Let me preface this post with the fact that it has nothing to do with Steve Lavin the person. Its purpose simply is to debunk the notion that Lavin was only fired because he couldn't get past the Sweet 16 or because he had only one bad year. Quite the contrary. Lavin was fired because his teams gave inconsistent effort, were undisciplined, and lacked basic basketball fundamentals. He inherited a program coming off back-to-back Pac-10 titles, two years removed from a national championship, and systematically ran it into the ground. Here are some highlights of his tenure:

Milestones "achieved" during Lavin's reign:

Worst loss in history of the school (109-61, at Stanford, 1/9/97).

Worst loss at Pauley (87-52, vs. Arizona, 1/18/03); this one broke his own record set earlier in the season: a 92-67 loss to Branch West in an exhibition game.

Longest losing streak (9 games in 2003) since 1941.

Longest stretch without a conference title, post-Wooden (six seasons).

Worst conference finishes in school history - he did it twice! (6th, 2001-2002 and 2002-2003 - it was a three-way tie for 6th in 2002-2003, and the Bruins lost the tiebreakers so they were seeded 8th in the Pac-10 tournament).

First losing season (2002-2003) since pre-Wooden era.

Second worst coach's career winning percentage in post-Wooden era (only Walt Hazzard's was worse).

Twelve losses by 24 points or more.

Home losses to teams such as Cal State Northridge (while we were ranked 15th in the nation at the time), Pepperdine (we were ranked 10th), Northern Arizona (we were unranked), San Diego (we were unranked), and Gonzaga (a 59-43 loss while we were ranked 11th and they were 24th). Again, all of these losses were at Pauley.

Most losses at home in a season, 10 (2002-2003). Previous record was 6.

Some public quotes from various former Bruins about Lavin's UCLA teams:

"Where they [Lavin's Bruins] were ... were the depths of devastation. The program had sunk so low. It was so inconsistent. I don't think they would turn out quality players. The program really did a disservice to a lot of its players who had pro potential, but they never really realized it because there was not the structure I think is necessary. Now, I am very, very encouraged by what Ben Howland is doing." -Mike Warren (LA Daily News, 3/16/05)

"None at all. Playing college basketball, playing good competition and being in college was the best experience of my life. But as far as being developed as a young point guard into the NBA, I wasn't ready. When I left (in 1999) I was angry -- why didn't Lav do this or do that? But I know now -- he just wasn't ready." -Baron Davis, on what role his two years at UCLA played in his development (LA Daily News, 3/8/03)

"When a team has the same amount of talent as you, it comes down to X's and O's, and we [playing under Lavin] never had an X-and-O game. You can get away with it against Oregon State, Washington State and SC, or in a one-game situation, but teams like Arizona and Stanford that are just as talented, you have to beat them with execution down the stretch." -Travis Reed (LA Daily News, 3/8/03)

"I refuse to watch. There's Bruins flipping in their graves right now." -Kenny Fields, on the 2002-2003 Bruins (LA Daily News, 2/4/03 - article not freely available online, but the quote also was mentioned in these articles: SI.com and Milwauke Journal Sentinel)

"I was really almost nauseous when I saw them. It was just incomprehensible to see what happened." -Bill Sweek, on the 2002-2003 Bruins (LA Daily News, 2/4/03)

"When I played, they set screens for the best scorer. I'm still waiting for the first pick someone sets for Jason Kapono this year." -Ken Heitz, on the 2002-2003 Bruins (LA Daily News, 2/4/03)

"I never thought I'd read that Arizona players felt sorry for UCLA like after the game at Pauley. That probably says as much as needs to be said." -Don Saffer, on the 2002-2003 Bruins (LA Daily News, 2/4/03)

"That's not our program. Being that they have a couple of McDonald's All-Americans, to have a season like this is unbelievable." -Pooh Richardson, on the 2002-2003 Bruins (LA Daily News, 2/4/03)

