Ben Howland
Ben Howland
Benjamin Clark Howlandis an American college basketball coach for the Mississippi State Bulldogs and former player. He served as the head men's basketball coach at Northern Arizona University from 1994 to 1999, the University of Pittsburgh from 1999 to 2003, and the University of California, Los Angelesfrom 2003 to 2013. Howland became the first men's coach in modern college basketball history to be fired shortly after winning an outright power-conference title. He is one of the few NCAA Division I...
ProfessionCoach
Date of Birth28 May 1957
CityLebanon, OR
Last time I checked, Larry Brown started in college, for example, and he might be one of the top coaches.
Well, I tried to guard him. That's the key. We played mostly half-court, so it was easier to hold, grab and foul as opposed to when you've got Johnny between the top of the keys. Once in a while when that happened, it was over for me.
I'm always concerned about him. He's one of the top players in our conference without question. He's an NBA player. He's an L.A. kid and he's always played well against us. We've got our hands full.
This is what they've worked so hard for, to get a chance to continue to play. We've got our work really cut out for us in playing one of the top teams in the country in Gonzaga.
It's that magic third year. That's the plan. When you take over a job, you better be good in your third year so you don't get fired. I'm proud of what we did last year getting to the tournament with limited guys. We had four guys on the perimeter playing down the stretch. Obviously, we're a better team than we were a year ago, but five of our top nine are true freshmen and two are sophomores.
Arizona has played the toughest schedule by far in our conference, playing some of the top teams in the country. (Olson) had done a good job of what works best.
The last time I checked, we were one of two schools ... that had played against five top 50 teams in the country. The RPI that they're using for the NCAA tournament is largely based on strength of schedule and we were fourth out of 330 teams, so we've absolutely been tested.
I thought they were terrific. They did an outstanding job of dealing with our press. We were trying real hard.
I saw him at Nike camp. He played hard. He was under the radar.
I see it as a momentum thing all the way. We're going to feed on that win. We're going to feed on that emotion.
We played terrific tonight. It was our best defense of the year.
We had lost two straight games, and we needed this one. There was not even a remote thought of looking past this team.
Our team is definitely playing its best basketball right now. If you look over the course of the last eight games, we've really been playing great defensive team basketball.
I thought Jordan did a great job late in the game. My expectation is for Jordan to be aggressive and look to go to the basket, but he made some great plays on the defensive end.