Winning just never gets boring for Howland

PHOENIX -- So UCLA advances to another Final Four, as if that’s something novel, but good for them.

Ben Howland is a great coach, Kevin Love dominates and the Xavier Mouseketeers were no match for our local heroes. We already knew that.

So why are we wasting time with the Bruins when it appears to be the end of the world in L.A., with the Lakers losing to a pair of crummy teams and the Dodgers paying Joe Torre $13 million to make decisions and yet he can’t decide between starting Andre Ethier or a little leaguer in left?

Wouldn’t it be fun just for a night to see Howland coaching the Lakers and telling them they’ve got to play unbelievable defense if they’re going to start for him?

I’ll bet it wouldn’t take Howland all spring to pick between Ethier and the shrimp.

Tough to name someone right now who has got it more together than Howland, who is taking a team to the Final Four for the third straight year -- and has another top recruiting class waiting in the wings to keep it going for who knows how long.

He has done it with three different teams so far, understandably another coach maybe advancing to three consecutive Final Fours if he had someone like Love to ride for three straight years, but try staying ahead of an ever-changing college game.

So why isn’t the guy smiling -- if only for a second or two?

“I hope to some day,” he said.

He never does, you know. He walks onto the court as if he has a meeting with the IRS, takes control of the game as if he’s CEO, and then leaves like someone who has been told it’s 5 p.m. and it’s just time to go.

“No. 1, we expected to win,” he said, so why get excited? “Trust me, when I have a private moment to myself I’m very thankful to God for being so blessed.”

I would imagine there’s also a mention of Love in some of those private moments when feeling so blessed.

“I feel this is our best team and best chance to win the Final Four in the last three years,” he said, while mentioning the Bruins’ experience, outside play and Love inside. “We were very good the past two years but got beat by a very special team in Florida.”

Maybe so, but Texas or Memphis, North Carolina and Kansas figure to offer a much bigger challenge than the Hillboppers and Mouseketeers.

The Bruins were allowed to just waltz into the big dance, while still not needing a big shot from Josh Shipp or an error-free game from Darren Collison.

One more challenge for Howland, and he wouldn’t want it any other way.

This one was over with 13 minutes to play, save all the timeouts, and by the way, nothing hurts college basketball more than all the timeouts called by TV and over-coaching coaches these days.

The Bruins had the momentum and a 17-point lead, and Howland called a timeout, I presume to let the Mouseketeers back into the game. Didn’t Phil Jackson accuse Kobe of doing that as a high school player so Kobe could come on in the closing seconds and win it?

Who knew Howland and Kobe had something in common? So that’s what that Western Kentucky second-half rally was all about the other night?

“We went more with just our five starting guys,” said Howland in explaining why he slowed the game down against Xavier for much of the second half. “I thought we did a much better job of playing with a lead.”

The Bruins jumped out to a 17-point lead, and while I know winning is everything at this time of year, can’t it still be entertaining?

“It was entertaining for me,” Howland said.

Howland stresses defense, and nothing bogs down a good game more than defense, as the Mouseketeers would tell you. Xavier averaged 75.6 points before running into the Bruins, who limited them to 57.

“Maybe our best defensive performance of the season given the magnitude of this game,” Howland said, which explains the second-half snoozer.

Bruins fans don’t care because it’s all about school pride and having something on USC, and everyone loves a winner no matter how ugly the win might be.

When Howland arrived on the West Coast, he brought along bruising Big East basketball, which figured to be a tough sell. But when you win more than 30 games every year and stand on ladders as much as Howland does cutting down nets, bruising Big East basketball is a beautiful thing to watch.

“If I showed you the detail that goes into preparing defensively for each game and the smarts these kids must show to pick it up in such short order, you’d be impressed,” Howland said.

And I’d pat them on the back, and then go watch the Lakers play.

“Me, too,” said Howland, who takes no offense when challenged for being so defense-minded.

IT’S FASCINATING to watch Howland work a room, or for that matter, an arena.

He might appear as if he’s in his own world, but no one goes unnoticed, as Collison noted.

“He is constantly on our case, striving to make us better,” he said. “Sometimes we don’t like it, but it is for our own good.”

A few minutes later, the microphone was passed to Howland, who appeared to be reading a stat sheet, and as I said, it only looks as if he’s in his own world.

“The part I heard that I will ask Darren about is ‘I don’t like it all the time,’ ” Howland said, and I’m almost sure I detected a slight smile.

On the court, he’s on his feet from the start -- still coaching with 1:30 to play as if his career is on the line, and UCLA has already won the game.

“You don’t make it to the Final Four three straight times for no reason,” Collison said. “Obviously coaching has something to do with it.”

Now if we can only get the guy to wrap things up in San Antonio as quickly as possible, and then maybe scribble out a few helpful notes for the Lakers and Dodgers.

I’ll be happy to pass them along.

TODAY’S LAST word comes in e-mail from Jim Greene:

“As a graduate of Western Kentucky, I resent your comments about my Elma Matter. We’re not as dumb as all you L.A. snobs make us out to be.”

Sometimes it’s best not to know if someone is joking or not.

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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.