Steve Lavin looks at St. John’s and sees UCLA, circa 1999-2000.
He sees the athletic pieces, the young up-and-coming talent, the deep roster. The similarities are striking — particularly both teams’ midseason struggles.
UCLA was just 13-11 and 4-8 in the Pac-10 before a six-game winning streak to close the season landed the Bruins in the NCAA Tournament that season. They reached the Sweet 16 before losing to Iowa State.
When St. John’s was at its lowest, after a double overtime loss to Providence Jan. 16 dropped the Johnnies to 0-5 in the Big East, Lavin shared what that UCLA team, which he coached, accomplished.
“Very similar in terms of the personnel, our style of play, the makeup of that team, the challenges they went through to then elevate, get to a high level,” Lavin said. “Having navigated a season like that gave me a reference point with this group, and of course [assistant coach] Rico [Hines] was on that team also.”
“We talked about that [team], and what an opportunity [we had], to be able to author one of the great turnarounds in the history of St. John’s in this conference.
“Unprecedented in my experience.”
St. John’s, indeed, has won 11 of 14 games since that loss to Providence, playing its way into the NCAA Tournament picture entering the Big East Tournament. It gets started for the fifth-seeded Johnnies on Thursday at 2:30 p.m. against No. 4 Providence in the quarterfinals.
The Johnnies (20-11) were already familiar with that 1999-2000 UCLA team, having met members of that group — such as Matt Barnes and Earl Watson — and watching film of the Bruins because they played similar styles.
In fact, Lavin said, his own experience righting the ship with that UCLA group served him well this season. He knew there was still time left to turn things around without panicking, and that it was important to stay the course. The day after the loss to Providence, D’Angelo Harrison said Lavin put the Red Storm through one of their hardest practices of the season, emphasized the positives of what the team was doing well in narrow losses rather than dwelling on the negatives of the 0-5 start in the conference.
“We were in one of those difficult stretches. You just want to hold onto the rope as a team and staff and keep fighting because we could see the dramatic improvement, both of individual players and as a group,” Lavin said. “The numbers were reflecting that. A couple of those games, we had more field goals than our opponent.”
As Harrison recalled: “Coach stressed to stay with it, ‘It’s not over, we’re going to be fine.’ We didn’t see [it] like that. ‘Come on, Coach, we’re 0-5. Come on.’
“But he kept stressing it and there was a sense of urgency from the next practice from the next morning. Everyone was in a different mindset. It was a completely different feeling.
“He kept stressing … our time is going to come, and he was right.”
St. John’s still has a way to go before matching what Lavin’s UCLA team did — the Johnnies are on the NCAA Tournament bubble — but so far, the Red Storm is following a similar path.
“There’s some eerie similarities,” Lavin said.