VINCENT BONSIGNORE on UCLA BASKETBALL: Ben Howland, Bruins would be better off severing ties
Posted: 03/24/2013 12:16:06 AM PDT
Updated: 03/24/2013 12:23:27 AM PDT
It's never a good thing to see a good coach get fired.
But when that coach has been twisting in the wind as long as Howland has, it's best for everyone to move on.
Meanwhile, how can a quality coach like Howland crash and burn as quickly and decisively as he did?
The same coach who restored order in Westwood, leading the Bruins to three straight NCAA Final Fours at one point, couldn't get them past the second round five consecutive years?
Why?
The same coach who recruited elite players like Jordan Farmar, Kevin Love, Russell Westbrook and Jrue Holiday also couldn't keep those players on campus more than one or two years.
The same coach who could attract other elite players to Westwood was also the coach who couldn't get along with them enough or get through to them enough to convince them to stick around - and worse, was the reason they fled to other schools where many of them flourished and excelled, while the Bruins languished.
It never made any sense.
And it's still a riddle wrapped in a puzzle.
Howland, the same coach who led UCLA back to prominence, not only couldn't keep them there he became the very reason they kept falling and falling and falling.
Until UCLA had no other choice
but to buy his contract out, reportedly, and begin a search for a new leader.
The whys and how's of Howland's fall will be analyzed for years.
He seemed inflexible at times, too stuck in his ways. He wanted to grind games to a halt when today's kids want to run and gun and express themselves.
His communication skills always seemed an issue, the inability to connect and relate to modern players all too obvious in the way kids came, saw and immediately left.
He tried to change, it seems, but it seemed forced and disingenuous and you never got the feeling he embraced it.
Howland is who he is, and while that worked in the beginning it became his demise by the end.
His reluctance to embrace change, to be flexible enough to transform with the times, was a fatal flaw.
It showed in the multiple transfers over the years and the star players leaving almost as soon as they got here.
And it showed in how his teams got worse over the years, not better.
Which is sad.
Howland is a good coach. We all know that.
But by the end, he was the wrong coach for UCLA.
vincent.bonsignore@dailynews.com twitter.com/DailyNewsVinny
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