Howland officially UCLA’s head coach

It’s a done deal.

Ben Howland is officially UCLA’s new head coach, having agreed to a… It’s a done deal.

Ben Howland is officially UCLA’s new head coach, having agreed to a seven-year deal late Wednesday night, less than a week after the coach led Pitt to its second straight Sweet Sixteen appearance.

Howland’s new contract is believed to be in neighborhood of $900,000 a year, slightly more than what the coach was making at Pitt. However, incentives could boost the contract to $1.2 million a year, most of which would be paid by UCLA’s booster, according to The Los Angeles Times.

The deal is less than what Pitt had been offering to try to keep him, but the idea of coaching closer to home lured Howland back to the West Coast.

“I am honored to be the head basketball coach at UCLA and I am grateful to Dan [Guerrero, UCLA’s athletics director] for giving me this opportunity,” Howland said in a statement released by the school. “I have an appreciation for what these four letters mean in the world of college basketball. At the same time, I want to make it clear how hard it was for me to leave the University of Pittsburgh.”

“Ben Howland is an outstanding basketball coach, one of the best in the entire country, and he is the man we want to run our program,” Guerrero said. “He has built winning programs throughout his career and we expect that he will return UCLA basketball to the nation’s elite.”

Thus ends a bizarre series of events that led to Howland’s departure from Pitt and sets into motion the school’s search for a new head coach.

When rumors began to circulate that head coach Steve Lavin would be fired at the end of the season, Howland was believed to be at the top of the list of replacements.

But when asked about the possibility of becoming the Bruins head coach, Howland expressed his desire to stay at Pitt.

“I signed a contract to keep me here for a long time,” he said in late February. “I fully expect to fulfill that contract and hopefully the rest of my career beyond that here. The key to that is that we love being here.”

As the season wore on, however, Howland changed his stance on whether the Panthers’ future would include him.

“I’d love to be considered,” he told The Times March 26. “It’s the dream job for anyone who has spent a career in coaching and has a sense of what UCLA means.”

As the week rolled on, Howland realized the “dream job” could become a reality.

After returning from Minneapolis with the rest of the team on Friday, Howland flew out to California to meet with Guerrero and associate athletics director Betsy Stephenson on Sunday.

According to Pitt interim athletics director Marc Boehm, neither side notified Pitt until after the meeting had already been planned.

“That meeting really was arranged beforehand,” Boehm said in a press conference Thursday. “The meeting was going to happen regardless of if we talked to UCLA. This thing was orchestrated well before that.”

Howland returned to Pittsburgh on Monday to meet with the administration and to have an end of the season meeting with the players.

During that meeting, the coach reportedly discussed plans for the future, however UCLA was mentioned only in passing.

“He said he had the starting five [for next season] all mapped out for us,” Carl Krauser told The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

But despite receiving an offer from Pitt that was worth more money than UCLA’s offer, Howland was believed to be on his way to California Tuesday night and would be introduced as the new coach as early as Wednesday morning.

Complicating the matter was how Howland never denied that he was working on a contract with UCLA, nor had he given Pitt a formal resignation.

Pitt tried again to retain Howland by bumping its offer up from $1.1 to $1.3 million a year, but more money was not what the coach wanted.

“It’s great to be home with my mom, my dad,” he said during a press conference Thursday. “It’s so exciting for my family and all my friends. It’s a dream I’ve realized.”

In his hurry to get to Los Angeles, Howland failed to let the team or the administration know of his decision. Associate head coach Jamie Dixon gathered the team for a quick meeting on Wednesday to let them know of Howland’s departure.

“He never told us anything about it up front,” Toree Morris told The Tribune-Review. “I think he owes us that, at least. We deserve to know what’s going on, so we don’t have to hear it through the media.”

Howland and UCLA finally came to an agreement around 12:30 a.m. Thursday, but did not let Pitt know of his resignation until 1 a.m.

Despite the way with which the situation played out, Boehm said he was not upset with Howland.

“Ben is a dear friend and he is one heck of a basketball coach,” he said. “I will say that this past week has been frustrating, there’s no question about that. I have the utmost respect for him.”

However, not everyone feels the same way.

“I’m mad,” Krauser said. “I’m devastated that coach is leaving me and the team.”

Rather than get upset, Boehm is ready to look forward and being the search for a new head coach.

“I am looking forward to the opportunity, along with [Mark Nordenberg], to find a head coach and I really believe we will find the right coach that fits the University of Pittsburgh,” he said. “We’ve got some great kids on the team and we are ready to move forward.”