Howland shouldn't be fall guy for UCLA's loss

I've never liked the way Ben Howland coaches, the way he controls his players almost every second of a game, and the ridiculous notion that defense wins championships when it seems like the team with the most points always wins.

The Bruins' quick Final Four exit again would make it hard for rebuttal, but this is no time to pounce on Howland, or pick apart his master plan for success at UCLA.

Howland didn't go stupid overnight, and for three consecutive years with three teams he has been here with a chance to win the national championship.

That not only makes him good, but exceptional in his line of work.

As I recall, no one else beat Florida the last two years in the big games, and although we'll see about Memphis on Monday night, go ahead and ask him if this latest whupping shakes his belief in how to assemble a winning basketball team.

"No," he said, as if bracing himself to take a charge, but if he thought Memphis' transition game was hard to stop, wait until the second-guessing really gets going.

The questions already started in the post-slaughter news conference.

"Ben, what changes need to happen to have this team get here and win?" the Associated Press wanted to know.

"Ben, do you have to change your approach?" a writer from Los Angeles asked.

"Coach, it seems like the last three years the teams with really good athletes have had their way with your guys, so what do you do?"

In each case Howland listened as if someone was actually making a good point, his heart ripped out for a third consecutive time minutes earlier, but when it came time to answer, there was no need for him to look at video.

"Those kind of questions suggest they had better players," Howland said later in a private moment. "Usually that's the problem, but we have really good players too. We just didn't perform well.

"I see no need for any sweeping changes."

But is there any way UCLA could have won this game?

"Yes, if we had played close to a perfect game," said Howland, the defense-minded coach defending his players to the very end. "We had to play really under control and not make mistakes."

That's the Howland brand of basketball, of course, every defensive stop orchestrated, every offensive series choreographed, every timeout used, while Memphis played as if it was in a hurry to get back to the River Walk.