Dr. Joon-Seo Andrew Choi is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sport Industry & Management at Hanyang University in Seoul, Korea. But what he and his students saw this week is nothing like what they are used to back home.

As part of the school's Global Sports Immersion program, Choi took 10 of his students across the globe to learn about the enormity that is the sports culture in the United States. Part of the tour includes a visit to a college campus, and Choi took his group to Cal earlier this week to check out the Simpson Center and renovated California Memorial Stadium, and was given a presentation about Cal Athletics by Director of Olympic Sports Operations Aaron Schulman.

"It's unreal," said Choi, who spent seven years as an assistant professor at the University of San Francisco before moving back to Asia earlier this year. "Just the fact that college athletics could devote this much time, effort and money into sports - that's probably the biggest takeaway from my Korean students. We don't have anything similar to this. Our universities have fairly similar number of teams and athletes, but your devotion to sports and academics is unparalleled."

The Korean group spent a week in California, visiting pro and college teams as well as other organizations involved with sports business. Choi taught the same program while at USF, and Schulman is one of his former students. When Choi was at USF, he took students to Korea for a similar mission, and Schulman made the trip earlier this year.

"It was an honor and a privilege because my trip to Korea was such an influential and impactful experience for me," Schulman said. "Without question, I wanted to make it as impactful for them as my experience was."

Schulman met the group outside Memorial Stadium and took them on to the field for pictures. The group then received a tour of the different wings of the Simpson Center before winding up in the Kronk Meeting Room for a presentation that included videos about Cal Athletics and its Olympic success.

"There may be some opportunities for us to do a renovation project on campus, so this is a great benchmark," Choi said. "The whole sports industry is becoming more and more global, so I think it's a benefit for both parties - our students and an organization like Cal Athletics - to just lower the fences and borders and become a smaller community."

Schulman also spent extensive time outlining the Olympic Sports internship program, and Choi said some of his students may be interested in coming to California for such a position.

"One of the things we're trying to do here at Cal is be a world-class brand," Schulman said. "What better way to increase our notoriety as a world-class brand than to have students seek us out from across an ocean to come and see how we do things at Cal, to see our facilities and to be able to ask us questions. Nothing speaks more about our world-class brand."

 Images of the group's Cal visit are below.

Great story here on Kelcey Harrison, a childhood friend of the late Jill Costello.

New football coach Sonny Dykes has been on the job for two weeks. The Bear Blog checked in with him to see how things are going so far.

Bear Blog: Tell us about your first two weeks on the job

Sonny Dykes: It's been busy. There is a lot of stuff going on. You try to prioritize everything, but it gets backed up pretty quickly. The biggest thing I try to do No. 1, recruit; No. 2, hire a staff. The third thing is just trying to get out and meet as many people as I possibly can. Those have been the three biggest priorities. Obviously, I'm trying to spend as much time with the players as possible before they wrap up finals and get out of here. It's been busy. You wish you had more time to do certain things. But it's been productive.

BB: How has recruiting gone so far?

SD: Recruiting has been great. We've added five new commits since we got hired, so that's been exciting. The response has been great. Kids are interested in Cal. The university sells itself. If we do a good job of presenting a unified message, then I think the recruiting part of it is going to be great. To me, we have a chance to have one of the top recruiting classes in the country at Cal.

BB: How important was it to reach out to current commits right away?

SD: The first night, I tried to get a hold of as many of those players as I could. The guys I didn't get the first night, I tried to get the second night. Sometimes a coaching change is hard. There is some uncertainty. But at the end of the day, those kids chose Cal because of Ca because of the university. There's always adding and subtracting that happens in recruiting, but we've held the recruiting class together well and we're excited about getting this thing finished up in January.

BB: What have you learned about Cal so far?

