He has fans all across the country believing in his coaching ability. First, we saw a letter to the Roanoke Times claiming that Lavin would make Virginia a frequent national title contender, and now the UVA student paper believes Lavin would be an excellent choice. Here is the writer's reasoning:

Though greasy, Lavin led his UCLA teams to win 20 games in six of his seven seasons and to five Sweet Sixteens in that span. Only Coach K equaled that feat. Lavin was UCLA's best defensive coach since John Wooden, has shown he can recruit (the nation's top class in 1998), is respected and would be a big-name hire. [emphasis mine]

I'll admit I'm not an expert on the defensive coaching prowesses of all of our coaches in the post-Wooden era, but I know that Lavin is not a better coach in any facet of the game than Larry Brown. In any event, I'm beginning to actually root for Lavin to get another opportunity at a big name school (and i'm not sure if Virginia qualifies), just to see how quickly he would bring it down. But again, I doubt he will coach again, as to paraphrase an old proverb: "Better to remain an ESPN analyst and be thought a bad coach than to leave the studio and remove all doubt." Just ask Dick and Digger (sorry, couldn't resist).