Call it the curious case of Ben Howland.
If he can find the time to do so amid dismissing players, doing some last-ditch recruiting, and finding a new Svengali, the UCLA men’s basketball coach needs to sit back, relax and enjoy this weekend’s Final Four.
And when I say “enjoy,” I really mean it; this year’s surviving quartet ““ Butler, Michigan State, West Virginia and Duke ““ should have Howland flashing a Bobo Morgan-sized grin.
This is no April Fool’s joke, people. If that had been the angle I chose to take with this column, the headline would have read “Oregon football team honored for community service”or “Kentucky basketball star attends moderately difficult class.”
Anyway, the basis for Ben’s bliss should stem from the fact that the teams still standing in the Final Four represent the ideals and philosophies that he holds in high esteem himself ““ ideals and philosophies that have been criticized by many who say that they are not a formula for success in today’s college basketball world.
The remaining squads are champions of many key elements of the Howland Doctrine: a heavily-involved coach, a preference for lesser talented but more experienced players, a more deliberate half-court offense and tenacious defense.
A year ago, a UCLA squad that had more holes than the Masters Golf Tournament got ran out of the second round of the tournament by a Villanova team that eventually made it to the Final Four.
A year ago, March Madness was dominated by high-flying, run-and-gun offenses unleashed by their coaches and highlighted by NBA-bound stars like Blake Griffin, Tyreke Evans and Ty Lawson.
A year ago, Howland’s system seemed outdated, prehistoric, Greg Oden-like, or whatever other synonym for “old” that you can think of.
What a difference a year makes.
Now, we have Duke, a team that reflects the blue-collar nature of its coach, plays with extreme physicality, and has zero future NBA starters on its team. We have West Virginia, with their systematically efficient half-court offense and their dictatorial coach.
We have Michigan State, a group of overachievers directed by a virtuoso of a coach who wins games through rebounding and toughness. And we have Butler, a team of I-wouldn’t-recognize-that-guy-if-he-and-I-ran-into-each-other-on-the-street that wins games almost exclusively on the strength of their execution.
The collection has to give Howland hope, as one of these squads is guaranteed to come home with a national title come Monday. And while Howland has garnered a considerable amount of praise for making it to three consecutive Final Fours ““ rightfully so ““ the knock on him among pundits is that he can’t win the BIG one. Usually, that statement evolves into a condemnation of his coaching style.
This year, however, there is no Carmelo Anthony, Derrick Rose or John Wall in the hunt to make people question why Howland doesn’t grab the country’s supreme athletes. Instead, there’s Jon Scheyer and Da’Sean Butler, four-year players who are by all accounts solid performers who can lead their college team to glory, but who have enough limitations to hinder them from leaping for NBA riches.
With the recent early exits of Kevin Love and Jrue Holiday ““ the latter of which really took the UCLA coach by surprise ““ Howland has to be happy that it’s possible to win a championship without a guy who’s a surefire one-and-done. How much easier is it to justify the way your program is recruiting and building when other schools can win without potential NBA studs?
It’s been a bit of a rough stretch in Westwood recently but if, say, Villanova, Kentucky, Kansas and Syracuse had made up this year’s Final Four, that would have been insult to injury.
As it is, the success of this particular foursome should energize and rejuvenate a coach that often appeared weary and drained at the end of this season.
Maybe a showcase of similar philosophies will function as a veritable Fountain of Youth.
Ben Howland, aging in reverse? Wouldn’t that be something.
If you can correctly spell the last name of the Duke coach, e-mail Eshoff at reshoff@media.ucla.edu.