SD: The thing that is impressive is the tradition of the program. There is tremendous tradition here. It's a very passionate fan base, more so than I thought. It's an educated fan base, which has been fun. That's been the most impressive thing - how dedicated people are to Cal. I've heard great stories of people who have been coming to Cal games since a young age and have been coming their entire lives. I don't think I understood the passion that Cal football has and how much they care and how dedicated they are. That's been a real positive.

BB: How much interaction have you had with the fan base yet?

SD: Just having a chance to talk to fans at a basketball game or Grid Club or just being in the community at a pizza joint at night, people have been incredibly positive and shared a lot of stories with me, being third or fourth generation Cal people.

BB: Sandy Barbour said you were the right fit for Cal. What about you makes that true?

SD: I think there is a direct correlation between having academic success and athletic success. I think it speaks highly of the character of your program. If a guy comes in here and works hard academically, then typically they're going to work hard on the field as well and be good team guys. I think Sandy and I share a vision for this place that is all about bringing in the right kind of student here, the student that fits. A student that is interested in not only playing football but is interested in getting a degree and doing something the rest of their lives. That's what we're excited about - going out and having the opportunity to recruit those kinds of kids that are coming here not just because of football but because of academics as well.

BB: What was your reaction when you were first approached about this job?

SD: I was excited. I just think this place has huge potential. I think as coaches, that's really all you can ask for - having the resources that you need to be successful. Cal has those resources. It presents an opportunity to win conference championships and get to the Rose Bowl. If you can do that, you can compete for national championships. When you look at Cal, I think the potential is here to do that.

BB: What are your impressions of the area so far?

SD: My wife and I go on vacation four times a year and three of them are usually in the Bay Area. We go to Napa, we go to Tahoe and we go to Pebble Beach. When I was at Texas Tech, we were traveling all the way out here from Lubbock. When I was at Arizona, we were traveling all the way out here from Arizona and when I was at Louisiana Tech, we were traveling all the way out here. Obviously, we have a love for the Bay Area. It's a place we loved to visit. So we thought living here would be even better.

BB: How much time have you been able to spend with the players so far?

SD: I tried to meet with as many guys as I could before they took off. I was in and out recruiting so I didn't have a chance to meet with as many as I would have liked to. I'm going to call the guys over the holidays. I'll be on the phone a lot with the players, just kind of talking to them and encouraging them and telling them how excited I am to work with them. I want to get feedback from them. What are the strengths of the program? What are the weaknesses? What do we need build on? What do we need to adjust? I believe every situation is unique and you have to get a feel for what's good about things, what's bad about things and that will help us set our sights on what's most important and prioritize the issues we need to fix immediately and the things we can fix a little further down the line.

BB: From the players you have talked to, what kind of feedback have you received?

SD: Guys are excited. Anytime there's a coaching change, it's difficult. But I think the guys are excited. They're optimistic and I feel like we have the opportunity to do some special things. We're ready to get to work. Anytime there's a change, guys have ideas. Everybody is different. Certain guys wouldn't change one thing. Certain guys would change everything. That's just what you expect.

BB: How much have you interacted with the community so far?

SD: We're trying to find a house that's as close to campus as possible. I think part of being the head coach at Cal is being part of the community and trying to immerse yourself and your family in Berkeley as much as you can because it's such a unique place. I love the energy of Berkeley and the campus. We want to be active, we want to be involved; that's what we're trying to do. There's more going on here than any place I've ever been, and I think that's the strength of this place. There is an energy and there is a passion and there is a desire and a uniqueness to this place which I think makes it very appealing.

On a semi-regular basis, the Bear Blog will check in with Cal Athletic Director Sandy Barbour to get her perspective on everything Cal athletics. With a new football coach, the first season in the new California Memorial Stadium in the books and a high-profile Signing Day, we thought this would be a perfect time to solicit the thoughts from the leader of Cal's Intercollegiate Athletics department.

Bear Blog: Can you give us an overview of Cal Intercollegiate Athletics as we head toward a new year?

