Larry Brown Sports

Most people agree that although Ben Howland had a very successful run at UCLA, it was time for him and the school to part ways. The hope was that we could get a young, hungry coach who could led the program back to Final Fours the way Howland did during the early parts of his tenure. But after being turned down by Shaka Smart and Brad Stevens, the Bruins turned to New Mexico coach Steve Alford as the answer.

It’s hard to be pleased with the decision. This a downgrade from Howland.

Alford agreed to a seven-year, $18.2 million contract with the Bruins, including a $200,000 signing bonus. UCLA also has to pay the Lobos for stealing their coach — a figure that may come out to around $1 million, per the Albuquerque Journal. Alford’s previous buyout was $200,000, but it is $1 million on his new contract. The new contract was supposed to take effect April 1.

New Mexico was blindsided by the move; Alford agreed to a 10-year extension with the school last week, probably well before he knew UCLA would have any interest in him. It reflects poorly on him for leaving a week after affirming his long-term commitment to the school, but it’s understandable why he would leave for this opportunity. I just don’t understand why UCLA decided on him.

Alford’s appeal is that he is a recognizable name for Bruins fans. He played college ball at Indiana and won a national championship under Bob Knight. He played on the Olympic team. He has been in the coaching game for over 20 years. He is 48 and has a pretty good image. He should be more affable than Howland, and he should be able to recruit well. My issue with him is he doesn’t cross me as a very good coach. He is a good coach. UCLA needed someone who had the potential to be great. We needed someone with upside.

Alford’s New Mexico team went 29-6 this season and won the Mountain West Conference with a 13-3 record. That looks great on the surface, but it’s terrible when you realize his team lost to Harvard in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Last year his team went 28-7 and lost to Louisville in the second round of the tourney 59-56, which isn’t bad when you consider that the Cardinals reached the Final Four. Three years ago his team went 30-5 and won the Mountain West. After beating Montana in the first round of the tournament, they were destroyed by Washington in the next round. Are you noticing a trend?

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Brad Stevens is at the top of UCLA’s wish list when it comes to their search for a new head basketball coach, and some reports indicate that the interest is mutual, but a tweet sent by the coach suggests he may prefer to stay at Butler.

Stevens had long been believed to be at the top of the Bruins’ list, which is no surprise considering his success at Butler has made him a top candidate for any major program with a coaching vacancy. Stevens is only 36, and he led the Bulldogs to the national championship game in 2010 and 2011. He received offers from a number of schools after the 2009-2010 season, but he chose to sign a long-term contract extension with Butler through the 2021-2022 season.

KTLA in Los Angeles reported that Stevens was on the UCLA campus Wednesday to discuss a potential contract. ESPN reported Thursday that Stevens may be in contract negotiations — which would mesh with KTLA’s report — but they say another source dismissed that claim. Additionally, FOX Sports’ Jon Crispin — a former Bruins basketball player — reported that Stevens is probably going to be the next UCLA coach and that he was in Westwood Thursday.

However, Stevens sent a tweet Friday morning that either affirmed his commitment to the Bulldogs, or is a ploy to gain more leverage in negotiations with UCLA:

Love walking thru Hinkle in the morning… Anxious to get started on our spring workouts next week.

— Brad Stevens (@BUCoachStevens) March 29, 2013

Given the way Stevens has turned down so many other offers, this tweet seems to be an indication that he is sticking with Butler.

The Bruins previously were believed to be in pursuit of Virginia Commonwealth coach Shaka Smart, but he signed an extension to remain at VCU. Other coaches mentioned in connection with the search are NC State coach Mark Gottfried and Washington coach Lorenzo Romar, both of whom are former Bruins assistants. There are plenty of coaches available with NBA experience, but ESPN believes Guerrero will go after a college coach.

Other hot names this year are Gregg Marshall, who has led Wichita State to the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament, and Andy Enfield, who has taken Florida Gulf Coast to the Sweet 16. Villanova’s Jay Wright and Purdue’s Matt Painter have loosely been mentioned in the search, though either of those coaches seem unlikely as possibilities.

Stevens is accomplished enough where he seems like he would be able to choose the job he wants. There are a handful of truly elite coaching jobs in college basketball; Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, and UCLA probably make the list. To get the jobs at Duke or Carolina, Stevens would have to wait until Coach K or Roy Williams retire. UCLA is open now. If he is ever considering leaving Butler, this would be a good opportunity to go to one of the top programs in the country.

Minnesota quickly became one of the most popular 11-seed over 6-seed upset picks for the NCAA Tournament. A few hours after the brackets were released, ESPN reported that over 70 percent of users submitting picks on their bracket challenge had the Golden Gophers beating the No. 6 seed UCLA Bruins. They’re not the only ones expecting Minnesota to win; Las Vegas has the Gophers favored by three over the Bruins.

Why would a team that went 8-10 in conference be picked to beat a team that won its conference’s regular-season title? It all has to do with the injury to Jordan Adams.

Adams, a freshman guard, was the Bruins’ second-leading scorer at 15.3 points per game. He was injured at the end of UCLA’s 66-64 win over Arizona in the semifinals of the Pac-12 tournament Friday night. The team lost to Oregon in the championship game the next day, playing without him for the first time this season.

Adams had been hot prior to breaking a bone in his foot. He scored 20 or more points in four of his last eight games, during which the Bruins went 7-1.

Though the Bruins are weaker without one of their top players, the matchup is not as bad for them as it could be. The Bruins’ weakness is teams that have size. They allowed huge games to 6-foot-10 Brock Motum in a loss to Washington State; 7-foot-2 Jordan Bachynski in a loss to Arizona State, and they were beaten on the interior in an overtime loss to USC in January. Minnesota’s top big man is 6-foot-8 senior forward Trevor Mbakwe, who will probably have a big game. 6-foot-11 center Elliott Eliason only averages 13.6 minutes per game, but he could see a boost in action in the team’s first-round matchup.

