Dec 19 2008
Montgomery ‘hopes’ Bears are a good team
Randle leads a potent
offensive attack
Mike Montgomery gave his weekly press conference today and when he was asked about the contrast of how his team has played in their solid victories compared to the thrashing that they received in Missouri, his response was, “I hope we’re not the team that played Missouri.” I think that it’s safe to say that there are many Bear Backers that feel the same way, but when will the world know for sure?
Jeff Faraudo of the Oakland Tribune writes, “What do we know of Cal men’s basketball?“ Right now, I would say that we know that they can beat lesser opponents, can normally play with better teams, but they still have yet to figure out how to win together and close out games.
Learning how to win is a fundamental learning process for any team not normally on the right side of the score board. While the Bears were a .500 team last season overall, they were still a .333 team in the Pac-10, which is the only thing that matters in college ball. Players expect to compete with ‘like’ competition, and anyone playing for Cal believes that to be Pac-10 competition.
The word is getting out about this team, but some in the know were already aware of the talent they possess. UCLA head coach Ben Howland said, “Cal, the way they were being picked so low (eighth) in all the preseason stuff, they’re playing very well and that’s not a surprise because of Coach Montgomery being back in the league.” Those are high marks from the three time defending Pac-10 champion coach.
A big part of Cal’s success on the court has been the emergence of little-man point guard, Jerome Randle. He’s even attracting attention from news sources reporting on Cal opponents. The hope in Berkeley is that this little known point guard will be very well known by the end of the season.
When asked if Randle can be exploited by opponents due to his size, Montgomery’s retort was, “Nevada looks to post their guard off of their rub, so I would think they could do that. Sometimes you spend a whole lot of time looking to do something and it breaks your continuity. You end up standing around and it turns out not to be so good.”
O.k., so maybe Monty didn’t really answer that question, but when it comes to the Bears, at least for now, he has hope.
