calumnus said:

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dimitrig said:

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calumnus said:

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calbears4ever said:

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I'd say get fans back in to watch games as soon as the city of Berkeley health dept allows it and increase ticket pricing. There are pac-12 programs that are allowing a limited number of fans to attend games, and we are still under a no-fan policy. Also, for fans, donate to the Cal athletics fund. If VB gets an endowment from someone, that would also help a lot. The $5 million buyout for Fox sounds utterly ridiculous

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It is my estimate. He has 3 years left on a 5 year contract worth $8.25 million. What is crazy is we paid $3 million to buyout Wyking Jones to hire Fox and achieve similar results. Wyking Jones might have even had more upside potential as his major issue was zero previous head coaching experience.

At least if Jones had coached the last two years and we let him go now with one year left on his contract we would have saved $8 million (versus letting Fox go now) and the new coach would inherit a better roster.

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Jones may have also recruited better - certainly not worse. Talent makes up for a lot of coaching deficiencies.

"Wyking is a five-star recruiter, a five-star coach and a five-star person," said Jones's former boss, Louisville head coach Rick Pitino, who has now seen 31 former assistants move on to become head coaches.

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Exactly. I have zero doubt Jones would have recruited better, especially in L.A., his hometown. Vanover and Sueing would continue to develop. If we fired him now the next coach would inherit more talent than whoever follows Fox. Not really trying to defend Jones, but if I knew Knowlton was going to hire Fox who had ample opportunity at Georgia to demonstrate his lack of upside potential, I might have had a different opinion.

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SFCityBear said:

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NathanAllen said:

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OaktownBear said:

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NathanAllen said:

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CalLifer said:

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...And in its current state, what sort of hot up-and-comer would take a chance on Cal's program when there are likely to be other suiters?

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As others have mentioned, Dennis Gates is an intriguing option. But, in my opinion, he needs more time. I'd like to see him string together at least a couple more competitive seasons in the Horizon League.

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I understand your point, Nathan, but to me, the first point above is precisely why we should try to target Gates now. Yes, there is a risk that we are taking if we hire him before he has fully proven himself. But once he has, is he willing to take a chance on us when other, more attractive options might be available?

I think that an AD who is willing to do the work (and knows what questions to ask and what the answers need to be) should be able to at least have a strong sense of Gates' potential in this role, and should be willing to take that chance. I actually liked OaktownBear's analogy of Jones/Fox to the Teevens/Harris succession path in Stanfurd FB. The Furd AD then went and took a chance on Harbaugh (and I think that the projection one has to make from USD football to Stanfurd is probably harder than the projection from Cleveland State BB to Cal, esp. with a Cal alum as the target). But I do think the AD should be thinking quite hard about Fox and his future after this quite disappointing year.

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We're in agreement here. If Fox is going to succeed here, he'll need an extension at the end of next season. So the evaluation needs to be happening now. Feelers need to also go out. You don't fire a coach (or let his contract wane) unless you know you have better option(s). No offense to Wyking Jones, but, pretty much no matter what, you know you're gonna have better options after letting him go. For Fox, that's not a guarantee at this point.

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Nathan - I very respectfully disagree with a lot of what you are saying on multiple posts.

1. Barring a top 3 finish in conference AND a significant recruit haul to replace all the seniors that will be leaving after next year, there is absolutely zero chance Cal should extend him. I do not know where the Cal community has bought into this "after year 3 you have to extend" concept, but it makes no sense and it keeps Cal paying buyouts. He should be extended when he earns the extension. Extending for recruiting is ridiculous. EVERY COACH IN AMERICA IS ON A ONE YEAR AGREEMENT. They don't perform, they get bought out. Every recruit knows this. If you don't want to risk your coach getting fired, your best option is to not play for a guy with a losing record. Let's say Fox replicates what he did last year. So you aren't ready to fire him and you extend him. Then he follows that up with what he did this year again. He'll be fired. Even if you wanted to make this argument, Cal literally just extended its football coach and then fired him the next year. Extending buys us nothing but a big fat bill when we need to fire him the next year. If he gets extended, the buyout has to be one year's salary. Period. No increased buyout for the extension. If he wants better, go find anyone else who wants him.

2. No, if you are in last place you don't wait until you know you have better options. You don't worry about being last worse. You take a shot.

3. Fox is a better coach than Jones. Nearly tripling the head coach expense to upgrade to Fox was in no way a better option. And frankly, as bad as Jones was, I'm not convinced, especially the way the team ended his second season, that Jones with a rotation of Bradley, Kelly, Grant, Vanover, Sueing, McNeil, Brown and then Thorpe and whomever else he recruited doesn't give us better results this season. Yeah, the coaching would be worse, but the personnel would be a lot better.

4. Regarding Dennis Gates not being ready, I haven't followed him, but I disagree with your premise. By the time anyone on this board recognizes that the hot up and comer is ready, Cal is not getting him. The last two coaching hires saw to that. Cal needs to moneyball this thing. Cal needs to find the person that no one is valuing correctly yet. If a guy is a known up and comer, he is probably getting an offer from someone else. If not, he knows he is a year away and he isn't going to risk blowing his career on a school that does a Jones-Fox tandem. You need a guy who is a couple years away and is willing to take the bird in hand. That isn't going to come from a search committee, 2 interviews and a "I was just more comfortable with this guy" hiring process.

This is why Knowlton's hiring Fox was such a disaster. He actually had a story to tell to counteract the Jones hire. Look, we had a Chancellor who was on his way out who didn't give a shyte about sports and a non-professional AD, and we had just put our focus on hiring the football coach. It is two years later. New Chancellor. New AD. Cal never fires a coach after 2 years. We knew we needed to take drastic steps to recommit to basketball and that is what we are doing. Someone might buy that. But when you go out and hire a coach sitting on the shelf who had a 9 year stint at Georgia and a losing conference record to show for it, you just defined what you want to be. That was Knowlton's decision. He can't lay that off on the last guy. He can't claim a change in philosophy. He set the philosophy. So now it is much harder to sell that job. And every year you find this acceptable digs the hole deeper.

I'd argue now is the time. Our roster in 2 years looks abysmal. We need next year to show some improvement to sell to recruits. But if Fox stabilizes this thing and gets us to say, 8th place, well, (i) he already did that with no recruiting bump; and (ii) it is his third year and big deal. If you get a young coach that can sell the program and he gets us to 8th place - he actually just took us from a 12th place finish that he had no responsibility for to an 8th place finish. He can sell that at least somewhat.

And we need something to change. Next year, every team is either running it back, or they are top teams who will lose a couple good players and replace them easily anyway. Grant, Bradley, Foreman and Betley are pretty much who they are. Kelly can maybe squeeze a little more out. Maybe Brown improves a little. I don't see it with Hyder. There is a chance with Celestine he will take a step. That is the rotation. There is not a freshman difference maker coming in. And every other team is going to be improving. If we don't change direction, I don't see why we expect different results.

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Lol. I appreciate your very respectful disagreement. The feeling is mutual as I also very respectfully disagree with pretty much all of this post.

Bottom line, I think we can agree that we both want Cal hoops to be back to respectability (and better) sooner rather than later. I'm not sure if you'd agree with this, but I believe Fox will be the coach for at least the next two seasons. So, a lot of our disagreements in this thread don't matter much in the immediate future.

One thing I will say is you're making a lot of assumptions about Cal and other teams towards the end of your post. At this point, there really is no way of knowing for sure which teams will improve or not next year. We're not even finished with this season yet. But in the meantime, I'm personally going to choose the belief that another year getting to know Fox and vice versa will be good for an experienced returning group of players and Cal will make a bigger step forward. I think there's some data to support that hope/belief, but I also don't know. It's just the mindset I'm gonna choose. If it doesn't happen, then we'll be revisiting these disagreements again sooner rather than later and they will, unfortunately, be meaningful then.

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There are some, maybe many on this board who continually point to Fox's 77-79 record in the SEC as a "losing record" in conference. Literally, they are right, but in sports, that is an average record. Just about .500, and if Fox had won just one of the games he lost, he would have had a .500 record, and no one could say he had a losing record. It was a tough conference during Fox's years, with Kentucky and Florida and usually four other really good teams to compete with, every year.

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Once upon a time, there was a coach who had coached at a small independent school for 4 years, and then was then hired to coach a team in the Big Ten. Try as hard as he could, he had a losing record in his new conference, 26-34 over 4 years. He was then hired by a school who had not won a conference championship in 9 years, a year where they also had the only NCAA appearance in their entire history. This coach was hired, even though he had a losing conference record in the Big Ten, 26-34. The Big Ten had only two really good teams like Indiana and Illinois, and maybe Iowa, but that was about it. Nevertheless, this Big Ten coach was hired by his new school, in spite of his crummy record in the the Big Ten. Many fans of his new University and many local sportswriters were upset at hiring a coach with a losing record in the Big Ten.

That coach's name was Pete Newell, and the school that hired him was Cal. So it should be etched in stone that a losing record in conference, even as bad as Newell's record was, should not be grounds for disputing the hire. BTW, Newell inherited some very good players for his first team, and he recruited well, too, but his first season stunk, going 1-11 in conference. Now, THAT was a losing record

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As we all know, the chance of success in a coach's first couple of seasons depends largely on the roster talent he inherits from the previous coach.

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By the time Fox got the job, and players left for greener pastures, Fox was left with an empty cupboard, a whole lot of scholarships to give out, and only a couple months to recruit the players which the rest of the nation's coaches had left for him to pick over.

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With the average Cal fan's desire for instant gratification,

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I'm not sure Fox can do anything soon to dig out of this, but I think he deserves the chance to try

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, or at least he deserves to have Cal fans be a little more realistic about his record at Georgia and stop ragging on it for being worse than it was.

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This has been a screwball year.

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NathanAllen said:

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calumnus said:

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NathanAllen said:

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Stanford Jonah said:

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NathanAllen said:

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BeachedBear said:

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NathanAllen said:

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BeachedBear said:

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As we come close to the end of the season, my opinion of Fox and coaching is adapting a bit. Here is where I'm at.

I think FOX is a better coach than Jones. I don't think he's as good as Monty and never will be. His ceiling is probably less than Braun or Campanelli.

However, based on the results the last decade or so, my sense is that coaching skills has less impact on results than talent. Sure there are a few coaches that can make due with less talent, but they are few, hard to find and unlikely to arrive at Cal.

Besides recruiting talent, we should be looking for a coach that can make that talent work well together. I'm not a fan of his at all (and don't suggest anyone like him would be a good fit at Cal), but most people describing Calipari would do so with those two attributes.

In the P12, Altman is probably the closest comparison or Miller at UA. Again. I don't like either of those, but the results speak for themselves. I'm racking my brains for a D1 coach that fits the bill and is not tainted.

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I'm not in the know enough to know if these dudes are "tainted," but I've always admired Mick Cronin (I know, I know, but look at his Cincy teams), Chris Beard at Texas Tech, and Leonard Hamilton at Florida State. I also wonder how long a guy like Brian Dutcher is going to stick around at San Diego State. Lon Kruger at Oklahoma seems to get a lot out of his players. Archie Miller was a guy I really liked at Dayton but he hasn't been able to quite put it together yet at Indiana. I've also been impressed with what Travis Ford has done at Saint Louis in his brief time there.

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Excellent list. I too am becoming a fan of Cronin. Leonard Hamilton and Lon Kruger are/were very good coaches, but are both a bit long in the tooth. What Kruger did at Illinois would be a nifty blueprint for Cal. What about Nate Oats?

In any event, I don't think the current AD could bring in anyone like this (including Archie Miller and Travis Ford). Personally, my expectations are lower until there is a significant change in the Administration.

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Oats has been very impressive so far. I'm intrigued to see how he continues to do at Alabama. But an SEC title in his second season is pretty nuts.

Not that I think it's worth talking much about because a) Fox is in year two of a five-year contract and b) it'd be much better for Cal if Fox turned things around at Cal and evolved, but regardless of AD, Cal has a current issue with finding its coach post-Fox (whenever that might be).

Here's what I mean. I think most in college hoops will agree that the two easiest paths to hiring a good coach are paying big for a known Power Conference winner or hire a hot up-and-comer from a mid-major (like Alabama did with Nate Oats, for example). Cal currently seems unable and/or unwilling to pay for a proven Power Conference winner. And in its current state, what sort of hot up-and-comer would take a chance on Cal's program when there are likely to be other suiters?

