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
This team never, ever gets affected by it. They just continue to battle back. There's nothing that they haven't seen in terms of adversity that's going to bother them.
We were the tentative ones in the first half. I think we did a better job of playing way more aggressively at both ends of the floor in the second half.
I think our team embodies the spirit of what Coach is all about, which is teamwork, which is unselfish play, which is a commitment at both ends of the floor to play together, team defense, team offense, giving yourself up for your teammates. As we continue to win, they all get recognized.
They both are premier players that have grown through a lot of adversity already. Both of them got a lot of experience last year and playing over the summer.
That's one of the things I think that you're going to continue to see, the George Mason run. I think they had three players that were fifth-year seniors. It's such an advantage to be older than your opponent both mentally and physically, and to have that experience of having gone through the ups and downs.
There's things that happened in Oakland that I would assume could be magnified at the Final Four. Both guys were great at talking about the little things.
There's no big secret to this. If you want to win ... you have to be able to play both ends.
This will be unbelievably hard on everyone, even though, you know, religiously, we all understand that this is a celebration day of her life. But it's too short a life as far as we're all concerned.
This was a great gut-check win for our team, our program. To go through all that and have to go to overtime and to gut it out, it's a testament to these kids' character.
To me, the image of L.A. is hard-working, good people, who play together and are tough. (They) just happen to live in the greatest place in the world.
Thomas is the Shawn Marion of college basketball. And Shawn Marion is the greatest athlete in all of the NBA.
We had autograph seekers knocking on our players' doors at midnight the night before we played Memphis .
This was just a great gut-check win for our program. We beat an NCAA tournament team tonight, and to come out in this type of environment and play so well is a testament to our guys.
This team never, ever gets affected ... they just battle back. We're playing our best basketball of the year by far right now.