Posted on Fri, 03/21/2008 - 22:16 — by RickySanchez
If Sandy Barbour doesn't start talking to Bill Grier -- USD head coach -- this month, she's a moron. He is the PERFECT future head coach for the Bears, and has now just beaten Gonzaga, St. Mary's, and UConn in consecutive games in tournament play (Cal hasn't had a run to match that since Newell), AND the Toreros tore up their conference schedule. All this in his FIRST YEAR!!!! Please, PLease, PLEASE hire this guy. Can someone PLEASE hypnotize Sandy into doing this -- or maybe just bring back Steve Gladstone, the one who hired Tedford and Boyle, to do this? PLEASE.
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Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 1851
That is pretty impressive, but I wouldn't call Sandy Barbour a moron based on that. Maybe Bill Greir is happy where he is? Mark Few made a name for himself long ago after being a cinderella story, and he's been at Gonzaga ever since. Bozeman looked like a genious after that first year, delivering the W's and all, but when it really came time to deliver that SUV, he couldn't do it. Gosh, it wasn't that long ago we were worried Braun was going to jump ship and return to Michigan. You never know what is going to happen. I agree it's exciting when a new coach takes over, but Bear fans have been stung enough times while reaching into the honey jar to know the prize sometimes comes with a cost. I thought Holmoe was going to be great. I'm not saying I'm against it and I can't really defend Braun because it all boils down to results, but I'm more cautious now. We don't know what Sandy will do, but one thing we know for sure, is nothing is going to happen until the season is over. Still, this is a discussion board so it's fun to throw names out there and dream about an NCAA title. What about Steve Lavin? He cracks me up when he's announcing. Musberger has all the experience but I think Lavin shows him up. That was funny when Musberger asked him what a loss would mean to UCLA, and Lavin started to answer only to have Musberger interrupt him and remind him the game wasn't over yet. Lavin says, "I know, but you asked the hypothetical question, so I was going to answer it. You want me to answer it, or not?" I think Lavin is having too much fun announcing to go back to a stressful coaching job.
Joined: Oct 2005
Posts: 22
Bazooka joe, are you kidding about hiring Lavin? That guy was noting but a choke at UCLA. He won just enough to keep his job too long. No, we don't need another one of those.
Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 1851
Lavin's 145 - 78 isn't too bad! He had 5 Sweet 16's, out of 6 NCAA appearances and he was 10 - 1 in 1st and second round appearances. Granted that's not good enough for UCLA standards, but I would be happy with that. He made it to the elite eight once in his first season, but people probably said that was Jim Harrick's team. Man, you guys are tough! Do you think CAL could really steal away a big name coach like UCLA did with Howland? UCLA will always be able to lure the best coaches, but it's more of a challenge at CAL. I was just kidding about Lavin, you would probably keep just keep Braun if Lavin was the only candidate out there, but I don't think it's as easy as everybody thinks to get a successful coach to want to come to our program. Oh well, I'll accept whatever decision is made. Hopefully whoever is coaching can get our sophs to play better defense next year. But the season isn't over, we have a game tonight. The lady's do too. Go Bears!
Joined: Oct 2005
Posts: 63
If Lavin lands anywhere, it might be USF. His Dad went there if I recall. He has some kind of connection and USF needs a basketball coach even more then Cal. After being in the big time, the step down to USF seems reasonable...but I'm sure he's doing well in TV. I'd like to see Lavin given a chance at Cal...but make it a short deal. If he does well in two years extend, if not...dump him ASAP.
Fox from Nevada Reno is a real rising coach...35 and had an offer from Nebraska. 3 years and a great record.
And of course there's Bennett...have a feeling he wouldn't jump to Cal until this class leaves (by graduation or draft).
Anyway...yeah, someone besides Braun.
Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 1851
Well that was really disappointing. The women really fell apart at the end. Missed free throws, have the ball with 12 seconds left in a tie game and travel while trying to call a TO, give up the game winner on an offensive rebound after an air ball. It was one of those murphy law CAL basketball games. No matter who the coaches are, we always get snake bit. It's good the women got past the first round though. At least we can say they are going ion the right direction. Too bad though, a sweet 16 appearance would have been great. ------- As far as the men, we really got creamed. I always felt I'd rather be in the NIT and have a chance to go deeper in the tournament than make the NCAA's and lose in the first round, but we couldn't even get to the 2nd round of the NIT. The sooner we forget about this year, the better. ------- The women did great though, so congrats to them on a super year even though that tough loss to GW is going to be hard to get over. Who ever said it was easy being a CAL fan? Hey, I think the baseball team is doing well!
