Kellen Herrera from UCLA Radio sent me over the transcript of Ben Howland’s teleconference today. Howland talked about Kevin Love being selected as the Pac-10 Player of the Year as well as the rest of the all league selections:Text in bold indicates a question. Everything else is a response from Ben Howland.
What was your reaction to Kevin winning?
I thought it was very well deserved. I’m excited for Kevin and for his teammates. I think that it was Fred Washington who said the player who wins the MVP should come from the winning team, the best team. Kevin is definitely deserving. We won the conference by 3 games. Being part of a really good team, not only being a great player, but being part of a good team was great for him to win that award…
I was really excited for russell to be defensive player of the year and third team. My only dissapointment in this was that I thought Darren Collison definitely deserved to be on the first team. That was a little frustrating for me. When you look at this numbers, he’s #1 in freethrow percentage, #1 in steals, #2 in assists, he’s shooting 53% from 3 which I think is 2nd, he’s averaging 15.4 points a game which is 9th, he’s on the all-defensive team which recognizes what a great defender he is. And when you win the league by 3 games and you’re the starting point guard, I believe he really deserved to be first team, but you know, bottom line it’s very diffcult in this year’s pac-10 because there is so many good players. The way I vote, first and foremost, is for players that are on the winningest teams.
Hey Ben, I know you talked about in the past how skilled kevin was, has he handled all the hype and all the pressure of coming in better than you even thought he would?
You know, I’ve never had a player with that much hype, so I don’t have a point of reference. His hype was off the hype meter. But its been incredible how he’s handled it. To be on the cover of Sports Illustrated, ESPN the magazine specials…to not only deliver on the floor, but also to handle the media obligations, all the time it takes, the constant [scrutiny].
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Bottom line is individual recognitions are nice but at the end of the day how you’ll be recognized and how you’ll be remembered is how this team does as we go into post season play.
How did they decide to bring back the defensive players of the year?
There was a lot of frustration last year.. We had 6 teams make it to the NCAA tournament but only 9 players made it to the all league team [because of rigid rules]….This way you get to honor more players…I think defense is a part of this league now…
Was Lute a big part of changing that?
Yeah, he was really angry about it and he had a right to be. I actually voted for his senior, the kid from Serbia, to be the 10th player. Somebody should have gotten on there. How can you have 6 teams in the tournament and only 9 guys on your all league team. It was a really good point and Lute made that point. We were all angry about it. They ahd been following up what had been set up in the past so we changed it. Having an all-league defensive team is great. You know, we had Josh and Luc be both honorable mention all league. Luc was also honorable mention on the all-defensive team, I thought he should have been on the all-defensive team.
Ben, what did Russell do, obviously he played well defensively, what was his greatest improvement from last year to this year in playing defense?
Just his understanding. A year ago he would get beat off the dribble. Guys would get by him even though he had the quickness to stay in front of it. Just having a better understanding. Staying in front of the ball, to really lock in on a guy. Luc does the same thing. I think he’s taken for granted.
There’s no question Mayo deserved to be all-league. I laugh at people who suggest he’s anything other than one of the best players of the country because [he is].
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