Golden Nuggets: Monty Looks Ahead To Cal's Trip to Oregon

Mike Montgomery held his weekly press conference yesterday and spoke a bit about the Bears' upcoming trip to the Oregons. Here's a sampling of what he said.

On Oregon State's zone defense

"They look to be primarily man, but they will use a 1-3-1, some, to try to get a swing, but I think [Craig Robinson] is trying to establish themselves as a man-to-man team. That's different. They've got different personnel. They play big, and they're physical, with [Angus] Brandt, [Devon] Collier, and [Joe] Burton."

On OSU junior G Jared Cunningham
"Cunningham's a good player. He's explosive. He's just really hard to guard because he's so explosive, first step. He gets to the basket, and rises up, and he's had huge games. He's a guy you have to pay attention to."

On the health of Cal's roster
"Well, Richard [Solomon] is still a question mark. If he can't play, it doesn't make much sense to take him. He hasn't practiced, so we'll see what happens today, tomorrow, and the next day."

On Cal's Sunday day off
"We've had about three days off in the last eight weeks. We are entitled to a day off. In all rights, we play Thursday, Sunday, this week, so we could have taken today, really. We're going to trim it down, a little, today. It's a long season, so taking a Sunday off, that's about the first one we've had in a long time."

On the availability and health of freshman G Alex Rossi
"He's practiced. He's going to have to get productive in practice. He plays the same position that Allen [Crabbe] plays so you'd like to see him do some of the same things that Allen does. He's practiced, though, and he doesn't seem to be taking too many ill effects from it. He's stepped out, a time or two, but I don't know that he's ready to play yet."

After the jump we have some bracketology and Richard Solomon remains questionable for this week.

Football

• Shaq Thompson has eliminated USC from his top list of schools. He is considering Cal, UW, and possibly Notre Dame.