Howland and Dixon have a lot of similar traits. That isn’t surprising. It’s just amusing. Whether it is style of play or how they treat time outs.

Ben Howland consumes timeouts like bottles of water. The difference is that he – or one of his aides – can always get more water.

When Luc Mbah a Moute sprawled into a loose ball pit Saturday, he called time to keep from traveling or being set upon by Indiana Hoosiers. That was UCLA’s final TO of the game. It came with 5:11 left and with the Bruins leading by 12. Howland didn’t raise an eyebrow. He prized the possession more than the timeout.

Then came a series of dominoes that, had UCLA lost, would have sent the Bruins “faithful” into full riot. At the least it would have subjected Howland to some how-comes for the first time in his four years in Westwood.

Indiana decided to quit firing blanks and began a rally that tied the Bruins with a minute left.

…

The typical coach would rather surrender his spleen than call timeout in the first 15 minutes of a half.

Phil Jackson is famous for watching his players flail around and learn to escape the messes they’ve made. Of course, Jackson coaches 82 games in the regular season, and his playoffs aren’t single elimination.

Howland is different. It’s a difference that’s consistent with everything else he does. He’s a “now” guy. He is not going to go down with bullets in his chamber or timeouts in his hands.

I know I’ve seen it enough this season with comments freaking out about how Dixon uses and sometimes burns through timeouts. Generally, I’m okay with how Dixon handles the timeouts. I do find myself startled frequently late in games to see that Pitt is only down to 1 or 2 left, and I don’t even realize how many they used.

This article was one I wanted to post on back in the Big East Tournament when I saw it, but it got swallowed in the ether. Unfortunately it is now behind the stupid NY Times paid firewall. Here’s the summary. It talks about how Ben Howland spends so much time breaking down tapes of opponents in preparation. Trying to find out about everything they do and plan for it.

What struck me about it, was how similar — no surprise — it is to what Coach Dixon does in preparing. Watching tons of video. Trying to figure out everything the opponent will do. Consider this:  in the 7 losses Pitt had this year, only 3 occurred when the winning team did what was expected and the players performed as expected — Oklahoma State and Georgetown twice. In the other losses there were variables of players suddenly doing what they hadn’t.

Wisconsin — Bryan Butch suddenly finding a deep shot.
Marquette (at the Pete) — Dan Fitzgerald hitting shots and Marquette making FTs.

Louisville — Derrick Caracter playing well and the whole Cardinal team finally playing to its potential.

Marquette (at the Bradley Center) — Kinsella dropping the first 3s of his career and David Cubillan stepping up huge in place of an injured Jerel McNeal.

The Wisconsin game especially was what I thought of because of Dixon’s comments afterwards.

“(Butch) was the guy that, I think, kind of stretched us out defensively,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said. “Him making those shots really gave them a little different (look), another advantage in that area and helped them out.”

The key is the “different look.” Butch came into the game shooting rarely and poorly from outside. Everything else from Wisconsin was expected. It was Butch that threw things off

The good news about teams at this time of the year, especially in the post-season and definitely with UCLA. It is highly improbable that there will be any new wrinkles or player who comes out of nowhere.