Plus a quote from Hassan Adams, who grew up in Los Angeles wanting to attend UCLA, but decided to go to Arizona instead: "It was their [UCLA's] practice or the way the coaching was. I went to a couple of practices just to make sure I wasn't tripping. You should see it. They don't even practice. The coach is telling them something and they don't even listen. They sit on the sidelines or ride stationary bikes" (Arizona Daily Star, 12/26/02)

Player development under Lavin

To Lavin's credit, he recruited a tremendous amount of talent to UCLA during his tenure, though he was aided by UCLA's tradition and the 1995 national championship that occurred one season before he took over. Lavin brought in highly touted high school players including Baron Davis, Earl Watson, Dan Gadzuric, Jerome Moiso, Matt Barnes, Jaron Rush, Jason Kapono, TJ Cummings, Cedric Bozeman, Dijon Thompson, Andre Patterson, and Michael Fey. He also became coach with players on the roster like Charles O'Bannon, Toby Bailey, JR Henderson, Kris Johnson, and Jelani McCoy. In all, he coached 8 players who were both McDonald's and Parade All-Americans. With all of this talent, among these players you will find only 2 (two!!) first-round NBA draft picks, and both of them (Baron Davis and Jerome Moiso) left UCLA after their sophomore years. Other players like Gadzuric, Watson, Barnes, and Kapono have gone on to play multiple seasons in the NBA, and one could make a pretty good argument that they had the talent to be drafted higher, but because Lavin could not develop them, they did not emerge as quality players until they had a chance to play under someone else. You saw above what Davis thought of his "development" at UCLA, and Warren's quote is correct: the program under Lavin did a disservice to its players.

"Five Sweet 16 appearances in 6 years, and the only other coach to do that was Krzyzewski."

This is Lavin's only claim to fame, so much so that no writer or broadcaster can mention Lavin without also including this fact. It attempts to show that Lavin had his teams playing well when it counted, and that Lavin is somehow in the same circle as Krzyzewski. However, Krzyzewski's teams, as you know, often actually advance PAST the Sweet Sixteen, in fact going to 3 final fours and winning one title during his streak. Lavin's teams on the other hand, were never competitive in Sweet Sixteen games after his first year, as they went 0-4 with the margins of loss being 26, 24, 13, and 9 points (and remember this last loss was to a 12-seeded Missouri team when we were an 8-seed). There is no comparison here. And what about the rest of the season? Here are his regular season results (year, AP ranking at time of first game - to guage preseason expectations, overall record and winning percentage, and conference record, winning percentage, and finish, and final AP ranking) - see if you can notice a general trend :).

1996-97 (#5): 24-8 (.750), 15-3 (.833, 1st), #7
1997-98 (#7): 24-9 (.727), 12-6 (.667, 3rd), #19
1998-99 (#11): 22-9 (.710), 12-6 (.667, 3rd), #15
1999-00 (#13): 21-12 (.636), 10-8 (.556, 4th), unranked
2000-01 (#17): 23-9 (.719), 14-4 (.714, 3rd), #15
2001-02 (#3): 21-12 (.636), 11-7 (.611, 6th), unranked
2002-03 (#15): 10-19 (.345), 6-12 (.333, 6th), unranked

So in six years, Lavin's teams went from Pac-10 champs to winning only a third of their conference games, and only once did his teams improve from one season to the next, so there was pretty much no evidence to support the idea that he might be able to turn things around. Also, Lavin's teams consistently performed worse than expectations: only in one season was UCLA's final ranking higher than its preseason ranking - the underachievement that occurred in Lavin's final two years is especially galling (he started #3 and #15 in the nation and ended up with the worst conference finishes in the history of the school). Again, this is not meant to be an attack on him personally; he was simply placed in a position with little chance to succeed - he had only one year of experience as a full-time assistant before he became the head coach at one of the top programs in the country. However, he was given numerous chances to demonstrate that he could be effective as UCLA's coach, but as depicted above, he repeatedly came up short.