Hello again. A hearty congragulations to Ryan Steele, the winner of the nysportblog.com March Madness bracket and thus the $25 Modell's gift certificate is his.

Ryan, a 6-foot Manhattan resident orignially from North Carolina, correctly selected his beloved Duke Blue Devils as the national champion, narrowly claiming victory over second place finisher Andrew Wooden. Aside from Duke basketball, Ryan is also known to enjoy the tennis of Andy Roddick, Chesapeake whiskey and mid-90's video games.

A source (Conor Reilly) has told me that Ryan may also be writing a blog as part of the prize. A tip of the hat to you, Ryan, and I hope that you do end up writing a celebratory blog post for us.

So a topic in my two-week hiatus that I've been meaning to touch on, aside from Conor's absurd Mets-winning-the-National-League-prediction, is St. John's' hiring of Steve Lavin as their new head coach.

From what I've been told and what I know, this seems to be a very solid move for the Red Storm. St. John's hasn't been able to get top-caliber recruits in the seven years since the scandal-ridden Mike Jarvis era came to a close, and Lavin is best known for his recruiting abilities.

Let's be sure about one thing: Steve Lavin is not being hired for his on-court coaching abilities, but he's being primarily counted on for his recruiting abillities. Lavin's success will be determined by the type of talent he brings to the school. St. John's has to keep top New York-bred talent at home for the program to become competitive again, and Lavin looks he could be the guy to do so. During his seven year tenure at UCLA, Lavin recruited two #1 overall classes, bringing in guys like future NBA stars Trevor Ariza, Jason Kapono and Baron Davis.
 
Sure, even in a best case scenario it'll be a fairly long while until players of that caliber start coming to St. John's, but it's pretty clear that Lavin's strength is as a recruiter, and that's what the Red Storm needs right now. It's pretty embarassing that the best New York City players travel hundreds of miles away to play for St. John's' Big East rivals Pittsburgh and West Virginia. Lavin could be the guy to reverse this ugly trend.

I spoke to a college basketball sports talk host at work yesterday who also thinks St. John's went the right way in hiring a proven recruiter like Lavin. He also told me that the weakest part of his coaching profile is his on-court coaching, something that isn't as big a priority as keeping St. John's players close to home. If you don't have talented players in the Big East, it doesn't matter how good of an on-court coach you are, you're going to get killed.

It's a real shame that New York hasn't had even a decent college basketball team for almost a decade. Let's hope Steve Lavin can change that.