So it remains my opinion that the best-case scenario for Cal is Fox uses an experienced, albeit athletically-limited, roster next year to make some noise and lift the floor of the program a bit. And then uses that to get some recruiting break-throughs and get the program back to a middle-of-the-pack (or better) Pac-12 team. Then the job becomes a lot more attractive and Cal is able to get past those limitations listed above.

As others have mentioned, Dennis Gates is an intriguing option. But, in my opinion, he needs more time. I'd like to see him string together at least a couple more competitive seasons in the Horizon League.

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Thing is, we had the opportunity to do that post-Cuonzo. We punted.

Things aren't going to get better under Fox or Knowlton. Our only path forward is to pay an up and coming coach well (because regardless of success, they don't get paid much at the mid-major level) and hope we pick the right one. But first we need to deal with the Athletic Director problem and I don't see Christ having any interest in that. So I think Cal Athletics is in trouble for as long as Christ is Chancellor.

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I mean, yeah, that's when the downfall began.

There is no magic bullet that is going to suddenly flip the program. And the path forward isn't going to be linear. Maybe Fox turns the program or maybe he doesn't. This season was disappointing, yes, but it's just one season of two so far for Fox. It's a very small sample size.

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"Just one season out of two so far for Fox."

So you are saying last year was good? Worst overall record/fewest wins of any team in the PAC-12? Points scored 332nd out of 353 teams in the NCAA? That is your level of acceptable?

My sample size is his 11 years coaching in a power conference. The first 9 got him fired. The last two have been worse.

When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

I am not saying fire him now. We don't have the money to buy him out and I have no confidence in Knowlton to hire a replacement. However, unless I am shocked and there is a dramatic turnaround next year I think we absolutely should not throw good money after bad and extend his contract. Knowlton should form a basketball advisory committee to monitor the situation and put feelers out to potential candidates. Only make the move when you have a very good idea what you are going to do or at least what your options are.

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No, I'm not saying this season was good. You clearly cherry-picked that quote out of the context of my entire post. The full sentence (bolded above) clearly starts with "This season was disappointing" I'm not sure where that indicates I believe "last year was good."

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Bottom line, I think we can agree that we both want Cal hoops to be back to respectability (and better) sooner rather than later. I'm not sure if you'd agree with this, but I believe Fox will be the coach for at least the next two seasons. So, a lot of our disagreements in this thread don't matter much in the immediate future.

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What I am saying is you don't fire a coach because of one bad season (especially after a very weird season that also involved key injuries/sickness). You fire a coach because of a trend of bad seasons.

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Here's why: The underlying problems (lack of fan support, no practice facility, below-market-rate pay, years of poor hoops, a potential in-flux roster) will still be there. But the new problem created by firing Fox after three or four seasons is showing an impatient AD unwilling to allow a coach the time to rebuild one of the worst college hoops programs in recent history. What coach would want to step into all that? Maybe an up-and-comer, like others have mentioned. But I'm not sure.

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I'll reiterate what I've already said: Cal's rebuild will not be linear. And it won't happen instantly. Others have pointed out coaches that took years to turn programs around, because that happens more times than not, especially with a program like Cal.

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One thing I will say is you're making a lot of assumptions about Cal and other teams towards the end of your post. At this point, there really is no way of knowing for sure which teams will improve or not next year. We're not even finished with this season yet. But in the meantime, I'm personally going to choose the belief that another year getting to know Fox and vice versa will be good for an experienced returning group of players and Cal will make a bigger step forward. I think there's some data to support that hope/belief, but I also don't know. It's just the mindset I'm gonna choose. If it doesn't happen, then we'll be revisiting these disagreements again sooner rather than later and they will, unfortunately, be meaningful then.

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Honestly, I agree with all of your last paragraph sans "no confidence" in Knowlton and "dramatic turnaround." I'm not sure what you define as a dramatic turn-around, but I think finishing above .500 next year is enough to at least tack a year or two onto Fox's contract.

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socaltownie said:

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calumnus said:

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calbears4ever said:

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Fox is the problem to me, not Knowlton. I don't follow MBB that much, so idk much about the situation besides the disappointing season MBB has had. I would say that Cal needs a Steve Kerr- esque coach if they want to go back to the NCAA's

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Knowlton was the one who looked at the resume that got Fox fired from Georgia and out of work for a year and hired him after interviewing only one other candidate. Can't blame Fox for taking the $8.25 million. The problem is, I don't trust Knowlton to hire Fox's replacement. I don't think he has a clue to hiring a basketball coach. He wasn't even smart enough to know he wasn't smart enough and put together a committee with maybe Shareef, Monty, Steve Kerr, Ben Braun, Leon Powe, Jason Kidd, Sean Marks....

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This. I am going to be very politically uncorrect here but I would love for BI'ers to get over that and actually engage with this argument......

1) Our recruiting for BB (and to an extent football is VERY different than undergrad admissions). For the general population Cal is a top slot choice. Kids work their entire academic lives to get into it. In some cases it is their school of choice because they can't afford/get into an Ivy+Furd and in other cases it is their top choice. It is ridiculously competitive. Sometimes BI'ers project that onto athletes.....

2) But for revenue sports athletes this is NOT the case. Those that come to Cal and succeed DEFINATELY value the academics but it is one of competing priorities. _IF_ they are truly elite academically focused and a great hoop player than Cal competes with Harvard and to an extent Duke & Furd for their attention. That is a tough sell when the value of the scholarship to those places is measured close to half a million. We have lost kids

3) Instead, for truly program changing recruits we compete with UCLA and to a lesser extent Washington and Big10 R-1 institutions and overwhelmingly, in both the past and in the future, these are African American kids from California suburbs (Oakland, Elk Grove) and close in suburbs like Inglewood or Compton or Long Beach.

OUR COACH HAS TO RECRUIT IN THOSE AREA AND WITH THAT AAU PIPELINE.

That is why Martin had the potential to be a great Cal fit. It is why a Gates (and I think to a different extent Travis COULD be a good fit). POSSIBLY Jason Kidd could be a fit. Mark Fox? Not a fit. There is a huge cultural leap for him to make to go down to Inglewood, create connections with a skeptical AAU crowd, and open up the pipeline. Hell, start close to home. What is Mark's currently relationship like with the Solidiers as arguably making Cal into a competitive program starts with getting 2/3rds of the D1 recruits out of that AAU program suited up in the blue and gold.

The Suits at Cal don't like hearing that. But ultimately what success we have had on EITHER in football or basketball is often traced directly to AA kids out of SoCal(Crabbe, Cobbs, Kidd) or the East Bay (Powe, Money). Often times history is the guide. It is time we accept it.

It is why, all other things being equal, I would give preference in developing my short list to AA coaches with ties to the Southland. Honestly why I think a guy like Romar would kill it at Cal.

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socaltownie said:

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socaltownie said:

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calumnus said:

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calbears4ever said:

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Fox is the problem to me, not Knowlton. I don't follow MBB that much, so idk much about the situation besides the disappointing season MBB has had. I would say that Cal needs a Steve Kerr- esque coach if they want to go back to the NCAA's

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Knowlton was the one who looked at the resume that got Fox fired from Georgia and out of work for a year and hired him after interviewing only one other candidate. Can't blame Fox for taking the $8.25 million. The problem is, I don't trust Knowlton to hire Fox's replacement. I don't think he has a clue to hiring a basketball coach. He wasn't even smart enough to know he wasn't smart enough and put together a committee with maybe Shareef, Monty, Steve Kerr, Ben Braun, Leon Powe, Jason Kidd, Sean Marks....

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This. I am going to be very politically uncorrect here but I would love for BI'ers to get over that and actually engage with this argument......

1) Our recruiting for BB (and to an extent football is VERY different than undergrad admissions). For the general population Cal is a top slot choice. Kids work their entire academic lives to get into it. In some cases it is their school of choice because they can't afford/get into an Ivy+Furd and in other cases it is their top choice. It is ridiculously competitive. Sometimes BI'ers project that onto athletes.....

2) But for revenue sports athletes this is NOT the case. Those that come to Cal and succeed DEFINATELY value the academics but it is one of competing priorities. _IF_ they are truly elite academically focused and a great hoop player than Cal competes with Harvard and to an extent Duke & Furd for their attention. That is a tough sell when the value of the scholarship to those places is measured close to half a million. We have lost kids

3) Instead, for truly program changing recruits we compete with UCLA and to a lesser extent Washington and Big10 R-1 institutions and overwhelmingly, in both the past and in the future, these are African American kids from California suburbs (Oakland, Elk Grove) and close in suburbs like Inglewood or Compton or Long Beach.

OUR COACH HAS TO RECRUIT IN THOSE AREA AND WITH THAT AAU PIPELINE.

That is why Martin had the potential to be a great Cal fit. It is why a Gates (and I think to a different extent Travis COULD be a good fit). POSSIBLY Jason Kidd could be a fit. Mark Fox? Not a fit. There is a huge cultural leap for him to make to go down to Inglewood, create connections with a skeptical AAU crowd, and open up the pipeline. Hell, start close to home. What is Mark's currently relationship like with the Solidiers as arguably making Cal into a competitive program starts with getting 2/3rds of the D1 recruits out of that AAU program suited up in the blue and gold.

The Suits at Cal don't like hearing that. I think some BI'ers hoping for hickery high and who are culturally uncomfortable with AA are as well. But ultimately what success we have had on EITHER in football or basketball is often traced directly to AA kids out of SoCal(Crabbe, Cobbs, Kidd) or the East Bay (Powe, Money). Often times history is the guide. It is time we accept it.

It is why, all other things being equal, I would give preference in developing my short list to AA coaches with ties to the Southland. Honestly why I think a guy like Romar would kill it at Cal.

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socaltownie said:

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socaltownie said:

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calumnus said:

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calbears4ever said:

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Fox is the problem to me, not Knowlton. I don't follow MBB that much, so idk much about the situation besides the disappointing season MBB has had. I would say that Cal needs a Steve Kerr- esque coach if they want to go back to the NCAA's

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Knowlton was the one who looked at the resume that got Fox fired from Georgia and out of work for a year and hired him after interviewing only one other candidate. Can't blame Fox for taking the $8.25 million. The problem is, I don't trust Knowlton to hire Fox's replacement. I don't think he has a clue to hiring a basketball coach. He wasn't even smart enough to know he wasn't smart enough and put together a committee with maybe Shareef, Monty, Steve Kerr, Ben Braun, Leon Powe, Jason Kidd, Sean Marks....

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This. I am going to be very politically uncorrect here but I would love for BI'ers to get over that and actually engage with this argument......

1) Our recruiting for BB (and to an extent football is VERY different than undergrad admissions). For the general population Cal is a top slot choice. Kids work their entire academic lives to get into it. In some cases it is their school of choice because they can't afford/get into an Ivy+Furd and in other cases it is their top choice. It is ridiculously competitive. Sometimes BI'ers project that onto athletes.....

2) But for revenue sports athletes this is NOT the case. Those that come to Cal and succeed DEFINATELY value the academics but it is one of competing priorities. _IF_ they are truly elite academically focused and a great hoop player than Cal competes with Harvard and to an extent Duke & Furd for their attention. That is a tough sell when the value of the scholarship to those places is measured close to half a million. We have lost kids

3) Instead, for truly program changing recruits we compete with UCLA and to a lesser extent Washington and Big10 R-1 institutions and overwhelmingly, in both the past and in the future, these are African American kids from California suburbs (Oakland, Elk Grove) and close in suburbs like Inglewood or Compton or Long Beach.

OUR COACH HAS TO RECRUIT IN THOSE AREA AND WITH THAT AAU PIPELINE.

That is why Martin had the potential to be a great Cal fit. It is why a Gates (and I think to a different extent Travis COULD be a good fit). POSSIBLY Jason Kidd could be a fit. Mark Fox? Not a fit. There is a huge cultural leap for him to make to go down to Inglewood, create connections with a skeptical AAU crowd, and open up the pipeline. Hell, start close to home. What is Mark's currently relationship like with the Solidiers as arguably making Cal into a competitive program starts with getting 2/3rds of the D1 recruits out of that AAU program suited up in the blue and gold.

The Suits at Cal don't like hearing that. But ultimately what success we have had on EITHER in football or basketball is often traced directly to AA kids out of SoCal(Crabbe, Cobbs, Kidd) or the East Bay (Powe, Money). Often times history is the guide. It is time we accept it.

It is why, all other things being equal, I would give preference in developing my short list to AA coaches with ties to the Southland. Honestly why I think a guy like Romar would kill it at Cal


Romar "killed it "recruiting wise already at UW, including the #1 NBA pick. His teams were terrible, and underperformed for all the talent he brought in. And he was let go.

