Sports Radio Service


		Michael Duca on Cal Bears Basketball By Michael Duca November 14, 2011

	Sportsradio: The Bears opened up the 2011-12 campaign against UC Irvine with a rather convincing win 77-56 at Haas Pavilion on Friday night. How important is it for a club to get that first win especially on opening night. Of course it is. Every team knows that they can't win their second game until they have won their first -- and winning is a habit. You want to start that habit early. Cal has done so, with a cruise through their tuneup against UC San Diego, then an opening night romp over UC Irvine. They finally stopped the sibling rivalry Sunday night with a convincing roll over George Washington, which featured a 21-0 run over the last 6:34 of the first half, effectively winning the game in that short stretch. What impressed me was not the run itself, but the fact that Cal came out of the halftime break and kept the pressure on, extending the lead and showing the kind of go-for-the-throat tenacity that will be necessary to prevail in the new Pac-12. Sportsradio: Head coach Mike Montgomery is coming off emergency cancer bladder surgery two weeks ago and he coached that opening night game saying afterwords he was "tired" and he added a little humor later on in the press conference. Is Montgomery facing some tough physical challenges or can he bounce back and run the team in a grueling NCAA schedule and pull it off despite those challenges? It's cancer. Hard to imagine two more chilling words to hear from your physician. There's no trivial cancer; however, my own experience with this type of cancer in friends and family members is, it is relatively treatable, and the two men I know who had it showed few ill effects after treatment. Monty is a fairly young man still, and one certainly hopes that the fatigue he's been experiencing is directly related to the fact that he had surgery, which you would expect to improve over time. Sportsradio: Roxy Bernstein is doing a juggling act with hosting a daily talk show on local radio, doing Cal Bears play by play for basketball, serving as play by play announcer for Bears football on Comcast TV. We know from just covering all the different sports for radio just reporting is a challenge but doing play by play and hosting a talk show daily has to be a grind. Can Rox handle all of that? Sounds like it. I had lunch with the Great Allan Bernstein today, at the annual Big Game Luncheon, and he seemed energized by the opportunity to do three basketball games in a long weekend, along with his regular radio show duties. Roxy has waited a long time to get these opportunities, and, as he himself said, his wife is "a real trouper", so she's being very supportive while caring for their two young children. With a great partner at home, I think he'll thrive under the workload.