Wooden Won’t Be Making the Trip

John Wooden, the coach who won 10 of UCLA’s 11 NCAA championships, will not be going to Indianapolis this weekend to watch the Bruins try for a 12th title.

“It’s too much travel for him,” said current Coach Ben Howland of the 95-year-old coaching legend who lives in the San Fernando Valley. “He tries to be so gracious, but everybody wants to get close to him, to touch him, to get his autograph.

“He’ll watch it on TV, but this is still his program, first and foremost.”

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In addition to Wooden, Howland, before coaching in his first Final Four weekend, spoke to two other coaches about the event, Jim Harrick, who won UCLA’s last NCAA championship in 1995; and Memphis coach John Calipari, whose team lost to the Bruins last weekend in the Oakland Regional final.

Both coaches warned Howland about the distractions he’ll run into in college basketball’s showcase event.

Not that Howland needed the warning.

“The night before we played Memphis,” he said, “we had autograph seekers knocking on the players’ doors, trying to get them to sign stuff.

“We’ll have full-time security. No one is going to be on our floor. [The adulation] increases tenfold at the Final Four.”

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On the other hand: Howland said the knocking was particularly incessant on the door of center Ryan Hollins, who went on to be named the most valuable player of the regional.

“The way he played,” Howland said, “I’m going to have someone knocking on his door.”

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Also not making the trip to Indianapolis will be one of Jordan Farmar’s biggest fans, his 67-year-old grandfather, Dr. Howard Baker. Baker, who began working at the UCLA Medical Center in 1964, is suffering from cancer.

“Jordan promised my father he would do whatever he could to win the Gonzaga game for him,” said Mindy Kolani, Farmar’s mother. “When Jordan called afterward, he told my father, ‘I promised you we would win it.’ ”