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
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.
We had a great year. Our goal is to get back here again next year and win it.
We had a seven-point lead at the half, but then we came back out and got off to an unbelievable start against an NCAA tournament team. And although we won by 12, the score is not indicative of the fact that we were pretty much in control the last 16, 17 minutes of this game. It was really fun.
We're going up against the human fly-swatting machine.
Coach is always there at the home games, sitting behind our bench. What was accomplished by John R. Wooden . . . will never, ever be seen again at the college level. They won 38 straight NCAA (Tournament) games in a row at one point . . .
I'm proud of our guys for seizing the opportunity against Gonzaga. That gave us a chance to play another day. And now we're moving forward.
I'm really proud of Ryan. He did a great job again today. Here is a kid who has worked so hard to get it to where he's at right now. He's a factor.
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.
We feel very, very fortunate to move on to the next round.
We hit some tough shots. It was a night of tough shots.
It was another outstanding job defensively. In the second half, we did a much better job of getting to the line and getting fouled.
The very best players are my kind of players.
Florida was terrific. Credit Billy Donovan. They were really well coached. They did an excellent job handling our pressure.
Florida has a great offensive team. It really is going to be a big challenge for us to be able to try to defend such skilled players and good passers. Everybody can shoot it.