Written for KNBR.com…
By Chris Carr
It literally rained sideways in the Bay Area this past Friday. Earlier that same day, fire was set on the southside of UC Berkeley’s campus after a group of two-hundred people occupied one of the administrative halls. One day later, the California men’s basketball team made history by doing something the program had not accomplished in half a century.
Flood-like conditions, fire in the streets, and at least share of the Pac-10 championship for the Golden Bears — all in the course of one weekend — add up to three definite signs of the apocalypse.
Entering Saturday’s contest against conference opponent Arizona State, California held a one-half game lead over the Sun Devils. With a win, the Bears would claim a long-awaited Pac-10 championship, something that hasn’t happened since Dwight Eisenhower was in the White House.
But Mike Montgomery did not want his players to think of this game as anything but that: one more game. Forget the fact that no Bears squad had even been this close to such an opportunity as that presented to Montgomery’s crew in fifty years. Don’t let the emotions of Senior Day at Haas Pavilion – during which five seniors (four of them starters) were honored – cloud the fact that California still faces one more team on March 6 in Bay Area rival Stanford. Put aside the pressure that comes with the Pac-10 tournament, which starts in Los Angeles on March 10, and just play your brand of basketball.
But for all intents and purposes, that is not what the Bears accomplished. For a team that has relied heavily on their accuracy from the perimeter all season, California only hit two such shots in the first half and four three-pointers overall. Despite the cold shooting from what was at times beyond NBA distance, Jerome Randle and company kept forcing those shots, and I could feel the team pressing, particularly early. Ultimately, it was the ability of Montgomery’s team to penetrate and get second-chance points that gave the Bears a 16-point victory in their final home game of the year.
Sure, California has made NCAA Tournament appearances since 1960, but not since the days when the head coach was Pete Newell and Harmon Gym was the home venue have Bears’ fans been able to celebrate something like what occurred on Saturday.
Keep in mind that with four senior starters, this year was the team’s best (and essentially final) chance to win a conference crown for the foreseeable future. A good percentage of the credit for the team’s success must be given to Montgomery. Beyond knowing the Bay Area basketball scene better than anyone in recent memory, he was responsible for a cultural shift in Berkeley upon the firing of Ben Braun a few years ago.
I know that the phrase “changing a team’s culture” can be overused, but consider this: in 2007-08 a roster with Ryan Anderson and Devon Hardin (two NBA draftees) finished their campaign ranked ninth in the Pac-10. One more time for emphasis: ninth in a conference with ten teams. The only group more hapless that year was Oregon State, which had no wins in conference games. Who was the coach of that Bears team that went 6-12 in conference, you ask? Ben Braun, of course. In two short years, Montgomery has coached the Golden Bears to back-to-back twenty win seasons, and provided some hope to the students and alumni of UC Berkeley in the process.
Critics will use numerous arguments to discredit the accomplishments of Cal basketball: (1) this was a down year in the conference, with six teams at the .500 mark or below. (2) Given this mediocrity throughout the Pac-10, a regular season title by no means guarantees a spot in the Round of 64. (3) Outside of conference games, Cal lost against the likes of Syracuse, Ohio State and Kansas. I know that these claims will be made, in part because I’ve made them at various points during the season. So the team is hardly worth any praise, right?
Wrong. California was picked by many to win the Conference of Champions this year. Yes, a lack-luster league comprised most of the Bears’ schedule this season. But if they play in the finals of the conference tournament, Jerome Randle, Jamal Boykin and the rest could find themselves in one of the four regions come Selection Sunday.
People in general tend to underachieve when expectations are higher. Remember that athletes are people too, and thus are prone to the same anxieties and pressures as you and I. With Cal being the favorites entering the 2009-10 season, they deserve more credit for achieving something that has evaded the program for so long. Despite whatever happens this month and in spite of any success (or lack thereof) Montgomery enjoys next year with a largely new compliment of players, no one can dispute that California made history on Saturday and deserves to celebrate.
It is certainly appropriate that the rain that rocked the Bay Area stopped just in time for the noon tipoff on Saturday. It signifies that rather than a sign of the apocalypse, Cal’s latest victory instead marks a changing of the guard (at least this year) out west. And it is even more fitting that the Bears’ championship drought has ended with the season that marked its golden anniversary.
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