MANHATTAN — The last time St. John's made the NCAA tournament Kelly Clarkston was a little known reality show contestant and LeBron James was a junior in high school.
St. John's hopes hiring Steve Lavin as their head coach will help rebuild their once-proud program and finally give Madison Square Garden a winning basketball team to get behind.
Lavin was hired by the Red Storm Tuesday, giving them the big name coach and back page splash they'd been looking for.
“Having come here as an assistant coach and then a head coach at UCLA and then as a broadcaster, I have a sense and feel for how special an arena it is, it is the world’s biggest stage for college basketball,” Lavin said about playing in the Garden.
St. John's moved quickly to ink the former UCLA coach to a six-year deal after failing to land Florida's Billy Donovan and former Georgia Tech coach Paul Hewitt.
Lavin has worked the last seven years as a college basketball analyst for ESPN after being fired by UCLA in 2003.
He led UCLA to the NCAA tournament's round of 16 five times and finished with a 145-78 record at the school. St. John’s has not been to the NCAA tournament since 2002.
Lavin expressed interest in the St. John's position late last week and hit it off with Athletic Director Chris Monasch during an interview at a TriBeCa restaurant on Monday night, the Daily News reported.
The Red Storm fired head coach Norm Roberts after losing to Memphis in the first round of the NIT to finish the season at 17-16, giving Roberts an 81-101 record with the school.
