Despite postgame delay, Howland is a cut above

SAN JOSE -- A day earlier here, Ben Howland irritated the media, nitpicking about this and griping about that, but explaining to everyone that it’s all about his obsessive attention to detail, which is really the difference between winning and losing.

Fast forward to Saturday, and Howland is going to apologize to the media for being so testy when it comes to his desire to be on top of everything, and that’s great, but Arron Afflalo is standing on a ladder under UCLA’s basket, and as winning tradition dictates, he’s ready to cut down the net. And Howland isn’t ready for this.

Afflalo waits and waits, UCLA fans cheering and then waiting themselves for something to happen because no one has thought to bring along scissors.

The way Howland controls things, the way he has UCLA winning basketball games and advancing to the Final Four every year, it’s shocking to discover at this time of year that Howland isn’t carrying a pair of scissors in his back pocket.

“I never want to count my chickens before they’re hatched,” Howland said, while obviously coming prepared with the cliches.

He has a point, though, UCLA doing nothing so far -- as I remind Howland after UCLA’s 68-55 win over Kansas. The Bruins got this far a year ago, and from what I understand, the only thing folks at UCLA keep track of are national championships in this sport.

“I know, I know,” Howland said, “we’ve still got more work to do.”

The Bruins have proven only one thing so far -- they know how to close out another good team once they’ve run out to a huge lead in the second half in a significant game, and here’s hoping USC gets a copy of the videotape.

North Carolina went on an 18-0 run to beat USC, but knowing the way Howland coaches, he would’ve called 18 timeouts to break the momentum. I know they give him only five a game, but why does it seem as if he’s always got more than anyone else?

He’s different, all right, coaching and controlling his charges, and most of the time it looks as if the Bruins are playing six against five, with Howland a few feet onto the court and in a defensive stance. Hard to argue right now, though, it wasn’t the major difference in this game. Coach versus coach -- it’s no contest.

Bill Self runs the Kansas program, but four times in his career he has advanced to the Elite Eight only to make like Marty Schottenheimer and go no further. For much of the first half, it appeared Kansas had the better team, pulling ahead by six points with 4 minutes 30 seconds to play.

But an adjustment here, another adjustment there, and the Bruins ran away from the Jayhawks, outscoring Kansas, 23-6, to close out the first half and move ahead in the second.

“We beat just a great team,” Howland said, “and we were fighting fatigue and everything else, but our guys are very, very tough.

“But this is what we expect at UCLA. This is the expectation that is always there at UCLA, and why I wanted to be here. It’s the kind of players we recruit, it’s what our fans expect.”

It’s great coaching, of course, the 35-second clock winding down and Afflalo heaving up a 25-footer to beat the buzzer to score. Later Darren Collison runs down the clock, standing a few feet further back than Afflalo to increase the degree of difficulty and beating the buzzer. Just like Howland draws it up.

“Those are back breakers,” Howland said with a smile. “We have very, very good players.”

And a very good coach, who demands the very, very best from those players, down to almost the last detail. Details, details, all right, but apparently you have to win every game from now on or it just isn’t enough for some people.

JOHN WOODEN spent the day with his family at a restaurant to celebrate daughter Nan’s birthday along with the grandchildren, a big-screen TV set up so no one missed the game, and Wooden said he just loved what he saw.

“That was great,” he said. “We’re just so tough defensively, if our offense isn’t clicking, we’re still in the ballgame.”

Wooden won’t make the trip to Atlanta for the Final Four “because I just can’t take airports anymore and once I got there, there’d be a lot of walking.”

But he likes what he sees in the Bruins, and especially their ability to hold onto a lead against Kansas after struggling to do so against Indiana.

“Ben just called me and we had a real nice visit. He’s doing a good job of coaching. We don’t have the big man in the middle like a lot of the teams still do, but he’s doing a good job of changing things up and we’re not getting hurt. It was a tough road to get here so far, but I think we’ve got as good a chance as the others to keep winning.”

UCLA BEGINS spring break this week, which affords the Bruins a week to think about nothing but basketball and Dancing with the Stars.

LONG-TIME former UCLA broadcaster Dick Enberg, who is as old as Dwyre and yet doesn’t look it, wrote a play about his former pal, Al McGuire. The one-man play, featuring Cotter Smith as McGuire, will be performed in Atlanta during Final Four weekend. So far there are no plans to bring the production to L.A., which is disappointing, because you’d think L.A. would be the perfect backdrop for the life and times of a coach who was such an entertainer.

HOWLAND JUST loved the fact Enberg was broadcasting Saturday’s game, saying it brought back memories as a kid listening to him call the Bruins games.

“I can still hear him saying, ‘Bibby from 35 feet,’ embellishing it like no one else,” Howland said, and while I didn’t hear Enberg’s call, if he said, “Collison from 35 feet,” he wouldn’t have been embellishing.

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T.J. Simers can be reached at

t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.