Ben Howland's Embarrassing Milestones In 2009-10 Season

  I had a professor in grad school who use to tell us about the poor cloth syndrom. He would tells us that you could give the best tailor in the world a bunch of gunny sacks and tell him to make a suit out of them. When the tailors finished sewing he had a suit that looked like a gunny sack.
  CBH has the same problem this year, he was given a bunch of gunny sacks and asked to make a team out of them. He’s tried his best but a gunny sack is still a gunny sack.
  We have a group of indivuals that haven’t learned to play like a team and haven’t absorbed even the basics of Ben Ball. Defense what’s that?
  I love Ben and what he’s done for UCLA and I’ll cut him some slack this year. This year was like a bad game of Texas Hold’m. You have to try and play with the cards delt you or you fold. I saw hints in last night’s game that CBH is about to throw in his cards.
   We can all agree that it’s time to say as they do in Chicago…“Wait till next year!” Hopefully we’ll get some reinforcements in the way of recruits and we’ll lose a brick layer or two due to graduation. If there are any malcontents on the team then don’t let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. It’s time to circle the wagons and regroup!

Does anyone know Howland’s or Guererro’s email address ?

I feel like we have to directly communicate our concerns with the guy himself or his superior. Either way, they need to hear from us.

We can hammer all we want about his inexplicable stubbornness about playing Dragovich & Anderson consistently , etc. With each embarassing loss, he & his assistants remain in their own insulated bubble, seemingly oblivious to the deafening noises and gripes against them and their team.

Nestor, you mentioned that if we ever had the opportunity of meeting him in person on some occasions, by all means ask him point blank about those issues so baffling us. I think it would be better served if we email him.

Remember two seasons ago at Seattle, after Brockman or somebody slammed the ball at Aboya’s face, Romar sat passively on the bench. Somebody posted his email address here at BN. So I wrote Romar. I told him how indignant and disappointed we felt towards him, a member of our 95 National Championship team’s coaching staff even, to sell out his conscience by turning his back on unsportsman like conduct when his own player was the undeniable culprit. Absent any action taken to discipline or reprimand the individual, I said perhaps our fond memories of him at Pauley has all been in vain.

He responded, said he understood how it happened in the heat of the moment and nothing beyond that. I knew he wouldn’t do anything but at least he got the message. So if anyone here has Howland’s email address, I’ll write to him.

Howland has a huge task ahead of him at this point. One could argue all day about the lack of a point guard, the lack of a pure 2 shooter, lack of team speed across the team, lack of a true center, etc. All true. There are just too many reasons to not keep banging the head against the wall, and too many reasons why throwing in the towel on this season should happen forthwith. Play the youngsters and get them as much PT as possible, hoping that the experience will help them next year, or at least help the coaching staff figure out what they have on the pine right now. It’s not like they have been beset by injuries to their key players. Think back a couple of years- -if Westbrook and Love had been hurt for a majority of the year, people would let him off the hook if the season was disappointing. But this year he has everyone (not counting Gordon) he thought that he’d have. Anderson’s injury may be serious, who knows. But watching him get picked so many times in the open court, and then head to the bench with such a “laugh” painted on his face, I don’t think he really cares if he plays or not. The team is in a malaise, and Ben needs to step up and do something to fix it. A team that is in last place in free-throw shooting in the conference has problems other than shooting at its core. There’s a lack of effort, a lack of focus, a lack of caring. I don’t know if even Ben can turn this around, this year or next, morale-wise. It may take getting a new coach to clean this mess up. I like Ben, and I wish him well, but it may be too late.

I observe that BH has lost the team, as in they are not listening and just going through the motions. I also believe that AD’s across the country perk up when a coach loses control of his/her teams in any sport. Unfortunately, this is when many other issue come up with a team. I am amazed that this has happened in one year, from a fan’s standpoint….
Bill

At beginning of the season it was very easy to see it was going to be a rough season. Most people thought when Drew left, it was going to rock bottom point of this years team. I only wish it was, we have gotten worse as the season progressed. Nestor and other members of BN have a valid point to be upset and pissed off at this point. Hate to say it, even Lavin’s teams showed up big on national stage. BSPN announcers sounded like they wanted to take cyanide tablets to end the torture by half time. Is the best product we can put out on the court? Really?

