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Montgomery was NOT fantastic at Stanford. He had a good record, but he consistently bowed out of tourney after tourney to teams with inferior seeds and far less talent. Stanford always peaked too early. His lone Final Four was sheer luck with a huge collapse by Rhode Island. Otherwise, it was 1st and 2nd round upsets seemingly every year, except for one sweet 16. He was unable to change game plans at halftime or get his teams to adjust to pressure. He was able to recruit plenty of talent, no doubt, but he couldn't translate that to postseason success. With the talent he had (Collins twins and Childress to name a few) he definitely underachieved in the tourney.
His most infuriating flaw was never calling time outs during other teams runs. One needs only to look at Roy Williams huge blunder against Kansas on Saturday to see where that gets you.
If Montgomery is such a great coach, why was he fired after 2 miserable seasons at GS, and then Nelson comes in, with exactly the same team, and takes them to the Western Finals the next year? Answer: it wasn't the talent, it was the coaching.
Montgomery is a good coach, he's just not a great coach, and he will not get Cal to that next level either.
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