Warlord of Westwood's working Bruins wizardry
The old best game was Walton scoring 44 in the 1973 championship game. The new best game featured season highs in turnovers by both teams: 25 by UCLA, 21 by Kansas. Without boring you with play-by-play, here's what kind of game it was: Bruins point guard Darren Collison had one assist and seven of those turnovers -- and was named to the All-Regional team.
But that's the Howland way. Grind you up whether you're the Pac-10 Player of the Year or a wimpy volunteer.
"I was probably the one who was at fault for being a little too excited," said Arron Afflalo, that conference Player of the Year. "Coach actually had to get on me a lot in that first half."
Afflalo was terrible, all right. He scored a game-high 24 points, breaking out of a mini-shooting slump, while outplaying Brandon Rush, KU's fantastic sophomore.
What's more, Afflalo made three of the game's biggest plays. With the clock ticking down in the first half, he went one-on-one with Rush, sprinting to the left corner where he handed off to Josh Shipp. Shipp nailed a 3 at the buzzer giving UCLA a four-point lead and the momentum carried over.
With the shot clock winding down midway through the second half, he stuck a long 3 with Mario Chalmers in his face. Less than a minute later, he popped open at the top of the key for a jumper.
The signature play came with 7:43 left. Taking it up against two Jayhawks, Afflalo kissed a layup so high off the glass, it probably left a smudge. No reason to clean glass that is never used, you know.
"Those are back breakers," Howland said. "You're playing great defense, playing great defense, then a guy hits an unbelievable shot from 25 feet. That is tough."
But that's the Howland way.
Being an anal-retentive control freak is nothing new to the profession. Channeling it to this level of excellence is a significant part of Howland and the mark he has put on the great program in his four seasons in Westwood. If he wasn't busy coaching UCLA on Saturday, it's easy to imagine him as, say, one of those self-important band directors.
People, there are only so many ways the trombone section can play Sweet Caroline. Get over yourselves.
Not Howland, who actually became one of those band directors as he was cutting down the final strand of the net at the arena. First, he positioned the ladder as if it was a spaced-out big man in practice. Then he tried to lead the fans and players into an impromptu cheer.
U-C-L-A, fight, fight, fight!
It didn't catch on at first. Howland then urged everyone to really get into it. They did, which was a relief. No one really wanted to run stairs.
"Sometimes you have to block out how he's saying it and remember what he's saying," Bruins assistant Kerry Keating said. "Take pride in every day."
Forget pride for a moment. There was something resembling humility as Howland was reminded of his name being linked to Wooden.
"A blessing that I never expected," he said.
There has been a national championship since 1974-75, Wooden's last season. But perhaps never this much hope from the Bully of the Pulpit.
"I really apologize for that yesterday," Howland added. "I've heard about it plenty. But I'll tell you, we had background noise coming from here and people in the back that were very loud ..."
You're right. We're wrong. We don't want to run stairs either.
