Cal's high-profile hiring of Mike Montgomery is a huge one for a program that has seen some mediocre coaching and play over the last few seasons. Monty deserves every bit of his reputation as a top-shelf teacher who gets everything out of his players. But he also comes with some baggage that could limit the effect that he will have on the Bears.

The most important of these issues is his willingness to recruit. Towards the end of his time at Stanford, Montgomery didn't put a ton of energy into recruiting, and the team suffered for it. His last two recruiting classes of Fred Washington, Tim Morris, Taj Finger, Peter Prowitt, and walk-on Kenny Brown produced some important contributors, but none of these players never showed the promise of being anything more than key role players. Now, much of the reason for Monty's lack of vigor can be attributed to very high admissions standards for athletes that won't be present in Berkeley; he won't ever lose out on a player like David Padgett because of grades. Nevertheless, this issue remains an important question mark that could limit his success.

More analysis after the jump.

Former Stanford and Golden State Warriors coach Mike Montgomery will be the next head coach at Cal, Sports Illustrated and ESPN are reporting.

Montgomery fills the opening created when Ben Braun, who had been on the job for 12 years, was fired last week. Braun only reached the NCAA Tournament once in the last five years.

Montgomery was a very successful coach at Stanford, with an overall record of 393-167, 12 NCAA tournament berths and a Final Four appearance in 1998. He was significantly less successful when he left Stanford in 2004 to coach the Golden State Warriors, leaving the NBA with a 68-96 record.

Montgomery has maintained close ties to Stanford, including advising his successor and former assistant, Trent Johnson, and the school's athletic director, Bob Bowlsby. It's fair to say Stanford fans won't be happy to learn that he's now coaching their biggest rival.

Andy Katz of ESPN.com is reporting that Washington State coach Tony Bennett has decided not to take the Indiana head coaching job after having a conversation with Indiana athletic director Rick Greenspan.

"I thought about it, but I'm not going to pursue it," Bennett told Katz, adding that he wouldn't consider the vacant Cal job either.

A Fox Sports report on Saturday said Bennett had been offered the Indiana job. Bennett has said that he didn't receive a formal offer from Indiana, although most indications are that Bennett was, in fact, Indiana's first choice.

For Indiana, the other names that have been mentioned -- Xavier's Sean Miller, Pittsburgh's Jamie Dixon, Vanderbilt's Kevin Stallings,Tennessee's Bruce Pearl -- may all take a back seat to former Golden State Warriors and Stanford coach Mike Montgomery, Katz reported.

And for Washington State, the fact that Bennett has said no to Indiana and Cal doesn't mean he'll be back. His wife is from Louisiana, and he might consider the vacant LSU job.

You know how fans and pro teams place a higher value on their own players than others do when it comes to trade discussions? The same thing is common when it comes to the perception of the attractiveness of one's own program in college. It's not uncommon, but it seems Cal is just the latest to see itself as being a program better than it is in terms of attractiveness.

I'm not saying that Cal can't be a good program. A top-25 team on a regular basis with potential. The right coach, some good recruiting, and a firm, long-term commitment from the school and athletic department. I am saying it isn't nearly as attractive as the fans think it is (I am definitely not saying it is the crap shoot as Ray Ratto seems to portray it).

After firing Ben Braun, Cal wasted no time in pursuing a replacement. They just found out they aren't that attractive.

Pitt coach Jamie Dixon was contacted about Cal's vacant coaching position within 24 hours of Ben Braun being fired on Wednesday, but has no interest in the job...

When a coach isn't even willing to bother using the interest from another school as leverage for a raise and extension before rejecting, well that's telling. Either the money they were talking was so low that it deserved an immediate dismissal or the job didn't even reach the status of "lateral move."

Either way, Cal looks like a program that thinks higher of itself than others do.

Cal Athletic Director Sandy Barbour made perhaps the most popular move of her tenure today when she announced the firing of Ben Braun, who leaves Berkeley after 12 seasons of modest success. Braun's overall record and accomplishments are certainly not embarrassing, but his teams -- particularly the recent ones -- had a knack for underachieving and failing in crunch time.

A solid recruiter, Braun went 219-154 and led the Golden Bears to five NCAA appearances (including a Sweet Sixteen in 1997, his first season) and an NIT Championship, so it's impossible to say that he was a complete failure as coach. However, his teams rarely outperformed expectations, which could be seen throughout this season. Cal had two probable NBA first-rounders in Ryan Anderson and DeVon Hardin and a wealth of offensive talent, but the Bears finished 17-16, went a poor 6-12 in an admittedly tough Pac-10, and lost to Ohio State in the second round of the NIT. Cal rarely looked interested in playing defense and dropped several games in the closing moments.

