FanHouse MikeMontgomery

The NCAA tournament is just one day away, so FanHouse writers and editors got together to talk over each region. The Midwest Region got the ball rolling, followed by the East. The South looks like it could go to the top seeds, but what about the West? Here is the last installment of our NCAA FanHouse Roundtables.

Chris Burke: Unlike the other three regions, where it's the top seeds' bracket to lose, UConn may not have the same stranglehold over things due to Jerome Dyson's injury. The Huskies have lost two straight and are just 4-3 since Dyson hurt his knee, so they look, to me, like the most vulnerable of all the No. 1 seeds. It doesn't help that, after the first round, they may not have another easy game. The other six teams in the top-half of this bracket can be considered threats, from Washington right on down to Mississippi State and Northern Iowa.

When Mike Montgomery was hired as Cal's basketball coach, many figured that it would be only a matter of time before he led the Bears to the top of the conference. Few thought he would do it so quickly. The Pac-10 media picked the Bears to finish eighth in the conference. So much for that. Cal is a legitimate contender for the Pac-10 title.

Cal has just completed a sweep of the Arizona schools, including a win over No. 17 Arizona State, and will be looking to join the Top 25 in the very near future. Cal previously had a couple of nice wins over UNLV and Utah, but this win should legitimize them.

While Cal's rebirth has been amazing, it's important to note that it wasn't horrible last season. The Bears were 17-16 and did qualify for the NIT tournament. And there were a couple of talented players coming back -- Patrick Christopher and Jerome Randle. But Montgomey has molded them from alsoran to legitimate tournament team.

And you have to believe that even the most ardent of Bears fans didn't think that they would be this good.

The biggest difference seems to be in the scoring output, especially the 3-point shooting. Randle is one of the best in the nation. Unlike last year, Cal seems to be running acutal plays. The players seem to always be on the right spot of the floor. Like they are organized or something. And, I don't have the stats for this, but it seems that Cal always scores following a timeout. It's uncanny. That, too me, is one of the measures of a good coach -- if his teams score after timeouts.

Plus, he's always been a guy that rides the referees. That, to me, is the difference between being an NIT team and a tournament team.

To me, Montgomery is the coach of the year.

Trent Johnson's decision to leave Stanford for LSU is not just a case of a coach leaving a program on the slide for more money and a new opportunity. As Jon Wilner of the San Jose Mercury-News explains, Stanford AD Bob Bowlsby delayed extending Johnson's contract for unclear reasons, creating a situation in which he felt underappreciated and open to looking for other jobs.

If these reports are to be believed, then Bowlsby handled this situation extremely poorly. He said throughout the season that he would absolutely get a contract worked out right when the season ended, but nothing has happened in the two weeks since Stanford was knocked out of the NCAA Tournament. Bowlsby had several opportunities to get this deal done in the fall or during the season, but he kept delaying it and then didn't even get the work done when no more excuses could be made.

Now, it's important to note that these are still rumors. However, these rumors come from people very close to the program and have some pretty clear validity. Johnson often stated that Stanford was his dream job. It's obviously possible that he was lying, but almost everyone who's ever come in contact with the man has characterized him as a straight shooter who believes in Stanford's true commitment to academic excellence from athletes. Put simply, it would have taken a lot of ill will to get him to leave the school. Bowlsby showing no love for the Pac-10 Coach of the Year probably would have been enough.

More on Bowlsby's huge error after the jump.

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.

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.