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socaltownie said:

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calumnus said:

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calbears4ever said:

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Fox is the problem to me, not Knowlton. I don't follow MBB that much, so idk much about the situation besides the disappointing season MBB has had. I would say that Cal needs a Steve Kerr- esque coach if they want to go back to the NCAA's

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Knowlton was the one who looked at the resume that got Fox fired from Georgia and out of work for a year and hired him after interviewing only one other candidate. Can't blame Fox for taking the $8.25 million. The problem is, I don't trust Knowlton to hire Fox's replacement. I don't think he has a clue to hiring a basketball coach. He wasn't even smart enough to know he wasn't smart enough and put together a committee with maybe Shareef, Monty, Steve Kerr, Ben Braun, Leon Powe, Jason Kidd, Sean Marks....

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This. I am going to be very politically uncorrect here but I would love for BI'ers to get over that and actually engage with this argument......

1) Our recruiting for BB (and to an extent football is VERY different than undergrad admissions). For the general population Cal is a top slot choice. Kids work their entire academic lives to get into it. In some cases it is their school of choice because they can't afford/get into an Ivy+Furd and in other cases it is their top choice. It is ridiculously competitive. Sometimes BI'ers project that onto athletes.....

2) But for revenue sports athletes this is NOT the case. Those that come to Cal and succeed DEFINATELY value the academics but it is one of competing priorities. _IF_ they are truly elite academically focused and a great hoop player than Cal competes with Harvard and to an extent Duke & Furd for their attention. That is a tough sell when the value of the scholarship to those places is measured close to half a million. We have lost kids

3) Instead, for truly program changing recruits we compete with UCLA and to a lesser extent Washington and Big10 R-1 institutions and overwhelmingly, in both the past and in the future, these are African American kids from California suburbs (Oakland, Elk Grove) and close in suburbs like Inglewood or Compton or Long Beach.

OUR COACH HAS TO RECRUIT IN THOSE AREA AND WITH THAT AAU PIPELINE.

That is why Martin had the potential to be a great Cal fit. It is why a Gates (and I think to a different extent Travis COULD be a good fit). POSSIBLY Jason Kidd could be a fit. Mark Fox? Not a fit. There is a huge cultural leap for him to make to go down to Inglewood, create connections with a skeptical AAU crowd, and open up the pipeline. Hell, start close to home. What is Mark's currently relationship like with the Solidiers as arguably making Cal into a competitive program starts with getting 2/3rds of the D1 recruits out of that AAU program suited up in the blue and gold.

The Suits at Cal don't like hearing that. But ultimately what success we have had on EITHER in football or basketball is often traced directly to AA kids out of SoCal(Crabbe, Cobbs, Kidd) or the East Bay (Powe, Money). Often times history is the guide. It is time we accept it.

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stu said:

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Congratulations for this thread! It's reached 7 pages in 7 days with no signs of slowing down. Does that mean frustration is as big a motivator as joy?

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Alkiadt said:

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socaltownie said:

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socaltownie said:

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calumnus said:

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calbears4ever said:

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Fox is the problem to me, not Knowlton. I don't follow MBB that much, so idk much about the situation besides the disappointing season MBB has had. I would say that Cal needs a Steve Kerr- esque coach if they want to go back to the NCAA's

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Knowlton was the one who looked at the resume that got Fox fired from Georgia and out of work for a year and hired him after interviewing only one other candidate. Can't blame Fox for taking the $8.25 million. The problem is, I don't trust Knowlton to hire Fox's replacement. I don't think he has a clue to hiring a basketball coach. He wasn't even smart enough to know he wasn't smart enough and put together a committee with maybe Shareef, Monty, Steve Kerr, Ben Braun, Leon Powe, Jason Kidd, Sean Marks....

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This. I am going to be very politically uncorrect here but I would love for BI'ers to get over that and actually engage with this argument......

1) Our recruiting for BB (and to an extent football is VERY different than undergrad admissions). For the general population Cal is a top slot choice. Kids work their entire academic lives to get into it. In some cases it is their school of choice because they can't afford/get into an Ivy+Furd and in other cases it is their top choice. It is ridiculously competitive. Sometimes BI'ers project that onto athletes.....

2) But for revenue sports athletes this is NOT the case. Those that come to Cal and succeed DEFINATELY value the academics but it is one of competing priorities. _IF_ they are truly elite academically focused and a great hoop player than Cal competes with Harvard and to an extent Duke & Furd for their attention. That is a tough sell when the value of the scholarship to those places is measured close to half a million. We have lost kids

3) Instead, for truly program changing recruits we compete with UCLA and to a lesser extent Washington and Big10 R-1 institutions and overwhelmingly, in both the past and in the future, these are African American kids from California suburbs (Oakland, Elk Grove) and close in suburbs like Inglewood or Compton or Long Beach.

OUR COACH HAS TO RECRUIT IN THOSE AREA AND WITH THAT AAU PIPELINE.

That is why Martin had the potential to be a great Cal fit. It is why a Gates (and I think to a different extent Travis COULD be a good fit). POSSIBLY Jason Kidd could be a fit. Mark Fox? Not a fit. There is a huge cultural leap for him to make to go down to Inglewood, create connections with a skeptical AAU crowd, and open up the pipeline. Hell, start close to home. What is Mark's currently relationship like with the Solidiers as arguably making Cal into a competitive program starts with getting 2/3rds of the D1 recruits out of that AAU program suited up in the blue and gold.

The Suits at Cal don't like hearing that. But ultimately what success we have had on EITHER in football or basketball is often traced directly to AA kids out of SoCal(Crabbe, Cobbs, Kidd) or the East Bay (Powe, Money). Often times history is the guide. It is time we accept it.

It is why, all other things being equal, I would give preference in developing my short list to AA coaches with ties to the Southland. Honestly why I think a guy like Romar would kill it at Cal


Romar "killed it "recruiting wise already at UW, including the #1 NBA pick. His teams were terrible, and underperformed for all the talent he brought in. And he was let go.

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socaltownie said:

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One data point - my younger brother who has suffered only 4 years less of this awful 50 year obsession with the Bears tuned in for his first game about a month ago. He nailed it - We are HUGELY unathletic in an era of basketball where athleticism is critical. So many BI'ers are stuck in 1960. But the problem is that when everyone can shoot the 3 the court gets spread out and that then requires you to be able to GUARD YOUR MAN. We have so many guys who can't. Lars is sorta the poster child for a guy who has zero athleticism (and then all the Bi'ers who would defend him with the "big men take time"

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NathanAllen said:

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OaktownBear said:

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NathanAllen said:

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calumnus said:

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NathanAllen said:

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Stanford Jonah said:

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NathanAllen said:

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BeachedBear said:

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NathanAllen said:

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BeachedBear said:

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As we come close to the end of the season, my opinion of Fox and coaching is adapting a bit. Here is where I'm at.

I think FOX is a better coach than Jones. I don't think he's as good as Monty and never will be. His ceiling is probably less than Braun or Campanelli.

However, based on the results the last decade or so, my sense is that coaching skills has less impact on results than talent. Sure there are a few coaches that can make due with less talent, but they are few, hard to find and unlikely to arrive at Cal.

Besides recruiting talent, we should be looking for a coach that can make that talent work well together. I'm not a fan of his at all (and don't suggest anyone like him would be a good fit at Cal), but most people describing Calipari would do so with those two attributes.

In the P12, Altman is probably the closest comparison or Miller at UA. Again. I don't like either of those, but the results speak for themselves. I'm racking my brains for a D1 coach that fits the bill and is not tainted.

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I'm not in the know enough to know if these dudes are "tainted," but I've always admired Mick Cronin (I know, I know, but look at his Cincy teams), Chris Beard at Texas Tech, and Leonard Hamilton at Florida State. I also wonder how long a guy like Brian Dutcher is going to stick around at San Diego State. Lon Kruger at Oklahoma seems to get a lot out of his players. Archie Miller was a guy I really liked at Dayton but he hasn't been able to quite put it together yet at Indiana. I've also been impressed with what Travis Ford has done at Saint Louis in his brief time there.

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Excellent list. I too am becoming a fan of Cronin. Leonard Hamilton and Lon Kruger are/were very good coaches, but are both a bit long in the tooth. What Kruger did at Illinois would be a nifty blueprint for Cal. What about Nate Oats?

In any event, I don't think the current AD could bring in anyone like this (including Archie Miller and Travis Ford). Personally, my expectations are lower until there is a significant change in the Administration.

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Oats has been very impressive so far. I'm intrigued to see how he continues to do at Alabama. But an SEC title in his second season is pretty nuts.

Not that I think it's worth talking much about because a) Fox is in year two of a five-year contract and b) it'd be much better for Cal if Fox turned things around at Cal and evolved, but regardless of AD, Cal has a current issue with finding its coach post-Fox (whenever that might be).

Here's what I mean. I think most in college hoops will agree that the two easiest paths to hiring a good coach are paying big for a known Power Conference winner or hire a hot up-and-comer from a mid-major (like Alabama did with Nate Oats, for example). Cal currently seems unable and/or unwilling to pay for a proven Power Conference winner. And in its current state, what sort of hot up-and-comer would take a chance on Cal's program when there are likely to be other suiters?

So it remains my opinion that the best-case scenario for Cal is Fox uses an experienced, albeit athletically-limited, roster next year to make some noise and lift the floor of the program a bit. And then uses that to get some recruiting break-throughs and get the program back to a middle-of-the-pack (or better) Pac-12 team. Then the job becomes a lot more attractive and Cal is able to get past those limitations listed above.

As others have mentioned, Dennis Gates is an intriguing option. But, in my opinion, he needs more time. I'd like to see him string together at least a couple more competitive seasons in the Horizon League.

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Thing is, we had the opportunity to do that post-Cuonzo. We punted.

Things aren't going to get better under Fox or Knowlton. Our only path forward is to pay an up and coming coach well (because regardless of success, they don't get paid much at the mid-major level) and hope we pick the right one. But first we need to deal with the Athletic Director problem and I don't see Christ having any interest in that. So I think Cal Athletics is in trouble for as long as Christ is Chancellor.

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I mean, yeah, that's when the downfall began.

There is no magic bullet that is going to suddenly flip the program. And the path forward isn't going to be linear. Maybe Fox turns the program or maybe he doesn't. This season was disappointing, yes, but it's just one season of two so far for Fox. It's a very small sample size.

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"Just one season out of two so far for Fox."

So you are saying last year was good? Worst overall record/fewest wins of any team in the PAC-12? Points scored 332nd out of 353 teams in the NCAA? That is your level of acceptable?

My sample size is his 11 years coaching in a power conference. The first 9 got him fired. The last two have been worse.

When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

I am not saying fire him now. We don't have the money to buy him out and I have no confidence in Knowlton to hire a replacement. However, unless I am shocked and there is a dramatic turnaround next year I think we absolutely should not throw good money after bad and extend his contract. Knowlton should form a basketball advisory committee to monitor the situation and put feelers out to potential candidates. Only make the move when you have a very good idea what you are going to do or at least what your options are.

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No, I'm not saying this season was good. You clearly cherry-picked that quote out of the context of my entire post. The full sentence (bolded above) clearly starts with "This season was disappointing" I'm not sure where that indicates I believe "last year was good."

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Nathan -

I don't know how long your history dates back with Cal. I am in my fifties. I came from a Cal family and literally have been an active Cal fan since I was 5 years old. I don't say that to say I know more than you. I say that to explain my frustration. For all that time Cal fans have made exactly the same points in favor of loser coaches and for all that time Cal has followed that path and it has never worked. Ever. Cal has only succeeded by luck when they have finally pulled the trigger and had a good hire. Cal never chooses to fire a coach. Almost always the players fire the coach by visibly giving up or sometimes even going into the office of the AD. I would say in my many years as a Cal fan, in football and men's basketball Cal fired 2 coaches for impropriety. I would say Dykes got fired because he screwed over the AD and made him look bad by seeking other jobs after the AD went to bat for him and gave him an extension. Every other firing has been the players giving up on the field/court or even in a couple of cases actually telling the AD straight out that s/he needed to make a change.

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Bottom line, I think we can agree that we both want Cal hoops to be back to respectability (and better) sooner rather than later. I'm not sure if you'd agree with this, but I believe Fox will be the coach for at least the next two seasons. So, a lot of our disagreements in this thread don't matter much in the immediate future.

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This point is always made. He will be the coach so discussing it doesn't matter. 4 years of that with Holmoe. The Holmoe apologists really got into a cadence. Pre-season, hey we should be optimistic! During the season - don't criticize, he won't be fired mid season. root for the team. For about an hour after the last game you can make your case. Then - he isn't getting fired so you might as well support him. Off season, He's our coach. You might as well support him.

