UCLA coach Steve Lavin was answering questions on Friday, the questions that came after his press conference, the questions that came after the L.A. TV crew questions, the questions that never seem to stop, when Bruins SID Marc Dellins poked his head in the Green Room of the Greensboro Coliseum to remind Lavin of the time. "Coach, you're on the floor," said Dellins, referring to the imminent Bruins practice. Then just as Lavin turned to walk out, one sportswriter chimed in, "Oh, is that why he's here?"

It gets lost in all the talk about hair gel and funny-looking shoes. It gets lost in the similes, metaphors and analogies that flow from his mouth, the references to Fred Astaire and English pastries. It gets lost, this notion of just what Lavin is supposed to be doing at UCLA.

Since he first took over five years ago, the 36-year-old NoCal native has been dogged by questions. "The perceptions of me have been all over the map," he says. "Early on, I was supposed to be a solid defensive coach, but the shortcoming was I couldn't recruit. Then we ended up signing a number-one and number-two class. Now I'm a natural born salesman, I just can't teach or coach."

Lavin loves movies. As a kid, his father, Cap, would take him to all kinds of film festivals in San Francisco: Musicals with Astaire and Ginger Rodgers, gangster flicks with Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney, genres from the Marx Brothers to Chaplin, all the way to Fellini. But this season, Lavin found himself starring in his own drama, a cloak-and-dagger mystery that sounds like something out of All the President's Men.

After the Bruins opened the season at 4-5 with home losses to Cal State Northridge and North Carolina, the "wolves, the hounds, and the flying monkeys", as Lavs would say, were out to get him. It would have been easy to rail against the din, to try and change the misperceptions. But Lavin knew where that would put him. "If you defend yourself or try and explain why you do things," he says. "Then you end up in a straightjacket, in a padded cell, like Nicholson throwing lobs to the Chief in Cuckoo's Nest."

Instead, Lavin did just what he was hired to do, he coached. Down by 16 at halftime against North Carolina, Lavin looked around his locker room and decided that in the second half his team would press, fullcourt. And since that time, UCLA has never stopped. Nor does Lavin plan to, the rest of this year or next. Since the loss to Carolina, UCLA has won 19 of 22, and the prospect of Rick Pitino in Westwood has faded.

In his toughest time as a head coach, Lavin has proved that he can, indeed, coach. With a few brilliant moves and a lot of hard work, he has turned a mediocre team with a great backcourt into his fourth Sweet 16 team in five years. The question now is, can his team beat Duke? Realistically, it will take a hell of an effort. But then, the Bruins and their coach have already had a one hell of a season.