Joined: Dec 2007
Posts: 44
Bazooka Joe says: "I always felt I'd rather be in the NIT and have a chance to go deeper in the tournament than make the NCAA's and lose in the first round..." Losers think like this. If we can't compete in the NCAA tournament in men's BB then we need to make changes until we get it right. That includes getting rid of the coach. The NIT is only good for getting more experience for your team that sucked so bad during the season it didn't get an invite to the Big dance. The Pac-10 got 5 teams into the tournament. So if we don't make it into the NCAA touney something is wrong and needs to be fixed. 9 times out of 10 it is a coach that doesn't coach well enough. We need to give a new coach of course time to get things turned around. And obviously Ben Braun has been given way way way too much time as the Cal coach and just needs to go. That is all we really need to discuss. Because until we get a coach that inspires his players to win and gets people excited about coming to Haas again, Cal is dead in the water for Men's BB. And until then only losers who believe that we should play in the NIT so we have a chance to win the NIT will be attending Cal games. It is just amazing that more Cal fans aren't outraged by our mediocre Men's BB team.
Joined: Apr 2007
Posts: 13
What ever happened to Mike Montgomery? After the GS debacle, I haven't heard anything.
Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 1851
Let me qualify my statement by saying if we are going to get trounced, I'd rather suffer a shellacking in the early rounds of the NCAA's than I would in the the NIT. That was pretty bad tonight. --------- The womens game though is a good example how you can't always blame the coach. Vital had an outstanding game but traveling while trying to call a time out was a crucial mistake. Gray-Lawson was super, but missing the front end of a one and one in the closing minutes was costly. The defense got the GW player to miss at the end, but they let them get an offensive rebound and last second put-back because they didn't block out. The kids made three big mistakes and lost the game, not the coach. --------- Now granted, it's the cummulative record that matters, and the women have gone to the NCAA's 3 years in a row and the men have had a long drought, but Sandy Barbour already acknowledged that Braun needs to do better, so the men's problems are not going unnoticed and everything reflects on the coach. Now that the season is over, we'll have to see what happens. What a bad way to end the day with both teams losing, after having to decide which game to watch as both the men and women played in a post season tournament at the same time. When was the last time that happened?. How can you call me a loser, I didn't play in either of those games? After those losses today, I did hang my head and feel like a loser if it makes you feel any better. There's always next year though.
Joined: Feb 2008
Posts: 24
I've always liked Braun, but the Bears looked so pathetic this year (and particularly vs OSU) that he's gotta go ... I don't care HOW untalented those guys are, they've GOT to be better than what they showed. As for his replacement? Only 3 wishes. Don't hire Sutton, don't hire Lavin, and don't bring back Campanelli ... all 3 would be worse than what we've got (but, I think, those would be the ONLY choices that could be worse). This is SB's first real test, let's see if she has the balls to pull the plug on BB.
On the bright side, maybe this is the warmup she needs to ax Tedford when he stays with Longshore and goes 2-9 next year.
Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 1851
I can totally understand people's frustrations with the BB program and their desire for a coaching change, but I think when they throw Tedford in there also, they discredit themselves and come across as fans that will complain about any coach. Tedford had been a major impact coach that gave us respectability and there's no reason to believe we won't come back next year as USC's major obstacle again. He almost instantly put on on the cusp of a Rose Bowl berth and a BCS team. He even acknowledged some of the mistakes and vowed to make some changes to correct them. As fans, we love coaching changes because there's always the excitement of the unknown and a feeling that we get a fresh start. I still feel with Tedford that excitement is there that something very special could happen and we could have a breakout season winning the conference and more.
I admit with BB, we've been holding on to that expectation for some time now and the excitement is waning. We've had too many super soph rosters where they didn't mature and amount to anything special. It was the same thing last year and it's frustrating that other teams are winning with inexperienced young starting line ups. We finally got the 7 footers on our roster, but now the other teams are getting twin 7 footers or big strong dudes like Kevin Love. We always seem to be a step behind. Still, I figured WSU, Stanford, and UCLA would be ahead of us, but I thought we would be right behind them and that was the disappointing thing for me this year. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against changes that will restore hope, but I'm not going to stop being a loyal CAL fan and cheering them on no matter what happens. At least I can say there are 1905 other CAL fans still like me!
Joined: Dec 2007
Posts: 44
Tedford is a perfect example of what a great head coach does when things don't go right: you make changes. Now he is unrelentingly and painfully slow during the season to make changes, but in the off season he has made major strides in improving the program. Ben Braun has made no such changes and has turned Cal's Men's BB program into non-factor in the Pac-10. Ben has never really had teams that believed they could win the Pac-10. Tedford's teams are looking beyond Pac-10 championships for Natl' championships; and the fans are inspired too. Tedford and Cal Football will bounce back big-time next year. Men's BB with Ben Braun has never been there. The next 24 hours will tell us what kind of AD Sandy B is. She has a rather obvious call to make to Ben Braun; does she have the guts to make it? We shall find out.
Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 1851
Yeah, as far as football goes, we just need to get that lawsuit settled and get that sport complex built.