Cal doesn't fire coaches like every other program because Cal fans play this game. Yes. I believe he will be our coach for two more seasons. And I believe if Cal fans don't scream bloody murder about it the entire time he will be our coach for 10 more seasons. I believe if Cal fans were like 80% of the fans out there, he'd be fired immediately after the last game. Or better yet, wouldn't have been hired at all.

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What I am saying is you don't fire a coach because of one bad season (especially after a very weird season that also involved key injuries/sickness). You fire a coach because of a trend of bad seasons.

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You do when the season is bad enough and when the recruiting shows no indication of changing the trajectory of the program. And for goodness sake, you have been rational about the impact of Covid and the injuries. Don't change now. Again, ten games of health and no covid impact and it is our worst basketball.

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Here's why: The underlying problems (lack of fan support, no practice facility, below-market-rate pay, years of poor hoops, a potential in-flux roster) will still be there. But the new problem created by firing Fox after three or four seasons is showing an impatient AD unwilling to allow a coach the time to rebuild one of the worst college hoops programs in recent history. What coach would want to step into all that? Maybe an up-and-comer, like others have mentioned. But I'm not sure.

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This is another one of those Cal arguments that have been supporting coaches my whole life. And again, following that reasoning has never worked. Firing losers is not a barrier to hiring winners. Winners know losers and when you keep losers they know what you expect and they don't want to be part of that.

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I'll reiterate what I've already said: Cal's rebuild will not be linear. And it won't happen instantly. Others have pointed out coaches that took years to turn programs around, because that happens more times than not, especially with a program like Cal.

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Cal's rebuild is linear. Linear downward.

Another constant argument at Cal. No one expects a linear upward trajectory. No one expects it to happen instantly. But SOMETHING HAPPENS. With Tedford, the message was delivered on the first play. We had some stinker games that first year, but things were different immediately. More times than not coaches who are in last place their second year without facing an inexperienced roster stay at the bottom. Here is the thing. With a lineup of juniors and seniors, there was no reason to expect this crash and burn. This year should have at minimum held position. We are 5 games worse. Next year our rotation is literally going to be the most experienced in school history. And then what the hell happens the year after?

So yes, he will be here 2 year. No. He will be here 3 years. Next year they will have marginal improvement (though not nearly what anyone is dreaming of) and that will be good enough because Cal. The following year we will suck completely and utterly but that will be okay because look at all those graduations and he needs a chance with his recruits and because Cal. Then the next year we will completely suck and it will be a 50/50 proposition whether he is retained, because Cal. I mapped out Dykes trajectory exactly after year 1. I can do this one too. It is so obvious. Because Cal.

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One thing I will say is you're making a lot of assumptions about Cal and other teams towards the end of your post. At this point, there really is no way of knowing for sure which teams will improve or not next year. We're not even finished with this season yet. But in the meantime, I'm personally going to choose the belief that another year getting to know Fox and vice versa will be good for an experienced returning group of players and Cal will make a bigger step forward. I think there's some data to support that hope/belief, but I also don't know. It's just the mindset I'm gonna choose. If it doesn't happen, then we'll be revisiting these disagreements again sooner rather than later and they will, unfortunately, be meaningful then.

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You can choose that belief if you want to. Anyone has a right to their own view of fandom. But I think it is like watching a movie with an unrealistic plot point and saying "I choose to enjoy the movie. Best not to think about it too much." If I force you to think about it, where are you saying this improvement - compared to our conference foes - is coming? Because every team is getting another year. Why are we making a bigger step?

Because of Covid, every team is getting everybody who wants to come back. I think it is safe to say that most players who still have eligibility use it unless they have a better place to go. Most teams that have players with a better place to go actually are good and have a good roster. They may be worse, but it isn't relevant to us because we aren't catching them anyway.

Where is the specific improvement coming? Our top 6 in games per minute and the only ones with more than 15 minutes per game have 3 years experience, 4 years experience, 5 years experience, 3 years experience, 2 years experience, and 5 years experience. 4 of those players have played together for Fox for 2 years. The other two are graduate transfers.

Bradley is who he is. Pretty close to the same player as last year. Ditto for Grant. You can't tell me you think Betley and Foreman are going to take big leaps. Maybe a little more from Kelly and Brown. Maybe a good leap for Celestine. Crickets after that.

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Honestly, I agree with all of your last paragraph sans "no confidence" in Knowlton and "dramatic turnaround." I'm not sure what you define as a dramatic turn-around, but I think finishing above .500 next year is enough to at least tack a year or two onto Fox's contract.

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Deciding whether to retain a coach or extend them is not based on purely record but is based on where the program is going. After next year, our five leading scorers from this season will be gone. (and likely our 5 leading for next year also, though I have hope Celestine can move into the 4 or 5 spot) Our 4 leading rebounders from this year will be gone (and almost assuredly the 3 leading rebounders next year). You see the young players. You see the recruiting class we have coming in which is not atrocious but is not ranked high at all. No one is replacing Bradley in the next 4 years. No one is replacing Kelly any time soon.

Year 4 is not going to be good. We both know that. So give me year 5. Based on the info today, would you say we have even a 20% chance of 12 conference wins? 11? 10? 9? I'll say 20% chance of 9 wins or more. 20% chance of 4 or fewer. 60% in between. I actually think in your heart of hearts you'd agree with me, more or less. I'm guessing you will avoid the question with a Who knows?, but if you take it on, I'd be curious to know what you think. Do the young guys have it in them to do better? The recruits? Is there any reason to believe that the next two recruiting classes are going to produce impact players?

And if the answer is at base "no, but Cal can't do better than that", hey, maybe that is the case, but let's take that issue on then rather than acting like Fox has better than a 10% chance of developing a team that might moderately compete for 5th place.

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This is so much that I'm not even sure where to begin. I'm an endurance athlete and you've worn me down, OaktownBear!

I'll just focus on the bolded (last part) of your post. You're not gonna like the start of this response, but bear (pun kinda intended) with me.

No, I'm not going to use assumptions and speculations to make some sort of percentage guess of how many conference wins Cal gets year four or five of Fox's tenure. College hoops and the world, in general, are too unpredictable. Hell, this time last year, I thought the coronavirus would be a bother for a couple of months and then be over with.

While I'd also like to wait to talk shop on next season (you know, until we see what the team does in the Pac-12 tournament and see who officially stays and leaves, etc.), I'd be willing to do that. So let's take a look at what this team has done in the first couple of years with Fox.

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socaltownie said:

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NathanAllen said:

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OaktownBear said:

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NathanAllen said:

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calumnus said:

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NathanAllen said:

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Stanford Jonah said:

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NathanAllen said:

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BeachedBear said:

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NathanAllen said:

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BeachedBear said:

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As we come close to the end of the season, my opinion of Fox and coaching is adapting a bit. Here is where I'm at.

I think FOX is a better coach than Jones. I don't think he's as good as Monty and never will be. His ceiling is probably less than Braun or Campanelli.

However, based on the results the last decade or so, my sense is that coaching skills has less impact on results than talent. Sure there are a few coaches that can make due with less talent, but they are few, hard to find and unlikely to arrive at Cal.

Besides recruiting talent, we should be looking for a coach that can make that talent work well together. I'm not a fan of his at all (and don't suggest anyone like him would be a good fit at Cal), but most people describing Calipari would do so with those two attributes.

In the P12, Altman is probably the closest comparison or Miller at UA. Again. I don't like either of those, but the results speak for themselves. I'm racking my brains for a D1 coach that fits the bill and is not tainted.

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I'm not in the know enough to know if these dudes are "tainted," but I've always admired Mick Cronin (I know, I know, but look at his Cincy teams), Chris Beard at Texas Tech, and Leonard Hamilton at Florida State. I also wonder how long a guy like Brian Dutcher is going to stick around at San Diego State. Lon Kruger at Oklahoma seems to get a lot out of his players. Archie Miller was a guy I really liked at Dayton but he hasn't been able to quite put it together yet at Indiana. I've also been impressed with what Travis Ford has done at Saint Louis in his brief time there.

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Excellent list. I too am becoming a fan of Cronin. Leonard Hamilton and Lon Kruger are/were very good coaches, but are both a bit long in the tooth. What Kruger did at Illinois would be a nifty blueprint for Cal. What about Nate Oats?

In any event, I don't think the current AD could bring in anyone like this (including Archie Miller and Travis Ford). Personally, my expectations are lower until there is a significant change in the Administration.

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Oats has been very impressive so far. I'm intrigued to see how he continues to do at Alabama. But an SEC title in his second season is pretty nuts.

Not that I think it's worth talking much about because a) Fox is in year two of a five-year contract and b) it'd be much better for Cal if Fox turned things around at Cal and evolved, but regardless of AD, Cal has a current issue with finding its coach post-Fox (whenever that might be).

Here's what I mean. I think most in college hoops will agree that the two easiest paths to hiring a good coach are paying big for a known Power Conference winner or hire a hot up-and-comer from a mid-major (like Alabama did with Nate Oats, for example). Cal currently seems unable and/or unwilling to pay for a proven Power Conference winner. And in its current state, what sort of hot up-and-comer would take a chance on Cal's program when there are likely to be other suiters?

So it remains my opinion that the best-case scenario for Cal is Fox uses an experienced, albeit athletically-limited, roster next year to make some noise and lift the floor of the program a bit. And then uses that to get some recruiting break-throughs and get the program back to a middle-of-the-pack (or better) Pac-12 team. Then the job becomes a lot more attractive and Cal is able to get past those limitations listed above.

As others have mentioned, Dennis Gates is an intriguing option. But, in my opinion, he needs more time. I'd like to see him string together at least a couple more competitive seasons in the Horizon League.

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Thing is, we had the opportunity to do that post-Cuonzo. We punted.

Things aren't going to get better under Fox or Knowlton. Our only path forward is to pay an up and coming coach well (because regardless of success, they don't get paid much at the mid-major level) and hope we pick the right one. But first we need to deal with the Athletic Director problem and I don't see Christ having any interest in that. So I think Cal Athletics is in trouble for as long as Christ is Chancellor.

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I mean, yeah, that's when the downfall began.

There is no magic bullet that is going to suddenly flip the program. And the path forward isn't going to be linear. Maybe Fox turns the program or maybe he doesn't. This season was disappointing, yes, but it's just one season of two so far for Fox. It's a very small sample size.

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"Just one season out of two so far for Fox."

So you are saying last year was good? Worst overall record/fewest wins of any team in the PAC-12? Points scored 332nd out of 353 teams in the NCAA? That is your level of acceptable?

My sample size is his 11 years coaching in a power conference. The first 9 got him fired. The last two have been worse.

When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

I am not saying fire him now. We don't have the money to buy him out and I have no confidence in Knowlton to hire a replacement. However, unless I am shocked and there is a dramatic turnaround next year I think we absolutely should not throw good money after bad and extend his contract. Knowlton should form a basketball advisory committee to monitor the situation and put feelers out to potential candidates. Only make the move when you have a very good idea what you are going to do or at least what your options are.

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No, I'm not saying this season was good. You clearly cherry-picked that quote out of the context of my entire post. The full sentence (bolded above) clearly starts with "This season was disappointing" I'm not sure where that indicates I believe "last year was good."

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Nathan -

I don't know how long your history dates back with Cal. I am in my fifties. I came from a Cal family and literally have been an active Cal fan since I was 5 years old. I don't say that to say I know more than you. I say that to explain my frustration. For all that time Cal fans have made exactly the same points in favor of loser coaches and for all that time Cal has followed that path and it has never worked. Ever. Cal has only succeeded by luck when they have finally pulled the trigger and had a good hire. Cal never chooses to fire a coach. Almost always the players fire the coach by visibly giving up or sometimes even going into the office of the AD. I would say in my many years as a Cal fan, in football and men's basketball Cal fired 2 coaches for impropriety. I would say Dykes got fired because he screwed over the AD and made him look bad by seeking other jobs after the AD went to bat for him and gave him an extension. Every other firing has been the players giving up on the field/court or even in a couple of cases actually telling the AD straight out that s/he needed to make a change.

Quote:

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Bottom line, I think we can agree that we both want Cal hoops to be back to respectability (and better) sooner rather than later. I'm not sure if you'd agree with this, but I believe Fox will be the coach for at least the next two seasons. So, a lot of our disagreements in this thread don't matter much in the immediate future.

