Sports

Lavin has lifted St. John’s by leaning on his staff

DENVER — This is a coach who goes back a few years with Steve Lavin, who recruited against him back in the day, who watched Lavin’s remarkable rise from obscurity to John Wooden’s old chair at UCLA and then the inevitable fall that back-ended it, and who has watched closely what has happened at St. John’s this year.

“This is going to sound worse than I mean it to, which is the reason I don’t want you to use my name,” he said the other day, after Lavin’s Johnnies were eliminated by Syracuse from the Big East Tournament, but not until the Orange were forced to bleed for every possession. “But I think Lav’s greatest strength is that it never occurs to him that he’s the smartest kid in class.”

He smiled.

“Most of us? We like to think of ourselves as Naismith’s children. We talk like we invented the game, or at least some new wrinkle of the game. And, yeah, when it comes to X’s and O’s, the technical stuff, I think a lot of us are better at that than Lav is. And you know what he would probably say if you told him that? He’d say, ‘You’re right.’

“I hope that comes across as a compliment,” he said, “because I think what he’s done is amazing.”

THE POST LINE: ALL THE ODDS

As much as anything, this is what has allowed Lavin to do what he’s done these past five months along Utopia Parkway. Look, the moment St. John’s decided to hire Lavin you knew the Johnnies were at least going to be interesting. You knew Lavin would get players because he has always gotten players, because he was going to sell New York and the Garden and the idea of building something, and he would have lots of scholarships and lots of playing time to offer.

So when Lavin went out and landed six top-100 recruits in the fall, assembling the Big East’s best incoming class, it was almost anti-climactic because it was expected; nobody ever questioned Lavin’s ability to gather and deliver talent.

It’s what he did with that talent once it arrived on campus that always was scrutinized, never mind inheriting someone else’s talent, a core of eight seniors that had experienced only fleeting success in years past. The fact that this team brings a 21-11 record to Pepsi Arena tomorrow, that it earned the program’s first NCAA bid in nine years in a season when the Big East was powerful enough to swallow teams whole?

“He’s doing something right,” his old rival said.

Mostly, what Lavin has done is something that’s completely outside the DNA of most coaches, in any sport, at any level: He has willingly surrendered his ego, has turned “delegation” from dirty word to hymn. Folks already have pointed to the deep cast of experienced coaches he hired — Gene Keady, Mike Dunlap, Rico Hines, Tony Chiles, Mo Hicks.

But it’s one thing to assemble the best and the brightest. It’s something else to actually listen to them.

Lavin listened. Even his own players have joked freely that during games, Lavin doesn’t so much coach them as encourage them, doesn’t strategize as much as sympathize.

After beating Pitt, one of his team’s anchors, Justin Burrell, actually put it this way: “He doesn’t really coach. I don’t know what he does.”

Burrell said that with affinity and affection, unlike Baron Davis’ famous quip that his UCLA teams were the only NCAA Tournament squads to participate “without a coach,” unlike scores of UCLA observers who would blanch at some of Lavin’s coaching maneuvers back in Westwood.

There are a lot of coaches who would have taken those past criticisms, stored them away, gotten a second chance and declared, “I’ll show you.”

Instead, Lavin hired his staff and asked, “What can you show me?”

People notice. Insiders have marveled at the job Dunlap has done as Lavin’s strategic consigliere, and it’s earned him some well-deserved job interviews. The staff has done some terrific work. It was allowed to. Whatever you may have thought about Lavin before, it is important to remember this: He knows he didn’t invent the game, and he acts accordingly.

It’s a lesson a lot of coaches would be wise to heed.

michael.vaccaro@nypost.com