Not arguing, but hypothetically,
Let's say that in every case over these losses, in the overtime vs Penn, in the last 5 minutes against Wisconsin, against Syracuse when we took the lead late, against Nova when Harrison and Jordan flubbed a simple kick outside, when Harrison forced it against DePaul down low and when Hooper missed a wide open three, when Hooper got tied up against Providence with the game in the bag, when we faded late vs Xavier. Let's say the players performed and took good looks and made 1/2 their shots even. Do you think we would be giving Lavin credit?
My point is, that I don't think we can put the player's failures to execute late in the game squarely on Lavin's shoulders. Some of these failures were just that - failures to execute when it mattered.
I think it's very fair to talk about the lack of a rotation, and other shortcomings of the team. But also, if Lavin had the rotation set 3 games into the Big East season in 2010-2011, we'd likely never arrived at the mix that ripped off 8 out of 9.
I'm not an apologist. This team has flat out stunk in crunch time, but unlike great teams - where Bird, Jordan, Kobe, Magic, Karl or Moses Malone, Dr. J, and a slew of other guys who would effectively put the team on their shoulders, and say get me the ball, i'll win the game, we've had none of that. There are very few coaches in the world who could fix that, and very few who can turn a Dwight Hardy into a world beater if he didn't have the stomach for it already.
