The Sports Monitor

UCLA basketball might be a destination place to coach, but who still wants to coach there? Oh, I'm sure there are plenty of candidates that will step up and interview for the job. But there's no chance the next coach will retire and be celebrated in Westwood. Ben Howland was canned Sunday as coach of the Bruins. He won a Pac-12 championship this season and posted a 25-win season. That wasn't good enough. The Bruins lost in the first round, something that was rumored would get him fired. Turned out to be true. He compiled a 233-107 record, pretty darned good. He also went to three straight Final Fours, something most fans would consider a dream. Howland's teams struggled the past couple years, and that was enough to do him in. He's a good coach. No, strike that, an excellent coach. He resurrected the Pitt basketball program. He took UCLA to some pretty good heights. But he wasn't John Wooden. The ironic thing is, if John Wooden were alive, h...

The rumor mill is churning and Pitt coach Jamie Dixon is the one being tossed about. USC reportedly is after Dixon, who just suffered another early exit in the NCAA tournament as the Panthers' coach. If Dixon does go, would it help Pitt? It's a tough question to answer. Pitt has had some good regular seasons under Dixon. They are an annual choice for the Big Dance, too. It's when the postseason comes around that Dixon has his troubles. It's hard to imagine that his teams haven't been able to live up to their billing at tourney time, so it would stand to reason that finding a new coach could change this. I'm not opposed to seeing Dixon leave, but I don't think it's an easy answer. When Ben Howland left Pitt for UCLA, people around Pittsburgh thought the Panthers would be able to get a big-name coach to fill the vacancy. To their surprise, they couldn't. They had to promote Dixon, then an assistant. It worked out, but it also shows ...