Ben Howland

Ben Howland will remain UCLA's basketball coach, UCLA Athletic Director Dan Guerrero announced Tuesday. In a prepared statement, Guerrero said that he and Howland had “several discussions” after the volatile season. Guard Jerime Anderson was arrested for misdemeanor theft in August, Reeves Nelson, the Bruins' top player, was dismissed from the team in December and a Sports Illustrated story portrayed Howland as having lost control of his team. “Ben understands full well that the management and oversight of the program needs improvement,” Guerrero said.

Ben Howland laughed so often and seemed so much at ease that you almost wanted to demand he answer some obscure trivia question about his background to prove it was really he. The typically gruff UCLA basketball coach was in such good cheer during a conference call with reporters Wednesday night because the Bruins had just signed Shabazz Muhammad, ending a three-year recruitment of one of the top prep seniors in the nation. "Needless to say," Howland said, "I'm very happy right now. " Less than a month after another season ended without an NCAA tournament appearance and Howland's job status seemed shakier than the San Andreas fault, the longtime coach was back on solid footing thanks to Muhammad's decision to spend at least one season in Westwood.

Ben Howland laughed so often and seemed so much at ease that you almost wanted to demand he answer some obscure trivia question about his background to prove it was really he. The typically gruff UCLA basketball coach was in such good cheer during a conference call with reporters Wednesday night because the Bruins had just signed Shabazz Muhammad, ending a three-year recruitment of one of the top prep seniors in the nation. "Needless to say," Howland said, "I'm very happy right now. " Less than a month after another season ended without an NCAA tournament appearance and Howland's job status seemed shakier than the San Andreas fault, the longtime coach was back on solid footing thanks to Muhammad's decision to spend at least one season in Westwood.

A high school kid dressed in a free sweat suit and giant hip glasses strolled across a red carpet into a television studio in North Carolina on Wednesday, stared into a camera and made the failing UCLA basketball program a brilliant promise. Now it's up to Ben Howland to keep it. When top-ranked prep forward Shabazz Muhammad announced he would be joining two other top-50 recruits at UCLA next season, the Bruins were instantly transformed from mediocrity to meteor. But can Ben Howland maintain the burn?

UCLA Athletic Director Dan Guerrero stopped short of guaranteeing that Bruins' basketball coach Ben Howland will return next season in the wake of allegations made by a Sports Illustrated story. The article painted a picture of a program where players used drugs and fought with each other in practice, as well as Howland giving preferential treatment that led to abuse by one player, Reeves Nelson. Nelson was kicked off the team in December. “Ben has been with me nine years.

Ben Howland's exit interview Tuesday wasn't a literal farewell, though some might have thought the UCLA basketball coach was on his way out after a volatile season. In fact, just hours before Howland met with reporters for his final session of the 2011-12 season, UCLA Athletic Director Dan Guerrero released a statement indicating that Howland would be the team's coach next season, his 10th at UCLA. Howland began his news conference by reading a prepared statement, something he said he didn't usually do but that he wanted to do in this case because "I'd just like to make sure I'm clear on my message and not let my emotions get in the way. "  The statement began: "This past season has been the most challenging of my 31 years as a college basketball coach.

Watching a Ben Howland team take the floor after consecutive losses is like watching a punished child take the backyard after standing in the corner. The sigh of relief is palpable. The need to please is visible. The energy expended is nuts. These Bruins may not be a Final Four team, but they are still a Last Straw team, pushing back hardest when they are pushed to the edge, capable of greatness even when on the verge of collapse.

Here's how quickly things change. Year after year it seems Ben Howland is a fixture on the Final Four floor. But last year the Bruins lose in the second round of the NCAA tournament and Howland is given tickets for the Final Four in Detroit's Ford Field, Howland's seats, he estimates, "100 yards from the court" in what is usually a football stadium. This year, when the tournament is played in Indianapolis, he should be so lucky to be allowed in the building. UCLA had a better year in football than it did in basketball, and that's how far Howland's program has sunk.

You want Ben Howland to lighten up, want him to smile just a little and crack wise or maybe sometimes sit courtside during games like Phil Jackson -- calm as a stone, peaceful, hardly reacting to anything at all. But we have to face facts. Howland isn't built that way. Angst should be his middle name. The big worry is that if he were to lose the sideline shouts and grimaces and unrelenting nature, he'd also completely lose his edge. And where would UCLA basketball be then? Not where it is now.

His voice carries above the squeak of sneakers, the chatter of players, echoing into the corners of a mostly empty Pauley Pavilion. "Make those cuts hard," he barks. " Hard ." This is what Ben Howland lives for, the hard cut and the hedge, the close-out and the jump stop, fundamentals of the game. Watch him at UCLA practice, clutching his notes, stopping mid-drill to nudge one of his guards aside and personally demonstrate defensive technique. A 52-year-old man in shorts, he crouches low. "One hand up," he says.

A familiar UCLA chant broke out in a Chicago hotel room a few days before the McDonald's All-American high school basketball game. Clap-clap-clap-clap.... Kyle Anderson, Bruins point-guard-in-waiting, was trying to teach the eight clap to Shabazz Muhammad, potential Bruins savior-in-waiting. It wasn't a flawless rendition. "Just like me before, you have to work on it," said Anderson, who signed a letter of intent with UCLA last fall and was lobbying to have Muhammad do the same next week.

Embattled UCLA basketball Coach Ben Howland implied in a statement released by the Bruins athletic department Thursday that he has no interest in Nebraska's coaching vacancy. “I am proud to be returning to my dream job as the head coach of the Bruins next fall, and I intend on ending my coaching career at UCLA," Howland said in the statement. "I'm already very excited about the prospects for next year's team, am currently on the recruiting trail, and will be visiting Kyle Anderson in New Jersey before returning to California this weekend to attend the Southern California Regional Championships at the Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario.” According to a recent report in the Omaha World-Herald, Nebraska contacted Howland about its coaching vacancy after dismissing Doc Sadler.

Ben Howland will remain UCLA's basketball coach, UCLA Athletic Director Dan Guerrero announced Tuesday. In a prepared statement, Guerrero said that he and Howland had “several discussions” after the volatile season. Guard Jerime Anderson was arrested for misdemeanor theft in August, Reeves Nelson, the Bruins' top player, was dismissed from the team in December and a Sports Illustrated story portrayed Howland as having lost control of his team. “Ben understands full well that the management and oversight of the program needs improvement,” Guerrero said.

The Pac-12 Conference's men's basketball tournament will move from Los Angeles to the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas beginning in 2013, the conference announced Tuesday. The new agreement runs through 2015. Previously, the Pac-12 held its men's tournament in downtown Los Angeles for 11 years, but that agreement expired this year.  Rumors had surfaced that the league was going to move the tournament to Las Vegas, and Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott said he received "overwhelming" positive feedback from fans about the possible move.  “We were lucky that we had a lot of interest and a lot of models to look at, but there is a clear difference between being in a destination like Las Vegas that has 40 million tourists and is known as a big-time sporting and entertainment destination … and is a neutral site,” Scott said during a conference call.

UCLA basketball fans will say what they will about Athletic Director Dan Guerrero's announcement Tuesday that Ben Howland would return as the Bruins' basketball coach. Howland might not even know he received a vote of confidence from another source perhaps just as important. The father of the nation's top-ranked recruit, Las Vegas Bishop Gorman High's Shabazz Muhammad, said after UCLA's announcement that he was "happy for Ben, happy for the program. "I think he's going to do a good job and that he'll get the program back on track," Ron Holmes said in a telephone interview.

Ben Howland's exit interview Tuesday wasn't a literal farewell, though some might have thought the UCLA basketball coach was on his way out after a volatile season. In fact, just hours before Howland met with reporters for his final session of the 2011-12 season, UCLA Athletic Director Dan Guerrero released a statement indicating that Howland would be the team's coach next season, his 10th at UCLA. Howland began his news conference by reading a prepared statement, something he said he didn't usually do but that he wanted to do in this case because "I'd just like to make sure I'm clear on my message and not let my emotions get in the way. "  The statement began: "This past season has been the most challenging of my 31 years as a college basketball coach.

Coach Ben Howland sounded like a mayoral candidate lagging in the polls with election night looming, saying his UCLA basketball team has "a lot of work to do" and "a long way to go" because the coach is breaking in so many new players. On the plus side, one newcomer appears capable of influencing the swing vote. Freshman shooting guard Tyler Lamb has impressed Howland with his defensive tenacity and three-point accuracy, making five of six shots from beyond the arc during a scrimmage Saturday.

When he was hired as basketball coach at UCLA, Ben Howland framed a picture of himself, his father, mother and son with the chancellor at the time, Albert Carnesale . Howland had a small metal nameplate made and affixed below the photo that read: The Dream Come True April 3, 2003 He's looking for the photo now. His office was remodeled recently, he says, as he rummages through other discarded memorabilia stuck...

The father of Shabazz Muhammad, widely considered the top prep basketball recruit nationally, said his son is pleased that UCLA Coach Ben Howland will be coaching the Bruins next season. Howland's job was thought to be less than secure after a volatile season, but UCLA Athletic Director  Dan Guerrero announced Tuesday that Howland would return next season. "We're happy for Ben, happy for the program," Muhammad's father Ron Holmes told The Times in a phone interview.

When he was hired as basketball coach at UCLA, Ben Howland framed a picture of himself, his father, mother and son with the chancellor at the time, Albert Carnesale . Howland had a small metal nameplate made and affixed below the photo that read: The Dream Come True April 3, 2003 He's looking for the photo now. His office was remodeled recently, he says, as he rummages through other discarded memorabilia stuck...