Rice to hire Cal's Braun as basketball coach

Meet the new coach.

Three weeks after dismissing the winningest men's basketball coach in program history, Rice stands poised to hire former Cal coach Ben Braun as successor to Willis Wilson.

According to an NCAA official, Braun will be introduced at 2 p.m. Monday.

Braun compiled a 219-154 record over 12 seasons in Berkley, leading the Golden Bears to five NCAA Tournament berths and three NIT appearances, including the 1999 NIT title.

Cal advanced to the Sweet 16 in 1997, its first season with Braun at the helm, and reached the second round of the Tournament in 2002 and '03.

But after making six postseason appearances in his first seven seasons, Braun managed to lead Cal to only a pair of postseason appearances over his last five seasons. The Bears finished either eighth or ninth in the Pac-10 three of the last four seasons.

Braun was fired on March 26 two days after the Bears fell to eventual champ Ohio State in the second round of the NIT.

Second only to Nibs Price in victories at Cal, Braun went 185-132 in 11 seasons at Eastern Michigan (1986-96) and 148-103 at Siena Heights College (1978-85). With 552 victories, Braun closed the season ranked 11th among active NCAA Division I coaches.

A full bio is here. Reaction on the Rice Fan Forum is pretty positive so far, and I have to concur with that. Braun sounds like a good coach who's run a clean program and who'll be a good fit with Rice academically. And as a poster noted in that thread, he's the highest-profile coaching hire Rice has made since Ken Hatfield. While that relationship eventually went sour, it did pay some fast dividends - I'd call Hatfield's first five seasons (1994-1998) among the best periods for the program in recent years. I'm excited to hear what Coach Braun has to say about his new gig tomorrow.

UPDATE: More from MK Bower and former Cal player Rod Benson.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on April 06, 2008 to Other sports