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This point is always made. He will be the coach so discussing it doesn't matter. 4 years of that with Holmoe. The Holmoe apologists really got into a cadence. Pre-season, hey we should be optimistic! During the season - don't criticize, he won't be fired mid season. root for the team. For about an hour after the last game you can make your case. Then - he isn't getting fired so you might as well support him. Off season, He's our coach. You might as well support him.

Cal doesn't fire coaches like every other program because Cal fans play this game. Yes. I believe he will be our coach for two more seasons. And I believe if Cal fans don't scream bloody murder about it the entire time he will be our coach for 10 more seasons. I believe if Cal fans were like 80% of the fans out there, he'd be fired immediately after the last game. Or better yet, wouldn't have been hired at all.

Quote:

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What I am saying is you don't fire a coach because of one bad season (especially after a very weird season that also involved key injuries/sickness). You fire a coach because of a trend of bad seasons.

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You do when the season is bad enough and when the recruiting shows no indication of changing the trajectory of the program. And for goodness sake, you have been rational about the impact of Covid and the injuries. Don't change now. Again, ten games of health and no covid impact and it is our worst basketball.

Quote:

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Here's why: The underlying problems (lack of fan support, no practice facility, below-market-rate pay, years of poor hoops, a potential in-flux roster) will still be there. But the new problem created by firing Fox after three or four seasons is showing an impatient AD unwilling to allow a coach the time to rebuild one of the worst college hoops programs in recent history. What coach would want to step into all that? Maybe an up-and-comer, like others have mentioned. But I'm not sure.

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This is another one of those Cal arguments that have been supporting coaches my whole life. And again, following that reasoning has never worked. Firing losers is not a barrier to hiring winners. Winners know losers and when you keep losers they know what you expect and they don't want to be part of that.

Quote:

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I'll reiterate what I've already said: Cal's rebuild will not be linear. And it won't happen instantly. Others have pointed out coaches that took years to turn programs around, because that happens more times than not, especially with a program like Cal.

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Cal's rebuild is linear. Linear downward.

Another constant argument at Cal. No one expects a linear upward trajectory. No one expects it to happen instantly. But SOMETHING HAPPENS. With Tedford, the message was delivered on the first play. We had some stinker games that first year, but things were different immediately. More times than not coaches who are in last place their second year without facing an inexperienced roster stay at the bottom. Here is the thing. With a lineup of juniors and seniors, there was no reason to expect this crash and burn. This year should have at minimum held position. We are 5 games worse. Next year our rotation is literally going to be the most experienced in school history. And then what the hell happens the year after?

So yes, he will be here 2 year. No. He will be here 3 years. Next year they will have marginal improvement (though not nearly what anyone is dreaming of) and that will be good enough because Cal. The following year we will suck completely and utterly but that will be okay because look at all those graduations and he needs a chance with his recruits and because Cal. Then the next year we will completely suck and it will be a 50/50 proposition whether he is retained, because Cal. I mapped out Dykes trajectory exactly after year 1. I can do this one too. It is so obvious. Because Cal.

Quote:

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One thing I will say is you're making a lot of assumptions about Cal and other teams towards the end of your post. At this point, there really is no way of knowing for sure which teams will improve or not next year. We're not even finished with this season yet. But in the meantime, I'm personally going to choose the belief that another year getting to know Fox and vice versa will be good for an experienced returning group of players and Cal will make a bigger step forward. I think there's some data to support that hope/belief, but I also don't know. It's just the mindset I'm gonna choose. If it doesn't happen, then we'll be revisiting these disagreements again sooner rather than later and they will, unfortunately, be meaningful then.

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You can choose that belief if you want to. Anyone has a right to their own view of fandom. But I think it is like watching a movie with an unrealistic plot point and saying "I choose to enjoy the movie. Best not to think about it too much." If I force you to think about it, where are you saying this improvement - compared to our conference foes - is coming? Because every team is getting another year. Why are we making a bigger step?

Because of Covid, every team is getting everybody who wants to come back. I think it is safe to say that most players who still have eligibility use it unless they have a better place to go. Most teams that have players with a better place to go actually are good and have a good roster. They may be worse, but it isn't relevant to us because we aren't catching them anyway.

Where is the specific improvement coming? Our top 6 in games per minute and the only ones with more than 15 minutes per game have 3 years experience, 4 years experience, 5 years experience, 3 years experience, 2 years experience, and 5 years experience. 4 of those players have played together for Fox for 2 years. The other two are graduate transfers.

Bradley is who he is. Pretty close to the same player as last year. Ditto for Grant. You can't tell me you think Betley and Foreman are going to take big leaps. Maybe a little more from Kelly and Brown. Maybe a good leap for Celestine. Crickets after that.

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Honestly, I agree with all of your last paragraph sans "no confidence" in Knowlton and "dramatic turnaround." I'm not sure what you define as a dramatic turn-around, but I think finishing above .500 next year is enough to at least tack a year or two onto Fox's contract.

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Deciding whether to retain a coach or extend them is not based on purely record but is based on where the program is going. After next year, our five leading scorers from this season will be gone. (and likely our 5 leading for next year also, though I have hope Celestine can move into the 4 or 5 spot) Our 4 leading rebounders from this year will be gone (and almost assuredly the 3 leading rebounders next year). You see the young players. You see the recruiting class we have coming in which is not atrocious but is not ranked high at all. No one is replacing Bradley in the next 4 years. No one is replacing Kelly any time soon.

Year 4 is not going to be good. We both know that. So give me year 5. Based on the info today, would you say we have even a 20% chance of 12 conference wins? 11? 10? 9? I'll say 20% chance of 9 wins or more. 20% chance of 4 or fewer. 60% in between. I actually think in your heart of hearts you'd agree with me, more or less. I'm guessing you will avoid the question with a Who knows?, but if you take it on, I'd be curious to know what you think. Do the young guys have it in them to do better? The recruits? Is there any reason to believe that the next two recruiting classes are going to produce impact players?

And if the answer is at base "no, but Cal can't do better than that", hey, maybe that is the case, but let's take that issue on then rather than acting like Fox has better than a 10% chance of developing a team that might moderately compete for 5th place.

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This is so much that I'm not even sure where to begin. I'm an endurance athlete and you've worn me down, OaktownBear!

I'll just focus on the bolded (last part) of your post. You're not gonna like the start of this response, but bear (pun kinda intended) with me.

No, I'm not going to use assumptions and speculations to make some sort of percentage guess of how many conference wins Cal gets year four or five of Fox's tenure. College hoops and the world, in general, are too unpredictable. Hell, this time last year, I thought the coronavirus would be a bother for a couple of months and then be over with.

While I'd also like to wait to talk shop on next season (you know, until we see what the team does in the Pac-12 tournament and see who officially stays and leaves, etc.), I'd be willing to do that. So let's take a look at what this team has done in the first couple of years with Fox.

(All of this data comes from KenPom.)

2020 rank: 153
2021 rank (current, this changes daily as games are played): 166

Overall, a step back. Not good.

2020 Off. Eff. & rank: 101.5 (No. 195)
2021 Off. Eff. & rank: 103.0 (No. 161)

A slight improvement, so good. But still worse than all but one of Fox's teams at both UGA and Nevada and lower than the 103.5 (No. 192) in Jones's last year. Not great, but I'd be willing to bet it improves again next year. Decent trend.

2020 Def. Eff. & rank: 100.4 (No. 130)
2021 Def. Eff. & rank: 102.4 (No. 179)

To me, this is the biggest macro issue. The data never told us Fox would put great offensive teams on the court. It did tell us we could expect good to better-than-good defenses. Over his last eight seasons at UGA, Fox never had a team with a def. eff. rate of greater than 98.7. Last year wasn't great and this year it regressed. That's not good, and I'm not convinced it will be much better next year. (On the other hand, both numbers are not even in the same league as the 110.3 rate Jones's last team had. That's a checked-out team and also should never be a bar to compare yourself to.)

Now to look at specifics of each, category where Cal has improved or not, overall the team has improved shooting from the field (49.1% this year to 46.9% last year). Is it a good shooting team? No. Is it improved. Yes. It turns it over at the exact same rate (19.2%), grabs offensive boards slightly less frequently (24.1% this year vs. 25.1% last year), but that's basically not noticeable. It's getting to the foul line at a lower rate (36.0 last year versus 33.9 this year), which is one of my biggest gripes on offense. Its assist rate has jumped a ton (41.5% last year to 52.6% this year).

Overall, the offense passes better, shoots it better (especially from two), but hasn't been getting to the foul line as much.

On defense, teams are shooting much better against the Bears (53.8% eFG% this year vs. 49.9% last year). But, honestly, everything else looks about the same. Cal is sending teams to the free-throw line less (37.0% last year vs. 33.7% this year), are keeping teams off the offensive glass more (26.3% last year vs. 25.0% this year), and turning them over a tick more (17.3% last year versus 17.7% this year).

Of course, as we've seen, none of those other factors matter much if teams are simply knocking down shots against you at a higher clip. To your point about the rest of the conference progressing more than the Bears, it could be a valid one. Maybe their defense was similar to last year but other Pac-12 teams were better at putting the ball in the hoop this season. The conference does have an overall adjusted score of +11.95, up from 11.35 last year, so it is slightly better, but not by much. So, I'd conclude Cal's defense just took a step back.

Now, individuals:

Let's go in descending order of players that have the highest poss% since they are having the biggest impact on Cal's outcomes.

Bradley:
2021 Off. Eff.: 103.3
2020 Off. Eff.: 106.8

Overall, Bradley's offensive efficiency has dipped. But his poss% has increased by almost 5% and shot% by 3%. So, less efficiency is understandable. He's shooting 0.9% better for eFG%, so basically a wash. His TO rate has increased more than assist rate. And while his three-point percentage has dropped 1.7%, his two-point shot percentage has increased 3.5%. He's drawing 1.1 more fouls per 40 minutes.

I'd say Bradley is giving the same productivity as last year.

Hyder:
Hyder has the second-highest poss% so we'll look at him next.

2021 Off. Eff.: 90.9
2020 Off. Eff.: 93.6

Both his poss% and shot% have increased by about 5% and he's in a more athletic conference. Honestly, I expected his production/efficiency to drop off more than it did. His eFG% is down about 4%. But his assist rate is up about 6% while his TO% has dropped also 6%. That's very good. He's committing more fouls but also drawing more fouls. His 3P% has dropped but his 2P% has increased.

I'm bullish on Hyder and what he can do next season. That improvement in assist/TO rates is impressive and encouraging.

Foreman:
2021 Off. Eff.: 96.3
2020 Off. Eff.: 102.5

Obviously a big drop in off. eff. It's the risk you take with mid-major transfers. In Foreman's case, he really wasn't able to translate his game at Stony Brook to the Pac-12 with the same efficiency or production. The biggest drop came in 3P%, which has dropped 4% compared to last year.

Foreman is a big question and a big piece to Cal's potential step forward next year. If he can get back to what he was doing at Stony Brook, Cal will win more games. If he stays the same, welp.

Kelly:
2021 Off. Eff.: 115.7
2020 Off. Eff.: 104.5

Kelly absolutely took a big step forward in terms of efficiency this year. That's a huge jump. His eFG% increased by 3%. His 2P% has improved 3%. He's getting to the FT line a ton more, although missing at a much higher rate (FT% dropped almost 10%).

Post players usually continue to improve in years three and four. I'd say Kelly will be as good or potentially even better next year based on his previous trajectory.

Anticevich:
2021 Off. Eff.: 97.6
2020 Off. Eff.: 90.2

This is going to surprise some, but Anticevich made significant improvements in his off. eff. while also increasing his poss% and shot% compared to last year. His assist rate has improved while his TO rate has decreased. Overall both his eFG% and TrueShooting% have increased thanks to vastly improved FT%, slightly improved 20%, and a total wash in 3P%.

Like Foreman, getting more out of Anticevich will be a big key to next season. I'm gonna venture to say he gives a bit more next season.

Kuany:
2021 Off. Eff.: 87.1
2020 Off. Eff.: 110.5

Big drop in efficiency for Kuany. He's improved slightly in 2P% but dropped in virtually every other statistical category. Not good.

Brown:
2021 Off. Eff.: 91.1
2020 Off. Eff.: 77.4

Again, probably a surprise to many, Brown's efficiency has improved while his role has increased from Paris Austin's backup to the main PG. His eFG% and TS% are both up a lot. His assist% is up, but so is his TO%. His steal% is up substantially and he's shooting better in FT%, 2P%, and 3P%. Despite what many vocal fans have voiced here, Brown made a step forward this year.

