Because it's been a whole day since our last Mike Montgomery story - http://bearinsider.com/news/story.php?article=1072

This one includes a few tables that show how Montgomery fares compared to recent Cal coaches, where he stands on the Pac-10/12 list, how Cal's conference record under Montgomery compares with other conference teams during his six years, compares Montgomery's six years with Ben Braun's last six years, and shows where he stands on the all-time Division I wins list.

In putting the last chart together, it was a surprise to learn that Rollie Massimino is still coaching at the age of 79 at an NAIA Division II school. I don't think that anyone's going to approach Montgomery and tell him to suck it up, and that he still has a dozen years of coaching left in him.

Let me preface this by saying Montgomery is a hall of fame coach and it's been a great six years at Cal. With that said, why the comparison to Braun's last six years as opposed to his first six years? Braun's first six years were pretty good. He took the team to the Sweet 16 and won the NIT. Also finished well in arguably a much tougher Pac-12 conference.

HKBear97;842300392 said:

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Let me preface this by saying Montgomery is a hall of fame coach and it's been a great six years at Cal. With that said, why the comparison to Braun's last six years as opposed to his first six years? Braun's first six years were pretty good. He took the team to the Sweet 16 and won the NIT. Also finished well in arguably a much tougher Pac-12 conference.

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My thoughts as well. The conference was tougher, and that isn't arguable, IMO.

During Braun's tenure, more teams were invited to the Tournament on average per season. The only year less than 4 teams were in was 2004, when 3 teams made it.

During Monty's tenure, the conference sent 2 teams twice (2010 and 2012). It's much easier to pile up wins in a bad conference. That's not taking away from Monty's and his staff's accomplishments here, but simply pointing out the differences in what they had to deal with.