The former UCLA coach says his experience in L.A. was good preparation for what he faces on the East Coast, with many parallels. He cherishes his time at Westwood, and Wooden's wisdom and influence.
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And it is where Lou Carnesecca coached 526 wins, took St. John's to the 1985 Final Four and kept them in annual contention for NCAA bids. Carnesecca is 85, retired in 1992, and still has an office at St. John's, where fabled Alumni Hall, the basketball arena that remains the site of a handful of games, has been renamed for him. Carnesecca will be part of Lavin's senior advisory group.
"I expect to have coffee every morning with Coach Carnesecca, Gene Keady and my dad," Lavin says.
His dad, Cap Lavin, was a star at University of San Francisco in the early 1950s and will spend much of the season in New York. Lavin just hired Keady, 74, for whom he was an assistant at Purdue and who retired as the Boilermakers' coach five years ago, as a basketball administrator.
Carnesecca has already weighed in.
"When I got hired, we were having lunch with several people in the program," Lavin says. "Coach Carnesecca sat next to me, and, at one point, put his hand on my knee and said,
'You're going to be fine, kid. Just get the best players.' "
Lavin says Wooden would have said the same.
Early next year, Lavin will literally go coast to coast. St. John's will play UCLA on Feb. 5 at Pauley Pavilion, a game put on the schedule about a month before Lavin's hiring. He thinks about it now, about the memories, and about the empty seat that will commemorate Wooden.
"I'll be in the visitor's locker room," he says. "How weird will that be?"
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