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Saturday, March 29, 2003

By Gerry Dulac, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

MINNEAPOLIS -- One day after Pitt's season ended with an upset loss to Marquette in the Sweet 16, the university administration finds itself dealing with a more disturbing situation: Has Ben Howland coached his last game with the Panthers?

The answer:

Maybe, maybe not.

	Pitt coach Ben Howland urges on his players in an NCAA tournament victory against Indiana. (Matt Freed, Post-Gazette)

Howland is expected to be courted by onetime basketball power UCLA, which has him atop a wish list of candidates to become its next basketball coach. Howland, a California native who grew up in the Los Angeles suburbs, has said, "I'd love to be considered for the job."

But Pitt won't sit back and watch. The university is ready to rework Howland's deal and increase portions of the seven-year, $5.9 million contract he signed last year. It's just a matter of when the wooing begins.

UCLA has not asked for permission to speak with Howland, 45, who has led Pitt to the Sweet 16 the past two years. And it's still unclear whether Chancellor Mark Nordenberg or vice chancellor Jerry Cochran will grant the West Coast school that permission.

But Howland does have a buyout clause in his contract that would allow him to leave Pitt for another job.

Howland is considered to be the leading candidate to replace Steve Lavin at UCLA, though the Los Angeles Times has reported that Gonzaga's Mark Few and Marquette's Tom Crean, a former Pitt assistant, also are on the wish list. But Few's season ended last weekend, when Gonzaga lost to Arizona, and he has yet to be contacted by UCLA Athletic Director Dan Guerrero.

Guerrero once had a chance to hire Howland when he was the athletic director at UC-Irvine and Howland was at Northern Arizona. But Guerrero declined.

This time, he is not expected to bypass the coach who has lifted Pitt back to national prominence. The Panthers were 57-11 the past two seasons, tying them with Duke for the best winning percentage in the nation (.838) in that time.

For UCLA's purposes, it almost is better that Pitt was eliminated from the NCAA tournament Thursday night by Marquette, 77-74. If the Panthers had kept advancing in the tournament, possibly even winning the national championship, it might have been difficult for UCLA to lure Howland from such a situation.

At the behest of interim athletic director Marc Boehm, Nordenberg and Cochran already have met to discuss how they will restructure Howland's contract. Their intent is to prevent Howland from considering the job at UCLA, a school he always admired when he was growing up in Cerritos, a Los Angeles suburb.

At issue, though, will be how much UCLA is prepared to pay Howland, who is the fourth-highest paid coach in the Big East Conference at more than $800,000 annually.

Lavin, who was fired several weeks ago, earned $578,000 at UCLA, making him the highest-paid state employee in California. But the Bruins, according to those familiar with the situation, would have to nearly double that amount to lure Howland from Pitt.

Because of incentives in his contract that reward him for advancing in the NCAA tournament, Howland will make more than $900,000 this season because he got Pitt to the Sweet 16. He could have earned more than $1.1 million for winning the national championship.

Howland, though, also is considered a good fit for the UCLA job because the California school's shoe contract is with adidas -- the same company that pays Howland to use its sneakers.

"I don't think Coach Howland is going to go to UCLA," said guard Brandin Knight, who scored 17 points and had 11 assists in his final performance at Pitt. "First of all, Pauley Pavilion [home of UCLA] is not that great a building, compared to what we have in the Petersen Events Center. And, besides, there is always going to be so much pressure out there to win.

"Everybody is always going to be compared to John Wooden, and nobody will ever be able to measure up to him. I think he'll stay right where he is."