In Reply to: Re: It was clear that Howland was suffering through a down period posted by Dr.Bruin on June 27, 2024 at 03:07:23
It seems like a severe one was his relationship with local and California basketball prep conduits. I only remember vaguely. Russ Smith discussed it in some detail, but it seems he'd alienated somehow, or ended up on less than amiable terms with, influential people in the prep bball community. For his last, though pretty successful, class, he'd had to shop all over the country. He did manage that very well. The question some in the UCLA sports hierarchy may have had was was that just a "one-off" thing, not necessarily repeatable.
Then were all the stories of his allowing chaos and bullying in the locker room. When asked about Reeves Nelson, I believe his reply was something like "He performs."
Over the last 5 years of his tenure that Dr Bruin mentions above, it had all been adding up. Of course we can all agree that hiring Alford was no solution.