Thiemann:
2021 Off. Eff.: 89.1
2020 Off. Eff.: 86.2

A slight improvement for Thiemann. Basically slight improvements across the board. Nothing substantially better or worse.

Interpret these facts as you will. Just wanted to put them out there.

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Let me be blunt. This is _SO_ University of California, Berkeley - believing that in the stream of KenPom data we can make sense of things when eyeballs are so much more telling.

1) We do not have a pac-12 caliber point guard. I wish Brown the best and perhaps by his senior year he gets there but it isn't there yet.
2) We do not have a pac-12 caliber rim defender. God less how hard Kelly has worked on his game (points to Fox for this) but we need a guy who can provide second level defense when we inevitably get blown past on ball on the permetier.
3) We have ONE guy (Bradly) who can create his own shot in an era where that is in huge demand. You can't rely entirely on it but when they deny your "guy" the rock or help defense with impunity you better have option 2.

This is all reflected in the endless reem of stats. Until Fox shows he can recruit it will remain it.

Romar defense post incoming.....

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As we come close to the end of the season, my opinion of Fox and coaching is adapting a bit. Here is where I'm at.

I think FOX is a better coach than Jones. I don't think he's as good as Monty and never will be. His ceiling is probably less than Braun or Campanelli.

However, based on the results the last decade or so, my sense is that coaching skills has less impact on results than talent. Sure there are a few coaches that can make due with less talent, but they are few, hard to find and unlikely to arrive at Cal.

Besides recruiting talent, we should be looking for a coach that can make that talent work well together. I'm not a fan of his at all (and don't suggest anyone like him would be a good fit at Cal), but most people describing Calipari would do so with those two attributes.

In the P12, Altman is probably the closest comparison or Miller at UA. Again. I don't like either of those, but the results speak for themselves. I'm racking my brains for a D1 coach that fits the bill and is not tainted.

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I'm not in the know enough to know if these dudes are "tainted," but I've always admired Mick Cronin (I know, I know, but look at his Cincy teams), Chris Beard at Texas Tech, and Leonard Hamilton at Florida State. I also wonder how long a guy like Brian Dutcher is going to stick around at San Diego State. Lon Kruger at Oklahoma seems to get a lot out of his players. Archie Miller was a guy I really liked at Dayton but he hasn't been able to quite put it together yet at Indiana. I've also been impressed with what Travis Ford has done at Saint Louis in his brief time there.

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Excellent list. I too am becoming a fan of Cronin. Leonard Hamilton and Lon Kruger are/were very good coaches, but are both a bit long in the tooth. What Kruger did at Illinois would be a nifty blueprint for Cal. What about Nate Oats?

In any event, I don't think the current AD could bring in anyone like this (including Archie Miller and Travis Ford). Personally, my expectations are lower until there is a significant change in the Administration.

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Oats has been very impressive so far. I'm intrigued to see how he continues to do at Alabama. But an SEC title in his second season is pretty nuts.

Not that I think it's worth talking much about because a) Fox is in year two of a five-year contract and b) it'd be much better for Cal if Fox turned things around at Cal and evolved, but regardless of AD, Cal has a current issue with finding its coach post-Fox (whenever that might be).

Here's what I mean. I think most in college hoops will agree that the two easiest paths to hiring a good coach are paying big for a known Power Conference winner or hire a hot up-and-comer from a mid-major (like Alabama did with Nate Oats, for example). Cal currently seems unable and/or unwilling to pay for a proven Power Conference winner. And in its current state, what sort of hot up-and-comer would take a chance on Cal's program when there are likely to be other suiters?

So it remains my opinion that the best-case scenario for Cal is Fox uses an experienced, albeit athletically-limited, roster next year to make some noise and lift the floor of the program a bit. And then uses that to get some recruiting break-throughs and get the program back to a middle-of-the-pack (or better) Pac-12 team. Then the job becomes a lot more attractive and Cal is able to get past those limitations listed above.

As others have mentioned, Dennis Gates is an intriguing option. But, in my opinion, he needs more time. I'd like to see him string together at least a couple more competitive seasons in the Horizon League.

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Thing is, we had the opportunity to do that post-Cuonzo. We punted.

Things aren't going to get better under Fox or Knowlton. Our only path forward is to pay an up and coming coach well (because regardless of success, they don't get paid much at the mid-major level) and hope we pick the right one. But first we need to deal with the Athletic Director problem and I don't see Christ having any interest in that. So I think Cal Athletics is in trouble for as long as Christ is Chancellor.

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I mean, yeah, that's when the downfall began.

There is no magic bullet that is going to suddenly flip the program. And the path forward isn't going to be linear. Maybe Fox turns the program or maybe he doesn't. This season was disappointing, yes, but it's just one season of two so far for Fox. It's a very small sample size.

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"Just one season out of two so far for Fox."

So you are saying last year was good? Worst overall record/fewest wins of any team in the PAC-12? Points scored 332nd out of 353 teams in the NCAA? That is your level of acceptable?

My sample size is his 11 years coaching in a power conference. The first 9 got him fired. The last two have been worse.

When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

I am not saying fire him now. We don't have the money to buy him out and I have no confidence in Knowlton to hire a replacement. However, unless I am shocked and there is a dramatic turnaround next year I think we absolutely should not throw good money after bad and extend his contract. Knowlton should form a basketball advisory committee to monitor the situation and put feelers out to potential candidates. Only make the move when you have a very good idea what you are going to do or at least what your options are.

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No, I'm not saying this season was good. You clearly cherry-picked that quote out of the context of my entire post. The full sentence (bolded above) clearly starts with "This season was disappointing" I'm not sure where that indicates I believe "last year was good."

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Nathan -

I don't know how long your history dates back with Cal. I am in my fifties. I came from a Cal family and literally have been an active Cal fan since I was 5 years old. I don't say that to say I know more than you. I say that to explain my frustration. For all that time Cal fans have made exactly the same points in favor of loser coaches and for all that time Cal has followed that path and it has never worked. Ever. Cal has only succeeded by luck when they have finally pulled the trigger and had a good hire. Cal never chooses to fire a coach. Almost always the players fire the coach by visibly giving up or sometimes even going into the office of the AD. I would say in my many years as a Cal fan, in football and men's basketball Cal fired 2 coaches for impropriety. I would say Dykes got fired because he screwed over the AD and made him look bad by seeking other jobs after the AD went to bat for him and gave him an extension. Every other firing has been the players giving up on the field/court or even in a couple of cases actually telling the AD straight out that s/he needed to make a change.

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Bottom line, I think we can agree that we both want Cal hoops to be back to respectability (and better) sooner rather than later. I'm not sure if you'd agree with this, but I believe Fox will be the coach for at least the next two seasons. So, a lot of our disagreements in this thread don't matter much in the immediate future.

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This point is always made. He will be the coach so discussing it doesn't matter. 4 years of that with Holmoe. The Holmoe apologists really got into a cadence. Pre-season, hey we should be optimistic! During the season - don't criticize, he won't be fired mid season. root for the team. For about an hour after the last game you can make your case. Then - he isn't getting fired so you might as well support him. Off season, He's our coach. You might as well support him.

Cal doesn't fire coaches like every other program because Cal fans play this game. Yes. I believe he will be our coach for two more seasons. And I believe if Cal fans don't scream bloody murder about it the entire time he will be our coach for 10 more seasons. I believe if Cal fans were like 80% of the fans out there, he'd be fired immediately after the last game. Or better yet, wouldn't have been hired at all.

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What I am saying is you don't fire a coach because of one bad season (especially after a very weird season that also involved key injuries/sickness). You fire a coach because of a trend of bad seasons.

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You do when the season is bad enough and when the recruiting shows no indication of changing the trajectory of the program. And for goodness sake, you have been rational about the impact of Covid and the injuries. Don't change now. Again, ten games of health and no covid impact and it is our worst basketball.

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Here's why: The underlying problems (lack of fan support, no practice facility, below-market-rate pay, years of poor hoops, a potential in-flux roster) will still be there. But the new problem created by firing Fox after three or four seasons is showing an impatient AD unwilling to allow a coach the time to rebuild one of the worst college hoops programs in recent history. What coach would want to step into all that? Maybe an up-and-comer, like others have mentioned. But I'm not sure.

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This is another one of those Cal arguments that have been supporting coaches my whole life. And again, following that reasoning has never worked. Firing losers is not a barrier to hiring winners. Winners know losers and when you keep losers they know what you expect and they don't want to be part of that.

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I'll reiterate what I've already said: Cal's rebuild will not be linear. And it won't happen instantly. Others have pointed out coaches that took years to turn programs around, because that happens more times than not, especially with a program like Cal.

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Cal's rebuild is linear. Linear downward.

Another constant argument at Cal. No one expects a linear upward trajectory. No one expects it to happen instantly. But SOMETHING HAPPENS. With Tedford, the message was delivered on the first play. We had some stinker games that first year, but things were different immediately. More times than not coaches who are in last place their second year without facing an inexperienced roster stay at the bottom. Here is the thing. With a lineup of juniors and seniors, there was no reason to expect this crash and burn. This year should have at minimum held position. We are 5 games worse. Next year our rotation is literally going to be the most experienced in school history. And then what the hell happens the year after?

So yes, he will be here 2 year. No. He will be here 3 years. Next year they will have marginal improvement (though not nearly what anyone is dreaming of) and that will be good enough because Cal. The following year we will suck completely and utterly but that will be okay because look at all those graduations and he needs a chance with his recruits and because Cal. Then the next year we will completely suck and it will be a 50/50 proposition whether he is retained, because Cal. I mapped out Dykes trajectory exactly after year 1. I can do this one too. It is so obvious. Because Cal.

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One thing I will say is you're making a lot of assumptions about Cal and other teams towards the end of your post. At this point, there really is no way of knowing for sure which teams will improve or not next year. We're not even finished with this season yet. But in the meantime, I'm personally going to choose the belief that another year getting to know Fox and vice versa will be good for an experienced returning group of players and Cal will make a bigger step forward. I think there's some data to support that hope/belief, but I also don't know. It's just the mindset I'm gonna choose. If it doesn't happen, then we'll be revisiting these disagreements again sooner rather than later and they will, unfortunately, be meaningful then.

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You can choose that belief if you want to. Anyone has a right to their own view of fandom. But I think it is like watching a movie with an unrealistic plot point and saying "I choose to enjoy the movie. Best not to think about it too much." If I force you to think about it, where are you saying this improvement - compared to our conference foes - is coming? Because every team is getting another year. Why are we making a bigger step?

Because of Covid, every team is getting everybody who wants to come back. I think it is safe to say that most players who still have eligibility use it unless they have a better place to go. Most teams that have players with a better place to go actually are good and have a good roster. They may be worse, but it isn't relevant to us because we aren't catching them anyway.

Where is the specific improvement coming? Our top 6 in games per minute and the only ones with more than 15 minutes per game have 3 years experience, 4 years experience, 5 years experience, 3 years experience, 2 years experience, and 5 years experience. 4 of those players have played together for Fox for 2 years. The other two are graduate transfers.

Bradley is who he is. Pretty close to the same player as last year. Ditto for Grant. You can't tell me you think Betley and Foreman are going to take big leaps. Maybe a little more from Kelly and Brown. Maybe a good leap for Celestine. Crickets after that.

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Honestly, I agree with all of your last paragraph sans "no confidence" in Knowlton and "dramatic turnaround." I'm not sure what you define as a dramatic turn-around, but I think finishing above .500 next year is enough to at least tack a year or two onto Fox's contract.

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Deciding whether to retain a coach or extend them is not based on purely record but is based on where the program is going. After next year, our five leading scorers from this season will be gone. (and likely our 5 leading for next year also, though I have hope Celestine can move into the 4 or 5 spot) Our 4 leading rebounders from this year will be gone (and almost assuredly the 3 leading rebounders next year). You see the young players. You see the recruiting class we have coming in which is not atrocious but is not ranked high at all. No one is replacing Bradley in the next 4 years. No one is replacing Kelly any time soon.

Year 4 is not going to be good. We both know that. So give me year 5. Based on the info today, would you say we have even a 20% chance of 12 conference wins? 11? 10? 9? I'll say 20% chance of 9 wins or more. 20% chance of 4 or fewer. 60% in between. I actually think in your heart of hearts you'd agree with me, more or less. I'm guessing you will avoid the question with a Who knows?, but if you take it on, I'd be curious to know what you think. Do the young guys have it in them to do better? The recruits? Is there any reason to believe that the next two recruiting classes are going to produce impact players?