The shear lack of any form of progress is amazing, effectively, welcome to the hot seat Howland. Another year of this and people will ask for your head.

Look, it makes sense that people are angry at Howland. But cycles like this happen, particularly in college basketball, where a single class that doesn’t pan out can wreck your whole program. With Howland, add dismissals, early entries, and some high school hero, college zero types, and you have the Bruins of this year.

My cousin was the head coach at a Pac 10 school after having great success in another Big Six conference. He told me about the delicate balance it takes to get these kids to play together, buy in, and most importantly, get the most out of their talent. It’s just not happening this year for the Bruins, but Howland didn’t suddenly become stupid overnight.

And let’s remember this. As great as Coach Wooden was for the university, even HE was hounded by critics who were annoyed that Pete Newell at USF and Cal was getting the better of him. About three years of no championships had fans baying. Yet we know how that turned out.

So perhaps we should have a bit more patience. If we’re not talking about firing him, and no one is, and none of us are about to go suit up and actually contribute, maybe we should look at this season as an anomaly rather than the norm.

I believe “Mensgym” has a valid point about Howland having lost this team. He couldn’t control Drew Gordon, he can’t control Rags on or off the court and it looks like JA doesn’t give a damn when he’s on the court. Does anybody remember Howland’s last game at Pitt during the tournament? They showed it on TV, one of his senior players had given up on the impending loss and was pissed off so he took his shoes and socks off during the game and sat on the bench. The ultimate show of disrespect to Howland. Howland left him on the bench and showed no emotion.

"Ben Howland’s Embarrassing Milestones"?
"Howland’s Gutless Mismanagement"?
One bad, correct that, one horrible season and based on what I read here we might as well Dump Howland and start all over again. Maybe we could hire another Steve Lavin.
The Howland bashing I’ve read on this site over the last 3 months is a little hard for me to accept and support.
Sorry, while I dislike what is going on I think that Howland deserves and has earned a little tolerance on my part as a UCLA supporter. I look forward to the end of this season and have complete confidence that he will be able to turn things around.

I just don’t have to agree with it and if I don’t agree with it then I have every right to say so as do you or any other commentor

To follow up on a post by Muir Coach, the thing that is just maddening about CBH is that we did drink the Kool-Aid and while there’s nothing wrong with being stubborn (see Woody Hayes, Phil Jackson, even Coach Wooden) but when CBH is so frustratingly un-stubborn about enforcing HIS OWN PRINCIPLES, it defies logic or explanation. The oft-described Rago foibles without consequence, seeing players lolly-gag and semi-jog last night after losing possession…argh!!! I coach soccer at a high level and when a kid makes a mistake, they come out of the game, we talk, and then they return. If they repeat the mistake they sit and another player takes their spot until we can correct the mistake during training. If we can’t correct during training, playing minutes dwindle to zero. This isn’t hard and one can only hope that CBH will play the young guys (and MR) exclusively for what remains of this root-canal-without-novacaine of a season. I saw a number of flashes of good stuff coming from Bobo and BL. They and Mike Moser need all the minutes they can get if we have a chance to get this dinged-up micro-bus of a team back onto the fast lane. There, I feel better now…

Is the man for this program. He was when he took over, he is now. Wow. Don’t give up on him so easily. I know most of you don’t want him fired, as I obviously don’t, but I wont forget what he’s done for us. Btw, the AD is very smart, he isn’t rash and Howland’s job seems quite safe for the next couple years. Things will turn around and you’ll be laughing at yourselves in a couple years.

 I’d like to see Roll be rewarded with PT but I would like to see what Morgan and Lane can do as well as Moser. I’d like to see Jerime ride the pine for the rest of the year.