Sandy Barbour: We are at a really exciting juncture in our history with California Memorial Stadium having been renovated and the long-discussed upgrade of our facilities with the Simpson Center coming online. Those are huge advances for us and huge advances in our ability to provide a high-quality experience for our student-athletes, which is ultimately the goal. Within those projects, it gives us several multi-faceted opportunities to connect with our community, whether it be through our football gameday experience or through those facilities providing opportunities for our campus and our broader community to hold an event in Memorial Stadium.

The stadium project has been something that has weighed heavily during the entire duration of my eight years here. It was such a massive project, both from a financial standpoint but also the actual construction of the project itself and all of the approvals and all of the discussion here on campus. Getting that done took a Herculean effort by every member of this department and frankly every member of this campus. It also took up a huge part of our time. Getting that done really gives us an opportunity to move on to smaller yet still very important, but much more manageable projects and initiatives to continue to move us forward -- whether they be smaller capital projects for different sports which we certainly still have needs there, and certainly all kinds of other resource acquisitions or resource allotment throughout our 29 programs and throughout the department.

Are we financially challenged? Absolutely. I don't know there will ever be a time at the University of California, Berkeley that we'll feel like unequivocally we have everything we need from a resource standpoint. That's OK. One of the things I love about us is that we're resourceful, we're creative, we're clever - we're just like our student-athletes. We don't necessarily need all of the things that everybody else has because frankly we have some things nobody else has. We have the greatness of this campus. I know our coaches and certainly we administrators feel so fortunate that when we recruit, we have the reputation of this university to draw prospective student-athletes or prospective staff or coaches. Nobody else has that. We need to use that as our point of difference, and we do. Whether it's fundraising or recruiting or sales and service, we absolutely use that to our advantage.

I'm very proud of this department for the way in which we use our resources very effectively, very efficiently. We always need to be very diligent about that. We can't take our eye off that ball. But we're at a point where we are as competitive as we've ever been, we have an opportunity to vastly improve our financial situation through investing in revenue generating units, whether they be development or sales and service or just looking at different ways that we can produce revenue. That's no different than any other athletic department across the country.

We will certainly miss (outgoing chancellor) Bob Birgeneau - he's been a true champion for Intercollegiate Athletics. He's somebody that understands the value that high-quality, highly successful Intercollegiate Athletics programs can bring to a campus and he's promoted that every step of the way. I also believe in and trust the university and the process and everything that I've heard about (incoming chancellor) Nicholas Dirks is that he will be that and more, that he too will understand and embrace the value that we can bring and the role that we can serve in the greater excellence of the campus.

Because we're a great university, because we hire great people, we have the opportunity to go out and recruit the very best and the brightest young men and women to populate our 29 programs. I get great satisfaction and great joy out of watching them compete and practice and train and struggle and everything else, and watching them excel and then watching them graduate and then watching them come back five years later and talk about what they are doing.

It's a great labor of love. We have our challenges. We have things we have to improve and get right, but there are also a lot of things we do very, very well that we need to make sure that we continue to do well. I think great success is ahead of us.

I'm excited about Sonny Dykes' leadership in our football program. We have the best coaching staff in America across the board. You look at the number of National Coach of the Year honors that we've won, you look at what our teams are doing under these coaches' leadership -- every day, we want to make sure that we make our campus and our alums proud. I think we're doing that in a big way.

BB: What are your reflections on the football coaching search?

SB: High-profile coaching searches nowadays are very interesting. This is not your father's coaching search. You really have to be very diligent and hold it close to the vest because frankly if you are going after a certain level of coach that has had success as a head coach, they may not want their name out there. Frankly, there are two, if not three, coaches in our search that I'm not sure I ever saw their name. I just believe that's how it's done. That takes a lot of care and a lot of diligence and a lot of focus. The most fantastic thing about this search was the high level of interest from across the country from some names of people that were interested and really would turn some heads.

