Steve Lavin is a player’s coach, a master of one-liners and platitudes, a positive preacher who tells almost every player to take the shot if open.
But behind the scenes, when the need arises, he has been known to blister his players. For the first time this season, we saw that side of Lavin in a 69-54 win over South Florida last night in Carnesecca Arena.
With 10:44 left in the second half, the Johnnies had frittered away a chunk of a 22-point lead. Lavin had seen this immature act before. Five times this season the freshmen- and sophomore-laden Johnnies blew double-digit leads but regrouped in time to salvage wins.
Lavin chose to laud his pups after those performances, congratulating them for their resiliency. But the days of coddling are over.
The final two weeks of the season will determine if St. John’s (16-10 overall, 8-6 in the Big East) gets an NCAA Tournament berth. A loss to the lowly Bulls (10-16, 1-13), who lost their ninth straight, would have been unacceptable.
So Lavin let loose. It wasn’t Bob Knight, but it wasn’t Dean Smith either.
“There are times definitely when you’ve got to turn up the heat and put the fire under their fanny because that’s my job as a coach is to be a truth teller and present the appropriate sense of urgency for what’s at stake,’’ said Lavin.
“So that we don’t get to the spring and look back and say, ‘Well, we were too young. We were too immature. We didn’t realize the opportunity that we had and it slipped away, and now we get ready for next year.’ ’’
The opportunity is this: The Johnnies are two wins away from having an 85-percent chance of going to the Big Dance. A Big East team with 18 wins has been a part of the greatest three weeks in sports 161 out of 189 times since 1982-83 when the automatic bid came into being.
Time to put away the pacifiers. Players such as D’Angelo Harrison (18 points) and Phil Greene IV have started more than 50 games each. Sir’Dominic Pointer (12 points, 10 rebounds, six assists) has started 39. Freshman JaKarr Sampson (20 points, seven rebounds) has started 26.
It’s time to man up and Lavin delivered that message loud and clear.
“That’s a big step for us,’’ said Harrison. “He usually doesn’t blow a gasket, so when he does it’s time to lock in again.’’
The Johnnies were locked in from the get-go. It was their first game in six days and the first with Lavin on the bench since a Feb. 6 win over Connecticut. Lavin’s father, Albert ‘Cap’ Lavin died the night before the Feb. 10 loss at Syracuse and he had been attending to his family.
South Florida coach Stan Heath used two timeouts early to no avail. St. John’s, before a sellout crowd of 5,602 that heartily enjoyed a halftime celebration of Legends Night highlighted by a speech from the legendary Lou Carnesecca, grabbed a 33-17 half-time lead.
It swelled to 41-19 before the Johnnies let up. South Florida, led by Victor Rudd’s 18 points, closed to 44-32. Timeout, St. John’s. Fire up, Coach Lavin.
“He was just frustrated how we were playing,’’ said Harrison. “I guess you could say we took a foot off the gas. I would be frustrated too. He got on us and we took care of the game.’’
Forward Christian Jones did not play because of flu-like symptoms … The highlight of the night for the Johnnies was a breakaway dunk by 3-point shooting specialist Marc-Antoine Bourgault. Sampson, who is good for a highlight reel dunk per night, dropped on his rear end after watching Bourgault, uh, throw down.