Call Mensa, Lavin reveals genius in Oregon contest

  Jeff Agase Agase’s e-mail address
usually goes here, but he’ll spare you the redundancy.

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Before I say what I’m about to say, I’ll save you
the trouble and give you my e-mail address right here:
[email protected].

Like most college students, I check my e-mail forty or fifty
times a day, so you’ll have no trouble getting through to me
with your morsels of disagreement over what I’m about to
say.

Here it goes. Steve Lavin’s coaching was what kept UCLA in
the game against a good Oregon team Saturday.

“Blasphemy,” you say! “An outrage,” you
cry! “Lavin blew it again,” you vengefully declare!

Maybe. But pull yourself away from the crossword puzzle and hear
me out.

If I’m not convincing, there’s always
[email protected].

As a bit of an informational primer, apparently one or two or 50
thousand people seem to think that the Sultan of Slick can’t
coach. And I’m not here to defend the guy for all those times
in the past where his brain cramps cost the Bruins games.

I’m here to say that Steve Lavin coached his best game of
the year Saturday. Of course the Bruins lost by three, but without
Lavin’s masterful substitutions and insightful tempo control,
that final shot attempt by Ryan Walcott wouldn’t have
happened. It wouldn’t have been that close.

Masterful? Insightful? Once again, that e-mail address is
[email protected].

Back on Jan. 31, the Ducks dismantled the Bruins by dictating a
frenetic tempo. They came out running, kept on running, and left
running, and the result was a 29-point loss for UCLA that every
member of the team ““ and most importantly Lavin ““
remembered vividly.

Lavin’s in-game subbing and adjustments have been
(justifiably) questioned, but few would doubt that the guy has a
way with drafting giant-killing game plans. He did it for Kansas,
Alabama and Arizona this year, and for Stanford the last couple of
years.

Expecting a track meet, Lavin and his team were ready to run
this time. But Oregon’s slugfest with USC Thursday night
severely winded them, even with two days’ rest, and they came
out methodical at times, running down the shot clock and even
possessing the ball for what seemed like all of the final three
minutes of the first half.

Some of that was due to solid Bruin D, but it was clear the
Ducks were flying lower than usual.

So Lavin had a gimmick, err, idea. Why not gradually bring in a
sophomore and an army of freshmen, all of which play at Mach V
until they need to refuel, and wear out a visibly tired Duck team
with some breakneck, disorganized basketball?

For your information, you can forward phrases like, “I
can’t believe you give Lavin credit for recognizing
that,” to [email protected].

First came the predictable Cedric Bozeman-for-Rico Hines move.
Then it was Lavin very competently recognizing that Billy Knight,
his trusty yet defensively challenged senior, was struggling to
keep up with Oregon’s passing.

In perhaps his best move of the year, he subbed Ryan Walcott for
Knight, whose ability to trap in the backcourt paid immediate
dividends. And as the referees began to call more contact (they
whistled the two teams for a scant five fouls in the first half),
the fouls racked up and the pace got crazier. Next was Dijon
Thompson. Then Andre Patterson. Finally, T.J. Cummings.

Lavin had tapped his youth to the point where the five on the
floor had a combined one collegiate varsity letter.

“The freshmen brought an energy we couldn’t
match,” Oregon head coach Ernie Kent would later say.

As the four seniors and Jason Kapono warmed the bench on Senior
Day, the game quickly became even more disorganized, which played
further into the hands of the prescient Bruins and their tactician
coach.

Yes, I did just refer to Steve Lavin as a tactician. In case you
had forgotten, it’s [email protected].

Prior to the inception of Lavin’s ace-in-the-hole motion
offense against Stanford, the Bruins looked unbridled and confused.
They still look a bit unbridled, but that’s the nature of a
motion offense.

Why Lavin didn’t switch to motion earlier than, say, THE
SECOND TO LAST WEEK OF THE FREAKING SEASON, is another question for
another column.

The important thing is that, despite the loss, Lavin’s
players buy into and understand the current system, much more than
the cryptic 1-4.

“We wanted to keep them off-balanced,” Bozeman
said.

“We wanted to mix their defense up, changing every time we
had a chance,” Walcott said.

Unfortunately for Lavin, the young-ins just ran out of gas. But
in an unexpected on-the-fly adjustment, he realized that the fouls
were piling up on the Duck front line and sought to expose them by
grinding down to a low-post game.

It almost worked. Many will criticize Lavin for failing to call
a timeout on the final possession, or for pulling a wholesale
hockey line change instead of subbing out the freshmen one-by-one,
or”¦

The fact remains, though, that without his moves a half hour
before, the score would have remained steadily six to eight points
in Oregon’s favor.

In this game, albeit a loss, Lavin was good. If he can keep it
up, who knows ““ as the same old story goes, a comfortable,
well-coached Bruin team could certainly do some damage.

And if they do, I’ll personally file Lavin’s
application to Mensa.

That’s [email protected].