Tyson Ross didn’t seem like he was at his best today against Oregon State. That’s all right, though. Ross on a decent day is still better than about 90 percent of college pitchers on the best day of their careers.

The No. 7 Cal baseball team’s ace had some uncharacteristic trouble locating his fastball in the middle innings, gave up seven hits and walked three Beavers hitters in seven innings. But he allowed just two runs, stranded 10 runners and pitched himself out of a couple of jams in the early innings to lead the Bears to a 5-2 win over the two-time defending national champions and improve his own record to 5-0.
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As I’m sure you’ve all heard, Sandy Barbour has pulled off yet another great hire in former Stanford and Golden State Warriors coach Mike Montgomery. This comes as a bit of a surprise—in the week since Ben Braun has been fired, names such as Denver Nuggets assistant Mike Dunlap, Washington State coach Tony Bennett, Villanova coach Jay Wright and Pitt coach Jamie Dixon have oft been mentioned as leading potential candidates. St. Mary’s coach Randy Bennett and Nevada coach Mark Fox were also possibilities.

But none would’ve been as perfect of a fit as Montgomery is for the job. He is a track record of success at the college level, he has coached in the NBA (albeit not so successfully), he can compete with the Lute Olsons and Tim Floyds to lure recruits, and he has the name to generate the type of excitement for the program—both within the Bay Area community and on the national stage—that has been absent for years.

Whether Montgomery will have actual success here remains to be seen—he is a grind-it-out, controlling, defensive-minded coach that will be very unlike anything the Bears are used to. Jerome Randle for one won’t be too pleased—if he thought he couldn’t play his type of ball in Braun’s system, he hasn’t experienced anything yet. Regardless, in terms of rejuvenating the program, Montgomery is pretty much perfect.

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