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
Bill is telling me I have to watch film. I'm not doing my job.
I wanted to be Jerry West. That was my dream as a little kid.
Ryan Hollins is coming to the realization that this is it. All seniors seem to come to that realization about this point in the year.
Everybody is contributing to this program, even the guys that aren't playing or don't get to play as much.
There's no question Cal is an NCAA Tournament team. It's just a matter of seeding.
There's no big secret to this. If you want to win ... you have to be able to play both ends.
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.
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.
That was a great gut-check win for our team, our program. We are happy, but we want to win our next game (Saturday at Stanford to win the title outright).
That was a mistake. He grabbed the ball away and the official saw the second part of the play.
That's a very important win we got tonight. It's a credit for these kids to handle any adversity.
I was really hoping we would play really well tonight so he and his family could enjoy that in the hospital room that he was in tonight. You know, in terms of what he means to the program, he's the patriarch. He is why this program is where it is. It's one of the elite programs in the country and has been since he started that job in 1948.
My biggest thing with him is he would never take any time off. He was sneaking in the gym. We got beat by West Virginia and all of a sudden he's back in the gym that night shooting for two hours. It's actually counter-productive when you wear your body out that much. It's like a marathon runner getting ready to run a marathon by running five marathons the day before he's going to run the marathon.