First off, congratulations to Hana Cutura for being named the Pac-10 women's volleyball player of the year!

Second, put your CGB tax dollars to work and vote in royrules22's top-25 poll.

As usual, today was the Tuesday Press Luncheon.  Tedford talks about Best, Vereen's role as starter, preparation for Washington, bowl games, and recruiting.  Riley mostly talks about preparing for Washington, but he also answers questions about Vereen and recent improvement of the O-line.  Riley seems to have plenty of motivation this week, as he remembers leaving Washington in 2007 with "a terrible feeling after that game. So we're going to have to get pumped up for this game, for sure. Because that wasn't Cal football. It was kind of embarrassing."

Here's what Tedford had to say about Best's current condition.

On whether he has any updates on Jahvid Best's status (concussion, back) 

"No, no update at all. Jahvid did go back today to get evaluated in Pittsburgh [Pa.] and he'll be back tomorrow. He seems to be doing very well but we have not discussed at all a return."

On whether he will play against Washington
"He won't play this week."

On any specific types of evaluations Best is undergoing
"I don't know what they're doing. I do know that the expert in that field that a lot of people rely on is back there, so that's why he went there. But his head's been doing fine. His thing now is he's got a sore back, that's the main thing. He hasn't had any symptoms with headaches or anything like that for a couple weeks now. The back has been what's bothering him."

On whether this expert in Pittsburgh is seeing Best for his back injury or concussion
"It's still just making sure that the head is 100 percent completely clear, and we've given it a lot of time. It's something that we said after that happened, that we'd by no means take any risk or anything like that with him. He's back there just getting evaluated to make sure that everything's okay." 

After the jump we look at how the bye week helped football, some basketball articles mostly focusing on Max Zhang, bball injury updates, and more.

Cal Football

• Despite momentum from their wins over Arizona and Stanford, Tepper, Mohamed, and others embraced the bye week so they could heal up and get some rest after six consecutive weeks of play.

Cal Basketball

• Monty says Kamp will likely redshirt this season.  Kamp hasn't reached a decision, but he's leaning towards sitting the year out, especially after he was hindered by injury last season.  Theo will miss the visit to New Mexico, but may return against Iowa State this Saturday or the following Monday against Pacific.  Jorge will play at New Mexico and MSF, despite losing ten pounds while ill, should also play against New Mexico.
• Monty talks about how experience can easily trump young talent and how that has been demonstrated in early Pac-10 play (particularly with UCLA's loss to Portland).  He's quite proud of Portland coach Eric Reveno, one of his former assistants.
• At yesterday's press conference Monty talked about preparing for Portland and incorporating Zhang into the team's gameplan.  While Zhang's confidence has its ups and downs, Monty is pleased with his progress.  Daily Cal writes about the changes Zhang has made since joining the team last year.  He's gained 35 pounds and is working on improving his aggressiveness in the paint.  To help that, Zhang has been boxing with conditioning coach Mike Blasquez.  Zhang has no shortage of motivation and enthusiasm and he seems to be doing everything he can to improve.
• After advancing to the finals for the Ohio Classic and losing to Ohio St, women's basketball jumped up two spots in the AP poll (20), but fell four spots in the coaches' polls (19).

Everything Else in the Wide World of Cal Sports

• Men's cross country brought in the nation's #4 recruiting class.