http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/magazine/02/28/ucla/index.html?eref=sihp&sct=hp_t11_a1
I'm almost positive this is just UCLA boosters forcing SI to find some dirt on Howland and the program to get him booted, as it was obvious Howland's 3 FF's was a ticket in Westwood for a long, long time.
But still, some of this is just odd.
One player said if he saw Howland waiting for the elevator he would take the stairs.The players were puzzled by some of their coach's idiosyncrasies. Howland seemed obsessed with the temperature in the film room. If it was not exactly 76º a student manager was certain to feel Howland's wrath. The water bottles handed to him had to be just cold enough and not too large.
He occasionally kicked players out of pregame walk-throughs held in hotel ballrooms if the players weren't executing properly. Two players recall being tossed, on different occasions, for failing to get low enough on defense even though they were wearing jeans that constricted their movements.
In a game during the 2007-08 season, several players on the bench noted Howland's frustration with the shot selection of Westbrook, whose freelancing had resulted in several baskets. But rather than substituting for him, Howland informed one of the officials that Westbrook was wearing socks bearing an NBA logo, which violated NCAA uniform guidelines. Howland told the official he had an obligation to remove Westbrook from the game because of his socks. The official claimed to be unaware of the rule and let play continue.
One evening the partying started at the Beverly Hills mansion of a wealthy UCLA fan. The Bruins were then chauffeured in a Rolls-Royce to a West Hollywood club, where several players were ushered past a long line of people and given VIP treatment at a table in the back. Says one player, "We'd go back to the campus bars and students would say, 'Where have you been?' We'd be like, 'If you only knew.' "
The players on those Final Four teams were a mature group, however, and they showed self-restraint. They knew that to achieve their goals on the court, they had to discipline themselves off it. That simple realization can separate winning teams from losing teams. And at UCLA, it did.
