What also bothered me is the way when choked down the stretch last year losing to mediocre teams and being played out of the NCAAs.

Now we beat a decent team who is 1-2 without its guard and everyone ignores that we were 0-6 v the Top 50. Even USC the worst team in the conf has a nice upset. What is the EXCUSE for this year?

Aren’t we putting way too much credit/blame on Monty for the actual recruiting that has (or hasn’t) been done? I know it’s not to the degree in basketball that it is in football, but isn’t it really assistants who do the bulk of the recruiting work?

What Monty needs to do is HIRE a good recruiter. He’s a great coach, and I’ve been very impressed by the progress that many of his players make over their Cal careers (Mr. Solomon not withstanding). If we have to pick great Xs and Os guy or great recruiter, I’ll take the former. It was good times when Bozeman was here, but the penalties were too high a price to pay.

Of course, it’s a completely valid complaint – our recruiting *has* been poor, and our lack of depth is the biggest reason why we are struggling this year, as everyone has already pointed out. But it’s just ironic that Steve is finally now openly calling for Monty’s dismissal, just when Monty has put together his best recruiting class.

WisdomCow – I’m with you in my appreciation for Ben Braun. I was very pleased to see him land on his feet and get another job right away. I still think Monty is a better coach (Braun was a better recruiter, but note how many players left the program under his tenure), but I respect both coaches as class acts. I’d be proud to have my sons play for either coach.

As for Michigan I really didn’t see more than a handful of Michigan Fans complaining – Michigan is probably the second best team in the country.

As for some people complaining -YesI am. I don’t complain about Sam Houston because they can’t be expected to be a tourney team often. UTEP does seem like it may be on the rebound but I’m not sure. Indiana turned around its program rapidly but I don’t hold Cal to IU’s standards.

Spent the last 5+ hours making a huge pot of Chili. Unfortunately, I made it kid friendly hoping my entry in Evolution: The Home Game will eat it, no big chunks.

On Monty, I think almost the same as Juancho. Poor recruiting until this new class [knocks on head]. That’s in his Cal tenure, anyways. Otherwise, his only real flaw has ALWAYS been end of game management, where only when he had the top players and let them do their heroics did he find consistent late game success. Again, that’s pretty much the only flaw I’ve ever seen in his coaching with any consistency, which still puts him WAY high on the curve.

Braun gets a bad rap because he was never and would never be an offensive mind. He needed go-to guys for entire games (compared to Monty’s final minutes of games). However, Braun was a superior teacher for defensive fundamentals, did a quality job of recruiting, and (IMO) did great at getting players to put in effort, both during games and during the year, such that nearly all of his players really improved with each season.

He had a lot of flaws, mostly with offense (which lead to a few horrid seasons when rosters lulled), but I’ll never think unfondly of Braun. Some of his best years coincided with the opening of Haas – good Cal memories.

In any case, if Gordon goes there, yeah, that would not be good.

I too loved Kately, truly exciting. We are on the same page there, I think his transfer was a low point for me personally. I still have a fondness for Kidd’s behind-the-back pass in his debut with Dick Vitale spazzing out over it.

Enjoy the Super Bowl folks.

Unfortunately its oregon.