The first order of business is to establish a particular football competence, relative to the x's and o's and relative to the management of the football operation. You can do that pretty quickly. Then it's a matter of fit.

We ended up in New York at the National Football Foundation Hall of Fame Induction. We met with a bunch of candidates. There was a high, high level of interest in Cal and high level of interest in our student-athletes and the talent that is in this program and the success that we did have under Jeff Tedford's leadership. I will tell you there were multiple number of guys that I met face to face that I would have been happy to have lead our program, but Sonny was head and shoulders the best of that group. I knew it the first time I met with him. We established his football competence. I really, really like his values, like the way he talks about what he is about and what his job is as a head football coach. I love the way he talks about student-athletes and what his obligation is to them. I love the way he talks about his staff and how to put them together. I think he's a great fit. He showed extreme enthusiasm for the Pac-12 and for Berkeley and living in this area and how it was a great fit for his family.

BB: Is fit even more important at a unique place like Cal?

SB: I think fit is very important, no matter where you are. But I think fit becomes even more important at a place like Cal because we are so unique. Frankly, fit is really about values. Like all of us, he and his new staff are going to struggle a little bit with how to get things done around here. Unless you've spent some time here, and sometimes even when you have spent some time here, you don't' necessarily have it figured out how to get things done. But the fit is about values. You have to learn the mechanics of how to get things done, but there's a certain values perspective that it all starts with.

BB: From a game day and operations standpoint, how did the first season in the new California Memorial Stadium go?

SB: There are few things in life that truly exceed expectations. Both the Simpson Center and California Memorial Stadium and the two separate projects together and the environment that they have created on that part of campus, I think is a true asset to the campus, it's a true jewel that we will use as the cornerstone of our Intercollegiate Athletics program. It speaks to all of the things that we talk about in terms of athletics being valuable and powerful on our campus. It is a safe, comfortable, inviting place for our alumni, our fans, our students, our parents, our faculty, our staff to gather as a 60-plus thousand-person community on a given Saturday afternoon.

The UCLA game, the first-ever game under permanent lights , was electric. It was the University of California, Berkeley community gathering and celebrating all that we are and the stadium and the way it's configured allowed us to do that.

Probably the greatest thing that has made me feel really good about the project - and there have been a number of them - but the one that I would have to single out is a number of our football alumni made comments that they were afraid that by modernizing the stadium that we wouldn't maintain that Memorial Stadium, but it's here. That was very conscious. That feels good. We were able to combine the old and the new, to maintain tradition and pay homage to our history which is so important to us. At the same time, we can create today's history.

We have work to do. The East side is not done. We took a 30-month project and jammed it into 21 months. It is a miracle that we played a football game on Sept. 1. It's a great tribute to Webcor and our capital projects folks and the architects and construction management and all the trades and the subs -- you name it, just phenomenal work. But the fact is we had thousands and thousands of square footage turned over to us three days before the first event. The construction was done. The building was there. We just had no time to learn how to operate it. We spent an entire season learning and we will continue to. Having said that, our staff did an absolutely phenomenal job in presenting Memorial Stadium to our fans. It's a beautiful jewel that we need to take care of, one that will be a launching pad for a lot of things that Intercollegiate Athletics at Cal will do that will help us advance from a revenue production standpoint, that will help us advance from a brand standpoint, will help us advance from a student-athlete experience standpoint. All of that will help put us in good stead to help us accomplish all of our priorities.

BB: Were there times during the season when you reflected on the journey it took to finally get this project done?

SB: When they turned the stadium over to us on that Wednesday before the first game, I actually went down on the field and just stood in the Cal script and looked up and looked around, particularly at the press box and the premium seating area - that's oh so very different than what we had. You think about all the student-athletes that came before and played through and endured less-than-desirable circumstances. You think about all the fans, all the alumni, all the committed season-ticket holders that sat through a lot of games on splintering-wooden benches.

BB: What were your thoughts on a pretty high-profile Signing Day at Cal last month?

