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
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 came out and felt like we got sped up by their defense.
It was a great second half. I can't wait to watch that again. We came out and played with passion.
I thought that in the first 10 minutes we came out a little tight. In the last 30 minutes, we were terrific.
Jordan went down to visit Florida, and they did a great job on the visit. His host was (current Grizzly player Anthony) Roberson, and he loved him. He had a really good relationship with Roberson. So when he came back, he was really leaning that way.
I'm glad we got that win. That's a tough, hard-nosed team that came in determined to beat us on our home court. We were fortunate to come away with a victory.
I'm really, really excited about the team defense we played tonight. We came at 'em so hard with our double teams, we took them out of what they wanted to do.
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.
Five should be average; four is a disappointment.