Mike Montgomery to Cal

Posted by: Avinash on Friday, April 4th, 2008

mikemontgomery

I swear when I read the opening headlines on the Cal sites this morning, my football-addled mind thought James Montgomery was coming back.

Former Stanford and Golden State Warriors coach Mike Montgomery has agreed in principle to replace Ben Braun at rival California, according to a source with knowledge of the negotiations.

Braun was fired as coach last Wednesday after 12 years at Cal.

Montgomery led Stanford to the 1998 Final Four and helped resurrect the Cardinal into a national program.

The move to Stanford’s chief rival comes as a surprise given Montgomery’s former and current links to the Cardinal. His former assistant, Trent Johnson, replaced Montgomery at Stanford. Most recently, Montgomery has been working as an assistant to Stanford athletic director Bob Bowlsby, as well as working in television for Fox Sports Net.

Montgomery compiled a 393-167 record with 12 NCAA tournament appearances in his 18 seasons at Stanford, making him the school’s winningest men’s basketball coach.

Here are my preliminary, uninformed, thoughts, which I move to strike from the record if I choose to.

He’s old. I mean, 61 is old in college basketball. Even John Wooden didn’t last past 65. Bob Knight seems to have exhausted himself at 67. He’s ratched down for 6 years and $10 mil, which means he’ll be 67 when he’s done. Is he really going to fit in on the sidelines? Cal basketball certainly does not attract as well as Cal football does.

He was terrible in the NBA. This doesn’t need much disputing, although the Warriors were a far worse team during this tenure.

His resume speaks for itself–25 winning seasons, 10 NCAA tournament appearances. So we should at least make the bump back to a decent team. I think.

I’ve heard some rumors about him being a so-so recruiter. Which doesn’t mean anything to me, since it’s not as if Braun was gifted in this realm either. Incremental steps is the term of the day, methinks.

Here are the voices you can listen to in the meantime, because this has to be the worst article I’ve ever written:
Monty to Cal!
Intro To Monty
Monty’s coming to Cal
Purdy: Montgomery will make Cal a winner

The commenters are going to have to be smarter than me here: What does Mike Montgomery bring to the table?



Topics: Cal Basketball

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