Five years ago Ben Howland led UCLA to its third consecutive Final Four, including a national title game appearance in 2006. It seemed like UCLA had found the proper successor to Steve Lavin in Ben Howland. Tonight Ben Howland is no longer employed in Westwood.
Yahoo! Sports broke the story a few hours ago. The official announcement from UCLA on the dismissal of Ben Howland should happen during the next couple of days. Again this will be a case of the press release being out-dated and useless by the time it’s sent out. Then again, people knew Ben Howland was on the hot seat for some time.
Too many good players transferred. Too many subpar seasons. As AWFUL as UCLA looked in their opening round loss to the Gophers, they are college hoops blue blood, literally and figuratively. The UCLA fight song is still the Mozart Symphony #40 of college basketball. Expectations are always sky high in Los Angeles.
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