Minnesota started off the season 15-1 after recording wins over Michigan State, and Pac-12 teams Stanford and USC. They lost their last three games and are trending in the wrong direction.

The NCAA Tournament committee admitted that the Adams injury led them to place UCLA a line lower in seeding than they would have otherwise. Though UCLA is facing challenges without Adams, I don’t think this matchup is as bad for them as it could be.

Ben Howland confirmed Saturday what everyone already knew: freshman Shabazz Muhammad is leaving UCLA after the season and heading to the NBA Draft.

The Bruins beat Arizona 74-69 Saturday in their final home game of the season. It was Senior Night at Pauley Pavilion, and though Larry Drew II was the only player honored, Muhammad may as well have been, too.

“I knew going into this season that his was a one-year deal. He’s a top-five pick. That was his last game in Pauley,” Howland said after the game, per the Daily Bruin’s Sam Strong.

“This wasn’t meant to be an announcement for Shabazz. I’m just being honest. … Just keeping it real,” the coach added, according to CBS Sports’ Gary Parrish.

Though Howland believes Muhammad is gone after the season, the Bruins’ top scorer is not ready to make that announcement.

“It’s a long season. We don’t know yet,” Muhammad said regarding his future, per Strong.

After sitting out the team’s first three games of the season waiting to be cleared by the NCAA, Muhammad joined the team and became its top scorer and 3-point shooter. UCLA has had a fair season based on expectations, but they still have two regular-season road games, the Pac-12 tournament, and the NCAA Tournament to leave a stronger legacy. Maybe Howland making the announcement can have a Ray Lewis-like impact on the team.

Tony Parker was part of the incoming class of freshmen that were supposed to lead UCLA to instant success. While the 9-3 Bruins have had moderate success, Parker has started out his career looking like a bust.

The 6-foot-9 big man from Atlanta has only averaged 3.3 points in 8.6 minutes per game this season. Over the holidays, he began showing signs of his unhappiness in Westwood.

Parker sent a cryptic tweet that made it seem like he regretted going to UCLA:

A lot of told me this wasn’t for me I wish I would’ve listened

— tony parker (@tonyparker32) December 23, 2012

Then he sent this message on Christmas:

Being in LA for Christmas is nothing like home

— tony parker (@tonyparker32) December 25, 2012

And then this one:

Counting down the days

— tony parker (@tonyparker32) December 25, 2012

We don’t know what days Parker was counting down to, but it certainly seems like something related to leaving UCLA.

According to the Los Angeles Times’ Diane Pucin, Parker said after practice Thursday that he planned on playing out the season with UCLA, but he made no promises about next season. He also reportedly did not regret his tweets.

“Not at all,” Parker said, per Pucin. “I was homesick. Those were my feelings.”

It sure sounds like Parker will be the next prominent athlete to leave coach Ben Howland’s program unless things change.

H/T The Dagger

Guess that SI article had an impact on Ben Howland and he’s now out to prove what a disciplinarian he is. The UCLA coach benched center Josh Smith for the first half of the team’s Pac-12 tournament game against USC Wednesday for missing the team bus to Staples Center.

“We left him, and he was four minutes late,” Howland said. “He hasn’t been late one other time the whole year. It hasn’t been something that’s been a problem in terms of him ever being late to the bus, but I don’t care. This is too big and too important.”

Smith played poorly in eight minutes and admitted he deserved to be punished.

“Coach made a decision. I was late. I deserve to be punished,” Smith said.

Now you might say that a player being benched an entire half for being four minutes late to the team bus is excessive, and I would agree. But what’s far more mind-boggling is why UCLA even needs a bus to travel two blocks from the hotel to the arena. The buildings are two short blocks apart and a walk would take less than 10 minutes. Howland says they took a bus because last year they had to walk through fans who were drinking at LA Live.

If this is the byproduct of the Sports Illustrated article, I’m not sure I like it. The whole idea was for Howland to become more aware and malleable, not to go around killing mosquitoes with cannonballs.

These must be trying times for sports enthusiasts. As if the rising cost of peanuts wasn’t bad enough, there is plenty of talk about how coaches are offering bounties to free your team of its star players. And, here I thought, bounties went out with the covered wagons and Larry King. Apparently, Gregg Williams has a lot of questions to answer, outside of those pertaining to the presence of an extra “g” on the end of his name. Apparently, college sports is not much of a refuge these days either.

Just in case your local mailman has a penchant for pilfering your weekly issue of Sports Illustrated, UCLA’s basketball program was dealt another public relations blow this past week by the magazine, citing a number of anarchistic revelations so damning that a Caesar might cringe at the full mention of them. The drinking, the fighting, the rule breaking: Either I misread John Wooden’s Pyramid of Success, or the new coaching geometry in Westwood has turned into a distorted rhombus.

There was once a concept of the UCLA way. That ideal now seems about as paradoxical as healthy dorm food. Stories about how the great Coach Wooden was for the most part able to reel in future Hall of Famers like Lew Alcindor and Bill Walton during times of great social change.

Ben Howland, in his ninth season, has become the longest tenured basketball coach at the school since then. He took over a program that had come off its first losing season since the Wizard of Westwood came to town in 1948, but soon had the team NCAA tournament-bound in a couple of years, then going to three straight Final Fours from 2006 to 2008. However following losses to Florida in the 2006 final and 2007 Final Four, as well as the 2008 defeat to (vacated), the program has seemingly plunged into the Morgan Center’s version of the abyss. It used to be that anything other than a national championship at the school was a failure, frowned upon by UCLA supporters in much the same way as my parents looked at me when I told them I wanted to have a career in sports media.

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