no one is rooting against him. Plus, I mean, he makes wearing sneakers with suits fashionable.
The Positives
Say what you will about his Xs and Os abilities, but someone had to help Jordan and Obekpa develop. Heck, keeping Obekpa from transferring alone was a huge win. I’m not saying he is a great floor coach — he is actually far from one — but he is certainly not as incompetent as people make him out to be.
He is also making the most out of a horrible situation. While the lack of depth is his fault (he does recruit the players), Lavin has been doing his best to manage minutes, keep the Red Storm in games and find ways to put the team in the best situations to win.
The Negatives
We can always bash Lavin for letting his players, not him, dictate the offense. But that is who he is as a coach. At this point we just have to accept that. Still, it doesn’t make it okay.
So, okay. All of the Lavin negatives are the same as they were last year, when he was with UCLA and what they will be in the future. I think we all kind of get the gist as to who he is as an on the floor-coach. Let’s just hope his recruiting abilities get back to where they were, which will help the Johnnies in the future.
Overall Grade: B
Listen, if they defeated Gonzaga it would be hard to give him anything other than an A. Yet they lost, so here we are, with a coach who has done a poor job recruiting with the 2015 class and a current roster with no depth. Really, I am probably being generous giving him a B despite the early St. John’s success.
Next: The Team (Overall)