Report: Mississippi State parting ways with head coach Ben Howland

Mississippi State has reportedly made a huge decision on the future of its men’s basketball program, according to a report from ESPN’s Pete Thamel, as the Bulldogs have fired head coach Ben Howland after seven years at the helm. The news broke as the first round of the NCAA tournament got underway on Thursday afternoon. Mississippi State now joins Florida, Missouri, LSU and South Carolina in the 2022 SEC coaching carousel.

Howland, 64, was hired by Mississippi State ahead of the 2015-16 season. This past year, the Bulldogs finished with an 18-15 overall record (8-10 in SEC play) for the second consecutive season, good for a No. 10 seed in the SEC Tournament. Howland led Mississippi State to a first-round upset victory over the No. 7-seed South Carolina Gamecocks, as the Bulldogs pulled away in a 73-51 blowout, but Mississippi State’s postseason ended shortly thereafter. In the following round, Howland’s Bulldogs lost 72-59 to Tennessee, ending their season in the second round of the SEC Tournament.

Howland finished with a 134-97 overall record at the helm of the Bulldogs. He made the NCAA Tournament just once in his tenure, during the 2018-19 season, when Mississippi State ranked No. 18 in the AP Top 25 preseason poll and climbed up as high as No. 14 over the course of a 23-11 season.

Mississippi State began to improve in Howland’s first few seasons in Starkville, but the program has since middled out. After a 14-17 finish in 2015-16, his first season, Mississippi State slowly improved its .452 win percentage by finishing with a .500 win percentage in 2016-17, followed by a .676 win percentage in both 2017-18 and 2018-19. However, after dropping slightly to .645 in 2019-20, the Bulldogs fell to an 18-15 overall record (.545) in 2020-21, only to repeat the same record this past season.

More on Ben Howland’s resume

Howland came to Mississippi State with loads of head-coaching experience, as the Weber State product has led three separate programs before coming to Mississippi. He first served as the head coach at Northern Arizona, winning the Big Sky regular-season title twice in five seasons (and winning the Big Sky Tournament once), before accepting the head coaching role at Pitt ahead of the 1999-00 season.

While with the Panthers, he made the NCAA Tournament in two of his four seasons, winning the Big East regular-season crown twice and the conference tournament once; moreover, he had Pitt ranked as high as No. 2 in the AP Top 25 poll his final season, as he left Pittsburgh after winning AP and Naismith Coach of the Year awards.

Following his four-year stint at Pitt, Howland moved to UCLA of the Pac-10, where he spent 10 seasons. He went 233-107 in a decade with the Bruins, won the Pac-10 regular-season title four times, the conference title twice, and he made the Final Four in three consecutive years.

Howland led UCLA to new heights before its decline late in his tenure, coaching consensus All-Americans like Aaron Afflalo (2007) and Kevin Love (2008). Following his departure from UCLA, he spent one season out of college basketball before being hired by Mississippi State in 2015-16.