Ben Howland may be a great coach, but in the case of taking the UCLA job this year, timing was everything. It really didn’t matter whether UCLA improved this year, only that they didn’t take a step back. Just standing still, UCLA is able to watch the rest of PAC 10 slide down a notch or two. Only Stanford, and maybe Washington St., are improved this year. After their sweep of the Oregon schools over the weekend, the Bruins look likely to return to the postseason. They take on the Washington schools on the road this Thursday/Saturday, and both games are winnable. Well, just about every game the rest of the way for UCLA is winnable, since almost every conference foe already has an embarrasing loss on their record.