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 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.
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.
I feel very bad that Hassan is not here. Hassan Adams is a great kid, a great competitor, and he's going to really bounce back and do great in the NCAA tournament. But we need to beat Arizona. It's hard to beat a good team like Arizona three times. So it's going to be a big challenge for us to come out and have success.
He's a great kid and a great competitor. He's going to bounce back and be great in the NCAA Tournament. We need to beat Arizona, but it's hard to beat a good team like Arizona three times. They've improved since we've last seen them.
We beat an NCAA Tournament team without question. It's not even an issue.
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 . . .
Coach watches every game. I knew that and embraced it. He's the greatest coach in the history of basketball. What he did in college basketball will never be repeated. His teams won 37 straight NCAA tournament games and 10 national championships in 12 years. You know how everyone wants to be like Mike -- Michael Jordan -- as a player? Every coach wants to be like John. So I don't feel a shadow. I embrace it.
There's no question Cal is an NCAA Tournament team. It's just a matter of seeding.
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.
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 .