The Steve Lavin years in Westwood were a disaster. Lavin was incredulously unable to convince high caliber high school players to play for the Bruins, and he suffered some embarrassing losses that were unheard of for a program with so much history, and in 2002-2003, Lavin and the Bruins finished 10-19 for the first losing season for UCLA in 54 years.
Enter Ben Howland.
Left with a dearth of talent thanks to the incredible ability of Lavin to NOT get good players to play for one of the nation's most respected college basketball programs. Howland struggled his first year, finishing 11-17.
But in his first year recruiting, his class consisted of Jordan Farmar, Arron Afflalo, Lorenzo Mata, and Josh Shipp, all of whom were key contributors to the Bruins success over the past few years.
Since then the recruiting has not been as heralded, but Howland has turned less talented players in downright superstars. Russell Westbrook was just a three-star recruit, and now he is most likely a lottery pick.
Howland's record with UCLA now stands at 126-45 (.736). But the most impressive piece of the his resume is UCLA's three consecutive trips to the Final Four, something that has been been replicated only rarely.
The one knock on Howland of course is that he has never won a National Championship. and has only been to the championship game once in those three years.
It pains Howland I am sure, but he should be proud that very, very few coaches have achieved the sustained success that Howland has achieved over the past three years.
Whats truly scary is that although the Bruins are losing Kevin Love and Russell Westbrook Howland has signed the #1 recruiting class for 2008 according to Rivals.com, and so they aren't very far off from returning to the top of the heap, if at all.
Howland's trademark is tough, in your face, man-to-man defense, which seemingly all of his teams have embodied, and what has made Russell Westbrook such a hot commodity.
He preaches the fundamentals, his players buy into the scheme, and he has had success...that's why he's the best.
35 Comments
Loading more comments...
This comment and all replies have been deleted This comment has been deleted Undo delete