SB: This is the advantage of having such an incredible university to recruit to and having coaches that have the reputations that they do. In terms of signings, Missy Franklin is clearly the one that has the biggest name. I'm excited about Missy bringing her talents to Berkeley. I'm also excited about retroactively adding her medals to our medal count. Missy is probably the brightest star in a menu of really great recruits across the board. Missy was the top catch in women's swimming. Ryan Murphy was probably the No. 1 ranked men's swimmer.  I know everybody is excited about Jabari Bird in men's basketball and Courtney Range and KC Waters in women's basketball and Rich (Feller) signed another great recruiting class in volleyball, including Steve Kerr's daughter, Maddy Kerr. This university and this department continues to attract the very best out there. In an Olympic year, when you have somebody like Missy Franklin shine for the United States, to have her make the decision to bring those talents to Cal is very validating for Teri and our women's swimming program and this department and for the campus. But I'm looking forward to having all those we signed in November and will sign in February and will sign in April that will be freshmen and starting out their careers at Cal, and that's always fun. To see them come in as freshmen, and four or five years later see them leave with their degrees and maybe a few national championships and a whole lot of experiences and memories, that's really what we are all about.

This week's show focuses on the women's basketball team:

• Junior guard Allen Crabbe took a lot of the blame for Saturday's loss. Crabbe struggled with his shooting all night, finishing 6-for-26 from the field. He still finished with 14 points. "I thought I was going to get into a rhythm at some point in the game and i just didn't. I took some questionable shots that kind of hurt my team. I didn't realize I shot the ball that many times. That was pretty unacceptable. If I shoot that many shots with as badly as I shot tonight, I feel like it's not going to help my team at all."
• Ricky Kreklow played 15 minutes after a five-game absence because of a foot injury. He had four points and two rebounds and also fouled out, but made an impact when he was on the floor. "We had not anticipated him playing," Cal coach Mike Montgomery said. "He had gone to another doctor who did an ultrasound and he identified what was wrong. He felt like there wasn't much that could happen that was bad. It may not heal as fast, but the thing may not heal for four weeks in terms of pain. There wasn't a risk of him doing any damage. He does make a difference for us, creating activity and being physical and getting after it."
  
• Montgomery on the completion of Cal's tough three-game stretch against Wisconsin, No. 18 UNLV and No. 16 Creighton: "We're not good enough yet. These are good teams. I told the team I want to know what it is we can do better and what I can do better to help you. 
• Other notes from tonight:

--Cal committed a season-low eight turnovers

--Freshman Tyrone Wallace had a career-high 10 rebounds. Sophomore David Kravish had a season-high 13 boards.

--Doug McDermott's 34 points were the most by a Cal opponent this season.

Next up: Tuesday vs. UC Santa Barbara, at Haas Pavilion, 8 p.m.

The Bluejays held on for the win after Cal cut the deficit to four in the final minute. Doug McDermott had 34 points and nine rebounds to lead Creighton. Justin Cobbs led the Bears with 18 points, seven assists and six rebounds. He also went down hard after scoring a layup in the final moments and didn't return.

Allen Crabbe finished with 14 points but had a poor shooting night. Freshman Tyrone Wallace had a career-high 10 rebounds. David Kravish had 13 rebounds.

The Bluejays lead 34-29, but the Bears have to be happy with the position they are in considering Allen Crabbe has yet to make a field goal and they are shooting just 32 percent from the floor. The Bears have had some good looks that they just haven't knocked down.

Cal is holding Creighton to 39 percent floor shooting, but All-American Doug McDermott has been strikingly efficient, scoring 18 first-half points on 6-8 floor shooting and 4-4 from the free throw line.

Point guard Justin Cobbs erupted for a scoring flurry late in the half and leads the Bears with eight at the intermission.

The Bears also had some foul trouble amongst their big men in the first half. David Kravish and Richard Solomon each picked up two fouls and had to go to the bench prematurely.

