When Ben Howland says that a 15-seed can beat a 2-seed,
he’s not just talking.
He’s speaking from experience.
In 1998, Howland’s fourth season as the head coach at
Northern Arizona, the 15th-seeded Lumberjacks gave second-seeded
Cincinnati all it could handle before losing 65-62 on a last-second
3-pointer.
“I’ve been on the flip side of this before,”
Howland said. “We should have won that game. We had that
game.”
Howland’s Lumberjacks had a six-point lead with 9:25
remaining, but a 3-pointer by D’Juan Baker gave the heavily
favored Bearcats the victory.
During Tuesday’s press conference, Howland still seemed a
little bothered eight years later.
“We didn’t trail the shooter and he came out and
knocked down a 3 at the buzzer,” he said.
Howland’s point, of course, is that anything can happen in
the NCAA Tournament. Interestingly, that Northern Arizona team and
Belmont ““ UCLA’s first-round opponent ““ have a
number of things in common.
When Howland was with the Lumberjacks, they led the country in
3-point shooting percentage and ranked second in field goal
percentage. As for Belmont, those Bruins rank fourth in the country
in field goal percentage (50 percent), and they shoot 38.2 percent
from 3-point range.
“It’s similar in the respect that when you get to
the tournament and all of a sudden you get some 3-balls going,
they’re a dangerous team,” Howland said.
A FEEL-GOOD STORY: Walk from one UCLA Bruin to
the next and ask them about Cedric Bozeman and you’re going
to get the same answer over and over.
“I’m so happy for Ced,” point guard Jordan
Farmar said. “Words can’t explain how hard he worked,
how much adversity he’s been through.
“His attitude every day is all team. When you have that
kind of guy on your team, he just makes everybody
better.”
Bozeman has run the gamut of emotions during his time at UCLA,
from a Sweet 16 appearance his freshman year, to two of the worst
years in the history of the program, to a demoralizing ACL injury
suffered just a day before the team’s first exhibition game
last season, to Pac-10 champion and NCAA Tournament two-seed.
“It’s just like getting a big monkey off your
back,” Bozeman said. “To go through a lot of adversity,
injuries, losing seasons, and to get to this point, I’m
happy.”
The funny thing is, other people seem even happier.
“Words can’t explain it,” said senior center
Ryan Hollins, who has also experienced his share of ups and downs
with the program as well.
“Who didn’t feel for Cedric Bozeman? To come back
and have the type of year that he has is incredible.”
When Bozeman went down with a sprained ankle in the
Bruins’ first game of the Pac-10 Tournament last Thursday,
Hollins said “everybody’s heart stopped.”
But Bozeman didn’t stop. He scored nine points against
Arizona in Friday’s semifinals and had 13 points and five
rebounds against California in the final.
“I think Ced’s pumped up about this team and where
he is right now,” Howland said. “He played great in
that championship game.”
WEAK PAC?: All season long, the Bruins have had
to hear about how the Pac-10 conference is “down.”
And they’re tired of it.
“Have them come play at Washington State, or at Cal at
Haas Pavilion, or at Arizona, where they’re supposedly
down,” Farmar said. “Let them come play and try to win
games and see how down it is.”
Four Pac-10 teams were selected for the NCAA Tournament.
Fifth-seeded Washington faces 12th-seeded Utah State, seventh-seed
California faces 10th-seeded North Carolina State, and
eighth-seeded Arizona plays ninth-seeded Wisconsin.
Howland looks at the tournament as a chance for the conference
to prove itself.
“I think (the Pac-10) gets maligned,” he said,
“So, we’ll see how it goes. We’ll see. Here we
go.”
DRIBBLERS: Belmont guard Justin Hare told the
Daily News that anything other than UCLA winning by at least 20
points would be a disappointment for UCLA.
“That guy’s a good sandbagger, you can see that
right now,” Howland said. “That’s very good on
his part. Sandbagging is going on, right down in
Tennessee.”
Hare, a sophomore, leads Belmont in scoring with 15.9 points per
game.
Though UCLA’s primary focus is Belmont, assistant coaches
Donny Daniels and Ernie Zeigler have been reviewing tape of both
Marquette and Alabama since Sunday.
As of Sunday, UCLA had 1,300 films of games played across the
country this season collected in its archives. That collection
included two Belmont games, and the number of Belmont tapes has
since grown to 10, according to Howland.
Despite two consecutive losing seasons, Oregon coach Ernie Kent
will keep his job, athletic director Bill Moos said late
Tuesday.