The Golden Bears will have a new man patrolling the sidelines next season, but he's all too familiar to the Cal fan base.

Former Stanford coach Mike Montgomery -- who left the Cardinal to coach the NBA's Golden State Warriors -- is returning to the Pac-10.

During his tenure at Stanford, spanning 18 seasons and 393 wins, Montgomery took Stanford to the Final Four (1998) and won more games than any coach at the school before him.

Montgomery maintains hope that he'll have Cal's All-Pac-10 forward Ryan Anderson, who declared for the 2008 NBA draft but didn't commit to signing with an agent, leaving the door open for his return even though coach Ben Brain was let go.

Athletic director Sandy Barbour didn't waste any time after Cal's season ended with a 73-56 second-round NIT defeat at Ohio State to dismiss Braun.

Within 36 hours, she had dumped Braun, the Bears' coach the past 12 seasons.

"Ultimately, the bottom line is we just didn't win enough basketball games," Barbour said. "I believe this is a very talented team and I believe they underperformed."

The Bears dropped seven of their final nine games to miss the NCAA Tournament for the fourth time in five seasons. Cal went 6-12 in the Pac-10 three of the past four years.

Montgomery inherits a team with decent immediate potential. Four starters are scheduled to return -- that number includes Anderson, the Pac-10's top scorer, who could stick with his decision to enter the NBA draft.

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