What former players have to say about Ben Howland:

[messageboardsuperhero]

I dug up this 2012 article from the LA Times about Howland's players transitioning to the NBA. Impressive. My favorite quote comes from Darren Collison- "You need the vegetables from Coach Holland, then the dessert in the NBA is kind of your reward." It's also good to hear that we will finally have some actual set plays in the half-court for the first time in forever.

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jan/17/sports/la-sp-ucla-howland-nba-20120118

[confucius say]

I dug up this 2012 article from the LA Times about Howland's players transitioning to the NBA. Impressive. My favorite quote comes from Darren Collison- "You need the vegetables from Coach Holland, then the dessert in the NBA is kind of your reward." It's also good to hear that we will finally have some actual set plays in the half-court for the first time in forever.

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/jan/17/sports/la-sp-ucla-howland-nba-20120118

Somebody tweet this article to malik.

Compare this to Johnny jones, who makes Stans look like a x and o genius.

[messageboardsuperhero]

Here's an interesting observation and something for us to base our long run expectations on:

Since Howland has had to fix some total dumpster fires (Northern AZ, Pitt circa 1999, and UCLA circa 2003), the results in the first couple of years at all his jobs aren't very impressive. In those six years, Howland's record was 75-85 with a .469 winning percentage.

After his first two years at each job, he has a combined record of 313-110 in 13 total seasons. That averages out to 24 wins/year and a .740 winning percentage, with only one losing season out of the 13 years. Hell, there were only 2 seasons out of those 13 where he failed to win at least 21 games. I think these numbers give a more accurate representation of the type of coach Howland is- instead of punishing him for dropping a bunch of games while having to spend six total years cleaning up three different messes. It's sort of like judging John Cohen's total record here and including his first two years... It skews things.

Will it take him more or less time to get us on the right track? Who knows. I do think our players are a pretty decent cultural fit for his coaching style, but we have some serious talent deficiencies too. Time will tell.