And if the answer is at base "no, but Cal can't do better than that", hey, maybe that is the case, but let's take that issue on then rather than acting like Fox has better than a 10% chance of developing a team that might moderately compete for 5th place.

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This is so much that I'm not even sure where to begin. I'm an endurance athlete and you've worn me down, OaktownBear!

I'll just focus on the bolded (last part) of your post. You're not gonna like the start of this response, but bear (pun kinda intended) with me.

No, I'm not going to use assumptions and speculations to make some sort of percentage guess of how many conference wins Cal gets year four or five of Fox's tenure. College hoops and the world, in general, are too unpredictable. Hell, this time last year, I thought the coronavirus would be a bother for a couple of months and then be over with.

While I'd also like to wait to talk shop on next season (you know, until we see what the team does in the Pac-12 tournament and see who officially stays and leaves, etc.), I'd be willing to do that. So let's take a look at what this team has done in the first couple of years with Fox.

(All of this data comes from KenPom.)

2020 rank: 153
2021 rank (current, this changes daily as games are played): 166

Overall, a step back. Not good.

2020 Off. Eff. & rank: 101.5 (No. 195)
2021 Off. Eff. & rank: 103.0 (No. 161)

A slight improvement, so good. But still worse than all but one of Fox's teams at both UGA and Nevada and lower than the 103.5 (No. 192) in Jones's last year. Not great, but I'd be willing to bet it improves again next year. Decent trend.

2020 Def. Eff. & rank: 100.4 (No. 130)
2021 Def. Eff. & rank: 102.4 (No. 179)

To me, this is the biggest macro issue. The data never told us Fox would put great offensive teams on the court. It did tell us we could expect good to better-than-good defenses. Over his last eight seasons at UGA, Fox never had a team with a def. eff. rate of greater than 98.7. Last year wasn't great and this year it regressed. That's not good, and I'm not convinced it will be much better next year. (On the other hand, both numbers are not even in the same league as the 110.3 rate Jones's last team had. That's a checked-out team and also should never be a bar to compare yourself to.)

Now to look at specifics of each, category where Cal has improved or not, overall the team has improved shooting from the field (49.1% this year to 46.9% last year). Is it a good shooting team? No. Is it improved. Yes. It turns it over at the exact same rate (19.2%), grabs offensive boards slightly less frequently (24.1% this year vs. 25.1% last year), but that's basically not noticeable. It's getting to the foul line at a lower rate (36.0 last year versus 33.9 this year), which is one of my biggest gripes on offense. Its assist rate has jumped a ton (41.5% last year to 52.6% this year).

Overall, the offense passes better, shoots it better (especially from two), but hasn't been getting to the foul line as much.

On defense, teams are shooting much better against the Bears (53.8% eFG% this year vs. 49.9% last year). But, honestly, everything else looks about the same. Cal is sending teams to the free-throw line less (37.0% last year vs. 33.7% this year), are keeping teams off the offensive glass more (26.3% last year vs. 25.0% this year), and turning them over a tick more (17.3% last year versus 17.7% this year).

Of course, as we've seen, none of those other factors matter much if teams are simply knocking down shots against you at a higher clip. To your point about the rest of the conference progressing more than the Bears, it could be a valid one. Maybe their defense was similar to last year but other Pac-12 teams were better at putting the ball in the hoop this season. The conference does have an overall adjusted score of +11.95, up from 11.35 last year, so it is slightly better, but not by much. So, I'd conclude Cal's defense just took a step back.

Now, individuals:

Let's go in descending order of players that have the highest poss% since they are having the biggest impact on Cal's outcomes.

Bradley:
2021 Off. Eff.: 103.3
2020 Off. Eff.: 106.8

Overall, Bradley's offensive efficiency has dipped. But his poss% has increased by almost 5% and shot% by 3%. So, less efficiency is understandable. He's shooting 0.9% better for eFG%, so basically a wash. His TO rate has increased more than assist rate. And while his three-point percentage has dropped 1.7%, his two-point shot percentage has increased 3.5%. He's drawing 1.1 more fouls per 40 minutes.

I'd say Bradley is giving the same productivity as last year.

Hyder:
Hyder has the second-highest poss% so we'll look at him next.

2021 Off. Eff.: 90.9
2020 Off. Eff.: 93.6

Both his poss% and shot% have increased by about 5% and he's in a more athletic conference. Honestly, I expected his production/efficiency to drop off more than it did. His eFG% is down about 4%. But his assist rate is up about 6% while his TO% has dropped also 6%. That's very good. He's committing more fouls but also drawing more fouls. His 3P% has dropped but his 2P% has increased.

I'm bullish on Hyder and what he can do next season. That improvement in assist/TO rates is impressive and encouraging.

Foreman:
2021 Off. Eff.: 96.3
2020 Off. Eff.: 102.5

Obviously a big drop in off. eff. It's the risk you take with mid-major transfers. In Foreman's case, he really wasn't able to translate his game at Stony Brook to the Pac-12 with the same efficiency or production. The biggest drop came in 3P%, which has dropped 4% compared to last year.

Foreman is a big question and a big piece to Cal's potential step forward next year. If he can get back to what he was doing at Stony Brook, Cal will win more games. If he stays the same, welp.

Kelly:
2021 Off. Eff.: 115.7
2020 Off. Eff.: 104.5

Kelly absolutely took a big step forward in terms of efficiency this year. That's a huge jump. His eFG% increased by 3%. His 2P% has improved 3%. He's getting to the FT line a ton more, although missing at a much higher rate (FT% dropped almost 10%).

Post players usually continue to improve in years three and four. I'd say Kelly will be as good or potentially even better next year based on his previous trajectory.

Anticevich:
2021 Off. Eff.: 97.6
2020 Off. Eff.: 90.2

This is going to surprise some, but Anticevich made significant improvements in his off. eff. while also increasing his poss% and shot% compared to last year. His assist rate has improved while his TO rate has decreased. Overall both his eFG% and TrueShooting% have increased thanks to vastly improved FT%, slightly improved 20%, and a total wash in 3P%.

Like Foreman, getting more out of Anticevich will be a big key to next season. I'm gonna venture to say he gives a bit more next season.

Kuany:
2021 Off. Eff.: 87.1
2020 Off. Eff.: 110.5

Big drop in efficiency for Kuany. He's improved slightly in 2P% but dropped in virtually every other statistical category. Not good.

Brown:
2021 Off. Eff.: 91.1
2020 Off. Eff.: 77.4

Again, probably a surprise to many, Brown's efficiency has improved while his role has increased from Paris Austin's backup to the main PG. His eFG% and TS% are both up a lot. His assist% is up, but so is his TO%. His steal% is up substantially and he's shooting better in FT%, 2P%, and 3P%. Despite what many vocal fans have voiced here, Brown made a step forward this year.

Thiemann:
2021 Off. Eff.: 89.1
2020 Off. Eff.: 86.2

A slight improvement for Thiemann. Basically slight improvements across the board. Nothing substantially better or worse.

Interpret these facts as you will. Just wanted to put them out there.

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Let me be blunt. This is _SO_ University of California, Berkeley - believing that in the stream of KenPom data we can make sense of things when eyeballs are so much more telling.

1) We do not have a pac-12 caliber point guard. I wish Brown the best and perhaps by his senior year he gets there but it isn't there yet.
2) We do not have a pac-12 caliber rim defender. God less how hard Kelly has worked on his game (points to Fox for this) but we need a guy who can provide second level defense when we inevitably get blown past on ball on the permetier.
3) We have ONE guy (Bradly) who can create his own shot in an era where that is in huge demand. You can't rely entirely on it but when they deny your "guy" the rock or help defense with impunity you better have option 2.

This is all reflected in the endless reem of stats. Until Fox shows he can recruit it will remain it.

Romar defense post incoming.....

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Yes, the thing is, I appreciate the analysis, but you can parse underlying stats. It isn't just eyeballs. We are 5 full games worse in the standings than last year and 1 full game worse than the year before that. Those are the key stats. Paris and South were not THAT awesome.

Our rotation is 1 very good guard. 4 guards who can't shoot. A solid forward. A forward that runs hot and cold and averages 9 a game. And a center who gets abused on defense because he doesn't have the athleticism to keep up. Recently we added a guard to the rotation who is probably the third most talented on the roster and should have been playing more minutes and developing much sooner and everyone knew it.

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Stanford Jonah said:

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Big C said:

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Stanford Jonah said:

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NathanAllen said:

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BeachedBear said:

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NathanAllen said:

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BeachedBear said:

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As we come close to the end of the season, my opinion of Fox and coaching is adapting a bit. Here is where I'm at.

I think FOX is a better coach than Jones. I don't think he's as good as Monty and never will be. His ceiling is probably less than Braun or Campanelli.

However, based on the results the last decade or so, my sense is that coaching skills has less impact on results than talent. Sure there are a few coaches that can make due with less talent, but they are few, hard to find and unlikely to arrive at Cal.

Besides recruiting talent, we should be looking for a coach that can make that talent work well together. I'm not a fan of his at all (and don't suggest anyone like him would be a good fit at Cal), but most people describing Calipari would do so with those two attributes.

In the P12, Altman is probably the closest comparison or Miller at UA. Again. I don't like either of those, but the results speak for themselves. I'm racking my brains for a D1 coach that fits the bill and is not tainted.

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I'm not in the know enough to know if these dudes are "tainted," but I've always admired Mick Cronin (I know, I know, but look at his Cincy teams), Chris Beard at Texas Tech, and Leonard Hamilton at Florida State. I also wonder how long a guy like Brian Dutcher is going to stick around at San Diego State. Lon Kruger at Oklahoma seems to get a lot out of his players. Archie Miller was a guy I really liked at Dayton but he hasn't been able to quite put it together yet at Indiana. I've also been impressed with what Travis Ford has done at Saint Louis in his brief time there.

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Excellent list. I too am becoming a fan of Cronin. Leonard Hamilton and Lon Kruger are/were very good coaches, but are both a bit long in the tooth. What Kruger did at Illinois would be a nifty blueprint for Cal. What about Nate Oats?

In any event, I don't think the current AD could bring in anyone like this (including Archie Miller and Travis Ford). Personally, my expectations are lower until there is a significant change in the Administration.

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Oats has been very impressive so far. I'm intrigued to see how he continues to do at Alabama. But an SEC title in his second season is pretty nuts.

Not that I think it's worth talking much about because a) Fox is in year two of a five-year contract and b) it'd be much better for Cal if Fox turned things around at Cal and evolved, but regardless of AD, Cal has a current issue with finding its coach post-Fox (whenever that might be).

Here's what I mean. I think most in college hoops will agree that the two easiest paths to hiring a good coach are paying big for a known Power Conference winner or hire a hot up-and-comer from a mid-major (like Alabama did with Nate Oats, for example). Cal currently seems unable and/or unwilling to pay for a proven Power Conference winner. And in its current state, what sort of hot up-and-comer would take a chance on Cal's program when there are likely to be other suiters?

So it remains my opinion that the best-case scenario for Cal is Fox uses an experienced, albeit athletically-limited, roster next year to make some noise and lift the floor of the program a bit. And then uses that to get some recruiting break-throughs and get the program back to a middle-of-the-pack (or better) Pac-12 team. Then the job becomes a lot more attractive and Cal is able to get past those limitations listed above.

As others have mentioned, Dennis Gates is an intriguing option. But, in my opinion, he needs more time. I'd like to see him string together at least a couple more competitive seasons in the Horizon League.

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Thing is, we had the opportunity to do that post-Cuonzo. We punted.

Things aren't going to get better under Fox or Knowlton. Our only path forward is to pay an up and coming coach well (because regardless of success, they don't get paid much at the mid-major level) and hope we pick the right one. But first we need to deal with the Athletic Director problem and I don't see Christ having any interest in that. So I think Cal Athletics is in trouble for as long as Christ is Chancellor.

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If Athletics is in trouble as long as Christ is Chancellor, we are totally screwed, because there is a wide consensus that she is the best Chancellor we have had for Athletics stretching over a half century or so.

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On what basis? Because people on this board think so?

She's been chancellor since 2017. Over that time, our two major sports have stunk. What has she done that suggests she cares about those sports getting better?

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Stanford Jonah said:

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Big C said:

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stu said:

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Congratulations for this thread! It's reached 7 pages in 7 days with no signs of slowing down. Does that mean frustration is as big a motivator as joy?

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Hey, it shows that there are at least a dozen of us (or so) who still care!

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No. It means I could care again if Cal starts caring about winning. As long as they don't, I won't.