Analysis of possible replacements after the jump.

Here's how ESPN announcers Brent Musberger and Steve Lavin called the end of UCLA's 81-80 win over Cal, an ending that included a controversial call:

(Video via Awful Announcing) Musberger and Lavin are now facing heavy criticism for their seeming cluelessness about the controversial finish, which included a shot (maybe) going over the backboard, which would negate the fact that it then went through the rim.

Writes Bob Raissman in the New York Daily News:

That's the problem. Neither Musburger - who got involved in basketball shortly after Dr. Naismith invented it - nor Lavin, a former coach, even discussed the possibility Shipp's basket should not have counted. Considering ABC replayed the shot eight times, the voices had ample time to tackle the subject.

Writes Neil Best of Newsday:

What I find interesting is they did not discuss the potential illegality of the winning shot from behind the backboard, which was a major topic of conversation on SportsCenter.

I find it interesting, too. When Lavin exclaimed, "From behind the backboard, Brent," they should have addressed whether the shot was legal or not. They dropped the ball there.

But after the jump, see where I think they really dropped the ball.

The Pac-10 announced its season awards today and, unsurprisingly, UCLA was the big winner. The Bruins picked up the hardware for Player of the Year (Kevin Love), Freshman of the Year (Love again), and Defensive Player of the Year (Russell Westbrook). The only trophy that failed to go to Westwood was Coach of the Year, which was won by Stanford's Trent Johnson. The Bruins also placed three people on the Pac-10's three All-Conference teams.

It's hard to argue with any of these choices. Love was pretty clearly the most consistent offensive player in the league this season, although his defense is not up to the level of likely runner-up Brook Lopez. Regardless, Love was a deserving winner of both his awards. Westbrook's win is a little easier to question, but he's certainly one of the two or three best wing defenders in the conference (although I prefer Washington State's Kyle Weaver), and Stanford center Robin Lopez's blocked shot totals probably weren't high enough to give him the trophy. As for Coach of the Year, that one's always emphasizes performance relative to expectations, so it's not surprising that the admittedly deserving Johnson beat out Ben Howland.

The Pac-10 recently changed their All-Conference team from one 10-person group to three five-man teams, and that was probably a good decision given the conference's strength this season. The first team included Love, Brook Lopez, Ryan Anderson, OJ Mayo, and James Harden. I'm a little surprised that Jerryd Bayless didn't beat out Harden, but it's possible that the coaches wanted to honor Arizona State for their surprisingly solid season. Other than that, though, the rest of the All-Conference teams played to form.

The Pac-10 has been considered one of the deepest conferences -- if not the deepest -- this entire season, and the early conference season has supported that claim. Eight games into the slate, seven teams have anywhere from three to five wins, giving nine teams possible shots at NCAA Tournament bids. That sort of conference parity has been fairly common throughout the country this year -- just look at the Big East -- but the Pac-10 has been much less predictable overall.

For an example of that craziness, just look at Thursday's schedule. In the night's biggest shocker, unranked Cal topped #9 Washington State in Pullman, giving the Bears a mighty impressive road win right after dropping three consecutive home games. In Los Angeles, suddenly resurgent Arizona beat USC handily with the Trojans coming off a three-game road winning streak that included victories over UCLA and Oregon. In less surprising news, #14 Stanford handled Washington in Seattle while #5 UCLA defeated Arizona State by a whopping 33 points in Westwood. Even those results, though, hold some oddities: ASU started the conference season with four wins, and U-Dub had dropped just one Pac-10 home game this year and rarely gets stomped at HecEd Pavilion.

Stanford sophomore forward Brook Lopez is one of the top big men in the country and a Top 10 pick on most draft boards. On Saturday, he finished the Cardinal's 82-77 victory over archrival Cal with 23 points, giving his often offensively-challenged team a steady scorer inside. Just imagine what he'd do every game if he showed up in the first half.

For the second consecutive game, Lopez overcame a foul-ridden, almost nonexistent first half to dominate the second period. All of his points came in the second half, and his presence resulted in some pretty horrific foul trouble for the Bears. Cal's three best post defenders picked up a combined 10 fouls in the half, and two of them (DeVon Hardin and Harper Kamp) sat for the most of the period and eventually fouled out. Consider this game with Lopez's 17 points and 14 rebounds in the second half of last Saturday's comeback win against Arizona State, and we have the beginning of a possible trend.