One unforeseen and positive development for the Bears -- guard Ricky Kreklow returned to the court in the first half after missing five games with a foot injury. Kreklow was active and knocked down a 3-pointer but also picked up three fouls in nine minutes.

• Usual starters: Crabbe, Cobbs, Kravish, Solomon, Smith.
• Just had a moment of silence for yesterday's tragedy in Newtown, Conn.
• Former Cal stars Jerome Randle and Markhuri Sanders-Frison are in the house tonight.
  

Settled in here at Haas Pavilion for the men's basketball team's big game against No. 16 Creighton. The Bears are playing their second ranked opponent in a row after dropping a 76-75 heartbreaker to No. 18 UNLV last Sunday. The Blue Jays feature 2012 consensus All-American Doug McDermott, who averages 22.7 points and 6.7 rebounds per game. Tip-off is in about 20 minutes.

Cal is making an impact at the FINA World Championships in Istanbul, Turkey. On Thursday, former Cal star Lauren Boyle won the gold medal in the 800-meter freestyle with a time of 8:08.62. Boyle, who is a two-time Olympican from New Zealand, broke her own national record in the race.

On Wednesday, former Bear Anthony Ervin took gold in the 400 free relay. He led off the Americans' relay team and had a split time of 47.28. Then today, Ervin took home the bronze medal in the 50 freestyle with a mark of 20.99.

Current Cal swimmer Tom Shields is also having quite a tournament. Today in the semifinals of the 50 butterfly, he set an American record and finished second with a time of 22.58. On Thursday, Shields won the silver medal in the 100 butterfly with a time of 49.54, beating American Olympic medalist Ryan Lochte along the way.

Also, former Cal athlete Damir Dugonjic of Slovenia won silver in the 100 breaststroke on Thursday in a time of 57.32. Another former Bear, Martti Aljand of Estonia, finished fourth in the same race with a mark of 57.85.

This edition takes a look at new football coach Sonny Dykes' trip to last weekend's men's basketball game.

Allen Crabbe and Tyrone Wallace speak at Tuesday's weekly men's basketball press conference:

Men's basketball coach Mike Montgomery speaks at Tuesday's press conference:

Cal's women's volleyball team thought the 2012 season would be a day at the beach. Instead, it turned out like a surfing accident.

The Bears were blindsided by a seemingly endless rash of injuries, a series of events that prevented them from ever finding a rhythm to the season. Despite it all, Cal still managed to qualify for its 11^th straight NCAA Tournament, where it lost to North Carolina in the first round for the second straight year.

Cal finished the regular season with an overall record of 15-15, which included benchmark wins over top-10 opponents Oregon and Hawaii. It also featured heartbreaking five-set losses to top-10 opponents Washington and USC, matches in which the Bears held match points.

Overall, Cal played nine five-set matches, going 4-5. The Bears never won more than four in a row and never lost more than three in a row. Of their 10 weeks of Pac-12 Conference play, Cal split the two matches seven times.

Could have been worse. Could have been better. That was the story of this injury-ravaged season.

"It was certainly one of the most challenging seasons," said Cal coach Rich Feller, who has now completed 14 seasons in Berkeley. "Entering into it, there was so much optimism because we had a large squad with a lot of depth at every position. Then the hits kept coming. It was like there is a pretty good-sized wave coming and it knocks you sideways, and another wave is right there to knock you over backwards."

The season had some significant missteps before it ever started. Starting libero Robin Rostratter, who set Cal's single-season digs record last year with 571, suffered hip and back injuries in the offseason that ended up becoming too serious for her to play. Redshirt freshman Michelle Neumayr, projected to start at outside hitter, tore her ACL for the second straight year in the preseason and was forced to the sideline.

That meant at the very least, the Bears would have to play the season without two integral members of the team. And the loss of Rostratter was especially damaging because of the senior's leadership qualities.