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Jeff82 said:

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The one part of this post I agree with is that if we're going to hire Dennis Gates, do it after next year. If we wait two more seasons to see if he continues to have success, he'll have better options, and at this point I don't expect a coach that could do better to come to Cal just out of mercy.

That said, I do think that if we hire a younger coach, with some sort of pedigree, I'd be willing to give him a longer contract to turn things around, and try to be patient. By pedigree, I mean some limited record of success at a mid-major, or and up-and-coming assistant looking for his first head job.

That would be different than the Jones hire. I'm not sure he had a long tenure as the first assistant or anything like that. He was sort of similar to Holmoe. In both cases, the head coach left unexpectedly (Mariucci, Martin), and the AD basically handed the job to whomever was left by default, without really doing much of a search, with disastrous results.

That's why I'm still reasonably happy with the football program trajectory under Wilcox, because we've had some success, and recruiting appears to be building toward more. I'm willing to be patient as a result.

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Stanford Jonah said:

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socaltownie said:

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calumnus said:

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calbears4ever said:

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Fox is the problem to me, not Knowlton. I don't follow MBB that much, so idk much about the situation besides the disappointing season MBB has had. I would say that Cal needs a Steve Kerr- esque coach if they want to go back to the NCAA's

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Knowlton was the one who looked at the resume that got Fox fired from Georgia and out of work for a year and hired him after interviewing only one other candidate. Can't blame Fox for taking the $8.25 million. The problem is, I don't trust Knowlton to hire Fox's replacement. I don't think he has a clue to hiring a basketball coach. He wasn't even smart enough to know he wasn't smart enough and put together a committee with maybe Shareef, Monty, Steve Kerr, Ben Braun, Leon Powe, Jason Kidd, Sean Marks....

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This. I am going to be very politically uncorrect here but I would love for BI'ers to get over that and actually engage with this argument......

1) Our recruiting for BB (and to an extent football is VERY different than undergrad admissions). For the general population Cal is a top slot choice. Kids work their entire academic lives to get into it. In some cases it is their school of choice because they can't afford/get into an Ivy+Furd and in other cases it is their top choice. It is ridiculously competitive. Sometimes BI'ers project that onto athletes.....

2) But for revenue sports athletes this is NOT the case. Those that come to Cal and succeed DEFINATELY value the academics but it is one of competing priorities. _IF_ they are truly elite academically focused and a great hoop player than Cal competes with Harvard and to an extent Duke & Furd for their attention. That is a tough sell when the value of the scholarship to those places is measured close to half a million. We have lost kids

3) Instead, for truly program changing recruits we compete with UCLA and to a lesser extent Washington and Big10 R-1 institutions and overwhelmingly, in both the past and in the future, these are African American kids from California suburbs (Oakland, Elk Grove) and close in suburbs like Inglewood or Compton or Long Beach.

OUR COACH HAS TO RECRUIT IN THOSE AREA AND WITH THAT AAU PIPELINE.

That is why Martin had the potential to be a great Cal fit. It is why a Gates (and I think to a different extent Travis COULD be a good fit). POSSIBLY Jason Kidd could be a fit. Mark Fox? Not a fit. There is a huge cultural leap for him to make to go down to Inglewood, create connections with a skeptical AAU crowd, and open up the pipeline. Hell, start close to home. What is Mark's currently relationship like with the Solidiers as arguably making Cal into a competitive program starts with getting 2/3rds of the D1 recruits out of that AAU program suited up in the blue and gold.

The Suits at Cal don't like hearing that. But ultimately what success we have had on EITHER in football or basketball is often traced directly to AA kids out of SoCal(Crabbe, Cobbs, Kidd) or the East Bay (Powe, Money). Often times history is the guide. It is time we accept it.

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The thing I liked most about Cuonzo was that he was black. I think in basketball especially, if all other things are equal (quality of the program, quality of the conference, quality of the coach) between two competing schools, if one school's coach is white and the other's is black, I give the black coach the edge. I think given where Cal is located geographically, they should be trying to get a good black coach. And since other programs undervalue black coaches, I'm thinking there's an opportunity to get someone who'd be really good who isn't in as much demand as he should be.

The thing I disliked most about Cuonzo was everything else. His offense, his inability to parlay some good fortune in recruiting into something lasting, and his inability to help talented players get better.

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calumnus said:

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Wyking Jones was an assistant under Paul Westphal, Steve Alford, Rick Pitino and then Cuonzo Martin. He is from Inglewood and played at Loyola-Marymount.

Recruiting SoCal, perfect. Coaching experience? Lacking, but might be fine with a grizzled assistant. The danger was he played in and was an assistant largely in programs that got great talent and played fast. That might work eventually if he could bring in great talent but playing that way with inferior talent was a disaster.

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HoopDreams said:

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Stanford Jonah said:

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socaltownie said:

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calumnus said:

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calbears4ever said:

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Fox is the problem to me, not Knowlton. I don't follow MBB that much, so idk much about the situation besides the disappointing season MBB has had. I would say that Cal needs a Steve Kerr- esque coach if they want to go back to the NCAA's

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Knowlton was the one who looked at the resume that got Fox fired from Georgia and out of work for a year and hired him after interviewing only one other candidate. Can't blame Fox for taking the $8.25 million. The problem is, I don't trust Knowlton to hire Fox's replacement. I don't think he has a clue to hiring a basketball coach. He wasn't even smart enough to know he wasn't smart enough and put together a committee with maybe Shareef, Monty, Steve Kerr, Ben Braun, Leon Powe, Jason Kidd, Sean Marks....

---

This. I am going to be very politically uncorrect here but I would love for BI'ers to get over that and actually engage with this argument......

1) Our recruiting for BB (and to an extent football is VERY different than undergrad admissions). For the general population Cal is a top slot choice. Kids work their entire academic lives to get into it. In some cases it is their school of choice because they can't afford/get into an Ivy+Furd and in other cases it is their top choice. It is ridiculously competitive. Sometimes BI'ers project that onto athletes.....

2) But for revenue sports athletes this is NOT the case. Those that come to Cal and succeed DEFINATELY value the academics but it is one of competing priorities. _IF_ they are truly elite academically focused and a great hoop player than Cal competes with Harvard and to an extent Duke & Furd for their attention. That is a tough sell when the value of the scholarship to those places is measured close to half a million. We have lost kids

3) Instead, for truly program changing recruits we compete with UCLA and to a lesser extent Washington and Big10 R-1 institutions and overwhelmingly, in both the past and in the future, these are African American kids from California suburbs (Oakland, Elk Grove) and close in suburbs like Inglewood or Compton or Long Beach.

OUR COACH HAS TO RECRUIT IN THOSE AREA AND WITH THAT AAU PIPELINE.

That is why Martin had the potential to be a great Cal fit. It is why a Gates (and I think to a different extent Travis COULD be a good fit). POSSIBLY Jason Kidd could be a fit. Mark Fox? Not a fit. There is a huge cultural leap for him to make to go down to Inglewood, create connections with a skeptical AAU crowd, and open up the pipeline. Hell, start close to home. What is Mark's currently relationship like with the Solidiers as arguably making Cal into a competitive program starts with getting 2/3rds of the D1 recruits out of that AAU program suited up in the blue and gold.

The Suits at Cal don't like hearing that. But ultimately what success we have had on EITHER in football or basketball is often traced directly to AA kids out of SoCal(Crabbe, Cobbs, Kidd) or the East Bay (Powe, Money). Often times history is the guide. It is time we accept it.

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The thing I liked most about Cuonzo was that he was black. I think in basketball especially, if all other things are equal (quality of the program, quality of the conference, quality of the coach) between two competing schools, if one school's coach is white and the other's is black, I give the black coach the edge. I think given where Cal is located geographically, they should be trying to get a good black coach. And since other programs undervalue black coaches, I'm thinking there's an opportunity to get someone who'd be really good who isn't in as much demand as he should be.

The thing I disliked most about Cuonzo was everything else. His offense, his inability to parlay some good fortune in recruiting into something lasting, and his inability to help talented players get better.

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the thing I liked most about Martin was he was a leader of men

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HoopDreams said:

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calumnus said:

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Wyking Jones was an assistant under Paul Westphal, Steve Alford, Rick Pitino and then Cuonzo Martin. He is from Inglewood and played at Loyola-Marymount.

Recruiting SoCal, perfect. Coaching experience? Lacking, but might be fine with a grizzled assistant. The danger was he played in and was an assistant largely in programs that got great talent and played fast. That might work eventually if he could bring in great talent but playing that way with inferior talent was a disaster.

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good summary. One reason WK recruited fairly well is he 'sold' the run and gun, fast break, 40 minutes of hell style of play. He then hired a Texas AAU coach with connections to that region, so they focused on California and Texas, two hot recruiting territories. They could also still sell the Martin "brand".

The problem is the coaches were too inexperienced to understand you don't just roll out the ball and tell them to 'play fast'

I've never seen a worse display of full court press, and our McNeil fast breaks were almost always a disaster because he never passed the ball, and always tried to take it to the rack himself.

Basically that coaching staff thought playing AAU ball would work in D1 basketball

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Stanford Jonah said:

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calumnus said:

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HoopDreams said:

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Stanford Jonah said:

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socaltownie said:

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calumnus said:

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calbears4ever said:

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Fox is the problem to me, not Knowlton. I don't follow MBB that much, so idk much about the situation besides the disappointing season MBB has had. I would say that Cal needs a Steve Kerr- esque coach if they want to go back to the NCAA's

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Knowlton was the one who looked at the resume that got Fox fired from Georgia and out of work for a year and hired him after interviewing only one other candidate. Can't blame Fox for taking the $8.25 million. The problem is, I don't trust Knowlton to hire Fox's replacement. I don't think he has a clue to hiring a basketball coach. He wasn't even smart enough to know he wasn't smart enough and put together a committee with maybe Shareef, Monty, Steve Kerr, Ben Braun, Leon Powe, Jason Kidd, Sean Marks....

---

This. I am going to be very politically uncorrect here but I would love for BI'ers to get over that and actually engage with this argument......

1) Our recruiting for BB (and to an extent football is VERY different than undergrad admissions). For the general population Cal is a top slot choice. Kids work their entire academic lives to get into it. In some cases it is their school of choice because they can't afford/get into an Ivy+Furd and in other cases it is their top choice. It is ridiculously competitive. Sometimes BI'ers project that onto athletes.....

2) But for revenue sports athletes this is NOT the case. Those that come to Cal and succeed DEFINATELY value the academics but it is one of competing priorities. _IF_ they are truly elite academically focused and a great hoop player than Cal competes with Harvard and to an extent Duke & Furd for their attention. That is a tough sell when the value of the scholarship to those places is measured close to half a million. We have lost kids

3) Instead, for truly program changing recruits we compete with UCLA and to a lesser extent Washington and Big10 R-1 institutions and overwhelmingly, in both the past and in the future, these are African American kids from California suburbs (Oakland, Elk Grove) and close in suburbs like Inglewood or Compton or Long Beach.

OUR COACH HAS TO RECRUIT IN THOSE AREA AND WITH THAT AAU PIPELINE.

That is why Martin had the potential to be a great Cal fit. It is why a Gates (and I think to a different extent Travis COULD be a good fit). POSSIBLY Jason Kidd could be a fit. Mark Fox? Not a fit. There is a huge cultural leap for him to make to go down to Inglewood, create connections with a skeptical AAU crowd, and open up the pipeline. Hell, start close to home. What is Mark's currently relationship like with the Solidiers as arguably making Cal into a competitive program starts with getting 2/3rds of the D1 recruits out of that AAU program suited up in the blue and gold.

The Suits at Cal don't like hearing that. But ultimately what success we have had on EITHER in football or basketball is often traced directly to AA kids out of SoCal(Crabbe, Cobbs, Kidd) or the East Bay (Powe, Money). Often times history is the guide. It is time we accept it.

---

The thing I liked most about Cuonzo was that he was black. I think in basketball especially, if all other things are equal (quality of the program, quality of the conference, quality of the coach) between two competing schools, if one school's coach is white and the other's is black, I give the black coach the edge. I think given where Cal is located geographically, they should be trying to get a good black coach. And since other programs undervalue black coaches, I'm thinking there's an opportunity to get someone who'd be really good who isn't in as much demand as he should be.

The thing I disliked most about Cuonzo was everything else. His offense, his inability to parlay some good fortune in recruiting into something lasting, and his inability to help talented players get better.

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the thing I liked most about Martin was he was a leader of men

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The thing I like most about Martin is I can take pride that Jaylen Brown is a Cal alum and follow his career with interest.

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Martin was gifted Jaylen Brown.

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