Longtime College Basketball Coach Fired Wednesday
Some college athletics departments are not waiting until the end of basketball season to make a coaching change. The University of San Diego is one of them.
San Diego fired veteran coach Steve Lavin Wednesday near the end of his fourth season at the helm and 16th overall as a college basketball head coach. Pete Nakos of On3Sports broke the news, which was later confirmed by other outlets.
Lavin falters out West
Hired in 2022 after his second stint as a major network broadcaster, Lavin went 11-20 in his first season at San Diego before a promising 18-15 mark in year two.
Unfortunately, the program cratered to a 6-27 record in 2024-25 and is 11-17 with three games to play this season. In total, Lavin went 46-79 with the Toreros and 18-47 in West Coast Conference play.
According to the San Diego Union Tribune, Lavin had two more years on his contract, which reportedly paid him $1 million annually.
Is this the end of Lavin's coaching career?
The 61-year-old San Francisco native began his coaching career as an assistant at Purdue in 1988 before moving on to UCLA in 1991. With the Bruins, he helped the program win the 1995 NCAA Tournament before taking over for head coach Jim Harrick following the 1995-96 season.
Lavin went 145-78 in seven seasons at UCLA, reaching the Elite Eight in his first year and four additional Sweet Sixteens thereafter. After being let go in 2003, he moved into broadcasting before a return to the coaching ranks at St. John's in 2010.
Lavin led the Red Storm for five seasons, going 92-72 with two NCAA Tournament appearances and two NIT berths. Overall, he is 283-229 as a Division I head coach.
Two head coaches have been fired in the last week
Last Saturday, Kansas State dismissed Jerome Tang in the middle of his fourth season with the program. That situation is getting a bit messy, with the school contending the firing was "for cause" and Tang countering that Kansas State simply doesn't want to pay his buyout.
“If K-State’s President and AD really think the school was embarrassed by recent events, that’s nothing compared to the embarrassment that both of them are about to experience," Tang's lawyer Tom Mars told ESPN Sunday.