Another underappreciated Castaway to C-USA

C-USA is beginning to gather a pretty stellar cast of coaches within its ranks..

You look at Memphis, Southern Miss, Souther Methodist and now .. Rice??

Well!  I think we see a pretty good some pretty good coaching résumés within the ranks of the league!  Now, if only the BCS would take the football schools.

-E

I don't totally disagree with the thread, but to color Braun as "underappreciated" is inaccurate.

Underappreciated by who?  Cal fans?  If anything, Cal fans have been very, very patient with Braun.  He hasn't done anything with their program and if he had coached somewhere like North Carolina, he would have been fired long before now.

And, despite many years of sub-par, strategically flawed hoops, alot of fans still have respect for him.  He is at least a very honest guy.  I'm not trying to split hairs here, just setting the record straight.  This is not a case of Cal firing a guy who is under-valued.  He just simply didn't get the job done.

As a CAL alum and fan, I appreciated Braun (in spite of the underachieving so to speak) because:

(Until recently) He prepared his teams well. Other coaches often voiced respect for his and his players' approaches to games and individual matchups. Who cares if the team won regularly? It was a nice change to be competitive...

He at least got the Bears into the post season regularly. Let's face it. Everyone who says Braun underachieved seems to have forgotten that for decades (some of us have been around that long) the Bears were just plain bad. I'd rather have a great guy who is a decent coach who recruits adequately and never quite gets over the hump than... total crap... which is about what CAL basketball had been as a program. (There were a few great players, Kidd, et al, but no hint of even making the NIT regularly...)

We had been very patient with Braun because he over achieved compared what we had historically expected. To say he did not get the job done, which is accurate, is mostly a reflection that he had elevated the expectations of the job. To say he has done nothing with the program is just plain wrong. Hopefully, Monkmemmory can do more, but that should be another thread.

I wish Braun and Rice well!