But there was more. Senior opposite hitter Correy Johnson developed a stress reaction in her leg during the preseason and had to stop practicing. She missed five of Cal's first eight matches and played only partially in a couple others early on. Even when she returned to full-time status in matches, she spent much of the season sitting out portions of practice.

Then in early October, starting outside hitter and leading attacker Adrienne Gehan left the Bears' match against Oregon with a strained knee. She sat out the next three matches and played sparingly and primarily in the back row for the next four.

Throw in a beat up defensive specialist Marlee Davis, who missed a ton of practice time during the season with an assortment of injuries, and it was difficult for the Bears to ever establish any consistency during any point of the season.

"It was almost a perfect storm to make it difficult to get any traction," Feller said. "It was tough to have your season scheduled and planned and then to have a couple starters or potential starters get injured in the beginning of the year. You really have to change the way you look at everything you've done. Then to have a couple starters that were really limited early in the year, you have to change the way you practice."

The injuries forced the Bears to go with freshmen at key positions. Mary McKennon took over for Rostratter, Nikki Gombar replaced Neumayr in the back row and Lara Vukasovic started for Johnson early in the season. Vukasovic then moved to outside hitter when Gehan went down. None of those players figured to get extensive playing time when the season began. Instead, they played a lot. In fact, McKennon and Gombar played in every set of the season.

"It's not just the fact that freshmen were on the court," Feller said. "It was really people that weren't ready to take on some of those roles. We didn't have enough time. Had some of those things happened later in the year, it probably would have been better. But the fact we kept getting hit by another wave from the time we started out, it kept us going backward."

Despite the health problems, the season had some high moments. The Bears knocked off No. 6 Hawaii at the Wahine Volleyball Classic in Honolulu in the fifth match of the season. Cal stunned No. 2 Oregon on the road in a five-set thriller. And even though it turned out as a loss, the Bears may have played their best match of the season in a five-set thriller against No. 8 Washington, one in which they had match point in both the fourth and fifth set but ended up losing 17-15 in the fifth.

Cal also registered a quality win over Saint Mary's. It ended the season with a strong RPI of 39 and was one of seven Pac-12 teams to make the NCAA Tournament.

"The wins were extremely gratifying. The close losses not so much," Feller said. "It was almost salt in the wound in some ways because we really had played as well as we could play for the longest period we'd ever done it. And all it took was a few little relapses to lose the match."

There were other highlights. Senior middle hitter Kat Brown became Cal's all-time leading blocker with 509. And then there was the emergence of senior middle hitter Shannon Hawari as one of the Pac-12's best players.

Hawari, a one-time high school All-American and top-25 recruit nationally, suffered an ACL injury early in her sophomore season. She came back to start the next season and continually got better. But she took it to an elite level this season.

Despite being the focal point of Cal's offense, she still finished among the conference leaders with a .370 hitting percentage, a tremendous clip considering opposing defenses had to know what was coming. She also was one of the Pac-12's best blockers at 1.20 per set.

"It's really gratifying to see someone come through adversity like she did," Feller said. "We had high expectations for Shannon. She was fulfilling those expectations and then she goes down with the knee. She came back and worked as hard as anyone I've ever seen work. She got better and better and kind of grew into that leadership position and maturity position."

Feller is already excited about next season, and has big expectations from Gehan, now the only player left from the 2010 team that advanced to the NCAA title match. Feller said Gehan has already expressed a commitment to get in better shape next season and become the unquestioned leader of the team.

"There's only one player that was on our championship team returning and she knows now with great hindsight how difficult that was and how special that was to get there," Feller said. "We expect her to be a leader on and off the court. We have had conversations with her and she is really, really excited about taking on a much bigger role on the team. She's embracing that. I don't think she's ever embraced that before."

Watch Cal's Allen Crabbe and Richard Solomon at Tuesday's press conference:

Watch Men's Basketball coach Mike Montgomery at Tuesday's press conference: