Jamie Dixon

This is how close UCLA Coach Ben Howland is to Pittsburgh Coach Jamie Dixon. Dial the number for the home Jamie and Jacqueline Dixon share with their two young children in the Pittsburgh suburbs, and Ben and Kim Howland's 22-year-old daughter, Meredith, might answer the phone. A nursing student at Pittsburgh -- and a cheerleader at the school when her father was coach -- Meredith is a regular baby sitter for the Dixons.

The similarities between UCLA Coach Ben Howland and his former protege, Pittsburgh Coach Jamie Dixon, include their appreciation for the finer points of defense, their restlessness on the sideline and, on Thursday, extended to their choice of identically dark suits worn over light-blue shirts and patterned ties. The difference between them, though, is significant. Howland knows how to guide a team through a defining moment, out the other side, and into the Elite Eight.

Jamie Dixon is staying as Pittsburgh's basketball coach, agreeing Saturday to a contract extension after Arizona State and Missouri had approached him following the Panthers' elimination from the NCAA tournament last weekend. Dixon, one of the Big East Conference's lower-paid coaches during his first three seasons, will move closer to being one of the conference's higher-paid coaches. He previously made between $500,000 and $600,000 a season in salary under a contract that ran through 2010.

Maggie Dixon, a 28-year-old Southern Californian who coached the Army women's basketball team to its first NCAA tournament appearance this season, died Thursday afternoon, a day after collapsing and being hospitalized, a source close to the family confirmed. Dixon was taken to Westchester (N.Y.) Medical Center after suffering an "arrhythmic episode to her heart" Wednesday at the U.S. Military Academy, said her older brother, Pittsburgh men's Coach Jamie Dixon.

He still talks to her. He touches his reddened eyes, smiles softly, shakes his head, of course he still talks to her. Late at night, driving home from the gym, traveling from recruit to recruit, the coach of the nation's top-ranked college basketball team still talks to his younger sister. She was also a basketball coach, remember? She once took a team to the NCAA tournament in the same year he did, remember? There's a lot they can still share. There's a lot he can still learn.

Former assistant Jamie Dixon was named Pittsburgh's basketball coach Tuesday and will retain assistant Barry Rohrssen, leaving UCLA Coach Ben Howland with two openings on his staff. Dixon was Howland's top assistant at Pitt and Northern Arizona the last nine years, and Howland has waited to complete his Bruin staff until Pitt hired a coach.