BearTalk

ESPN.com published its season predictions today and six of their 10 experts pick Cal to win the Pac-10. Among thosse in the Bears’ corner are Dick Vitale, Jay Bilas and Doug Gottlieb, brother of Cal assistant coach Gregg Gottlieb.

Here’s the breakdown:

Picking Cal — Vitale, Bilas, Gottlieb, Pat Forde, Dana O’Neil and Andy Katz.

Picking Washington — Fran Fraschilla, Joe Lunardi, Mark Schlabach and Jay Williams.

UCLA freshman forward Tyler Honeycutt will be out 3 to 4 weeks with a stress reaction in his right tibia. Coach Ben Howland said that Honeycutt was injured Saturday in practice and an MRI confirmed the injury.

Remember to check back here just before 2 p.m. today for our live online chat with Cal coach Mike Montgomery.

He will answer questions about Thursday night’s exhibition victory, Monday’s season opener in the Coaches vs. Cancer tournament vs. Murray State, and anything else you throw at him.

We started the post-game press conference with coach Mike Montgomery by asking him if he learned anything from Thursday night’s 84-42 exhibition win over Chico State.

“No,” he said. “We know what we’re doing.”

What he meant, of course, is the Bears are an experienced team who had just played an outmanned Division II opponent. Things went the way they were supposed to go.

“It’s early, and you’ve seen some interesting results from exhibition games because it’s early,” he said. “But with a veteran team, we should be ready, and being up 28 at the half, I suspect we were.”

Montgomery had no real complaints about anything. He got to play every available man on his roster, getting points from 13 different players. None of them played more than 21 minutes, but 12 of them spent at least 10 minutes on the floor.

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From Wednesday night’s exhibition play:

– UCLA: The Bruins needed a 3-point basket from junior Mustafa Abdul-Hamid with 16.1 seconds left to beat NAIA opponent Concordia 62-61. UCLA, which trailed by as many as eight points, got 17 points and 11 rebounds from sophomore Drew Gordon, the former Archbishop Mitty HS-San Jose star.

Senior guard Michael Roll (ankle) and sophomore point guard Jerime Anderson (groin) sat out the game.

– WASHINGTON: Things went a bit more smoothly for the defending Pac-10 regular-season champs, who routed Division II Central Washington 77-48.  The Huskies shot just 38 percent and missed 19 free throws, but got 18 points from sophomore guard Isaiah Thomas and 15 from senior forward Quincy Pondexter.

Highly touted freshman guard Abdul Gaddy played 24 minutes off the bench and had one point and six assists.

– ARIZONA: The Wildcats whipped Division II Augustana 92-76 in coach Sean Miller’s debut, getting 19 points from forward Jamelle Horne and 14 from freshman Derrick Williams. Senior point guard Nic Wise, who had been nursing an ankle sprain, had 12 points and five assists in 19 minutes.

Rivals.com, which has been counting down all 347 Division I teams, unveiled Kentucky as its No. 2 team. That leaves Kansas to fill the No. 1 slot on its list.

Here’s the top-10, according to Rivals:

1. Kansas
2. Kentucky
3. Michigan State
4. Villanova
5. Purdue
6. Texas
7. North Carolina
8. Duke
9. West Virginia
10. Cal

Syracuse — Cal’s semifinal opponent in the Coaches vs. Cancer tournament Nov. 19 at Madison Square Garden — wasn’t quite ready for the big stage in its exhibition opener Tuesday night.

Le Moyne College, a Division II team from Syracuse, upset the 25th-ranked Orange 82-79.

“Le Moyne really outplayed us from the beginning of the game to the end,” Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim said. “They [the Orange] are very, very young mentally. They really have got to grow up. We couldn’t stop them on the dribble. That’s something we’ve been looking at in practice.”

“It’s just embarrassing the way we played,” said senior guard Andy Rautins, born and raised in Syracuse. “It’s embarrassing to ourselves and our fans. It wasn’t luck that they won. They came out and beat us fair and square.”

Le Moyne coach Steve Evans, who brought an experiened team to the game, said future opponents shouldn’t underestimate Syracuse.

“I feel bad that the story tomorrow will be, ‘What’s wrong with Syracuse basketball?’ I don’t think there’s anything wrong,” he said. “They’ve got tremendous players. It’s an exhibition game. They’re young. They’re going to be terrific.”

With the start of the season looming, UCLA is getting healthy . . . or at least healthier, writes the Los Angeles Daily News.

Arizona guard Garland Judkins has had a rough road, but is not going anywhere, he tells the Arizona Daily Star.

Washington coach Lorenzo Romar still hasn’t 100 percent settled on a starting five, but he’s added a walk-on, the Seattle Times reports.

The Oregonian files this report on Oregon State’s exhibition victory over Southern Oregon.

And the Register-Guard of Eugene provides this story on Oregon’s exhibition win over Concordia.

Cal senior Jerome Randle is No. 4 on the Rivals.com College Basketball Power Rankings of point guards entering the 2009-10 season. The top three spots belong to Sherron Collins of Kansas, Kalin Lucas of Michigan State and Kentucky freshman John Wall.

Here is the entire list.

Landry Fields . . . Drew Schiller . . . Da’Veed Dildy . . . Jarrett Mann . . . Andrew Zimmerman . . . Gabriel Harris.

Those six players represent the entirety of Stanford’s healthy, available list of recruited scholarship basketball players. At least for now.

Junior forward/center Josh Owens is the latest placed on the shelf after it was revealed he is out with an undisclosed medical condition. You cannot help but suspect things are at least somewhat serious when his father is quoted as saying, “Keep Joshua in your prayers.”

Jon Wilner of the San Jose Mercury News, our sister Media News publication, provides this perspective in his College Hotline blog:

“There is a lack of detail on both Jeremy Green and Josh Owens because of the seriousness and unresolved nature of their issues — one’s legal, the other’s medical, and there isn’t enough on-the-record information to meet the threshold for publication on either front.

“From what I’ve heard about Green’s situation, Stanford fans should not rush to judgment or assume the worst.”

Here’s the full story from the Mercury News.