He should be meeting with each player, and going over with them what they need to work on in the off season. IMHO, he should also encourage them to stay in the Bay Area if at all possible, to work out together, play in the summer league at Kezar, etc. If the issue was players getting stranded last year due to COVID, and not really being able to effectively work out (I'm thinking very much of K2 here), that should not be a significant issue this off-season. He's got to show player development for next year, if he's going to be successful, and warrant staying on as the Cal coach.
Fox is now officially on the clock.
24,272 Views |
184 Replies |
Last: 3 yr ago by calumnus
Well, Jeff, If you had heard Fox's radio interview after the game, you would know that what you say is what he will try to do. He said the first order of business will be that the players must all go home to have a visit with their families, whom they have not seen for many months. Then they will return for the hard work that he says is the only way to rebuild a basketball team. He said the team did not have any opportunity to put in that hard work at all last year due to the shutdowns over the virus. That is barring more government shutdowns, and some opening up for sports (indoor high school basketball still not allowed, I believe). Fox has had to try to teach and coach this year on the fly, with few practices, and changing schedules, protocols, etc. It is the politicians and bureaucrats who ran the basketball program this year, not the coach. The team has not been able to use the Haas locker room all season, can't have meals together, and can't shower in Haas, as I understand it. In spite of all this, we have seen a little improvement in this team over the season. Some injuries have healed, some maybe too early to tell. I figure Fox has not had anywhere near two full seasons of coaching, which is barely enough time. In his first season, Fox brought in a large recruiting class out of necessity, and did not have a full summer to work with them and with the returning team members. This season was even worse circumstances.. So he has been here two years, and he and his players have not not yet had even one summer or off season, where he and his players could do the hard work to rebuild the mess left him by Wyking Jones, et al. I understand we are all impatient for results, but think how impatient Fox and the players are for success. I'm sure not wanting to put him on the clock, until I see his team perform after one or two off-seasons of hard work. Once they have done that, and they don't show great improvement, then, I'd say, "Off with his head."Jeff82 said:
He should be meeting with each player, and going over with them what they need to work on in the off season. IMHO, he should also encourage them to stay in the Bay Area if at all possible, to work out together, play in the summer league at Kezar, etc. If the issue was players getting stranded last year due to COVID, and not really being able to effectively work out (I'm thinking very much of K2 here), that should not be a significant issue this off-season. He's got to show player development for next year, if he's going to be successful, and warrant staying on as the Cal coach.
SFCityBear
I agree with you both that we REALLY NEED to have a great off-season of hard work. I wouldn't be surprised at all if we were able to add a "big", either a grad transfer or a foreign player, but how good will he be?
As sort of a "floor" for next season -- at the minimum -- Fox needs to at least double the conference victories and get us out of the cellar. Hopefully, we can get at least NEAR .500 in conference and maybe have a winning record overall, then back that up with Fox's best recruiting year to date.
Alone in last place again like this year (or even close to that, frankly), forget about it.
Agreed. IMHO, just to say that every team had issues with COVID, and therefore there's no allowance for that in terms of what happened, is not reasonable, because teams came into the season at different places, and therefore were affected differently. This team definitely needed player development to progress. If that didn't happen, and it sounds like it didn't, if Fox is being truthful, I expect him to make some incremental improvement next year over the results he had last year.Big C said:
I agree with you both that we REALLY NEED to have a great off-season of hard work. I wouldn't be surprised at all if we were able to add a "big", either a grad transfer or a foreign player, but how good will he be?
As sort of a "floor" for next season -- at the minimum -- Fox needs to at least double the conference victories and get us out of the cellar. Hopefully, we can get at least NEAR .500 in conference and maybe have a winning record overall, then back that up with Fox's best recruiting year to date.
Alone in last place again like this year (or even close to that, frankly), forget about it.
I listened to almost every radio pre and post game this year. He throws "rebuild" into just about every segment. Eventually he is not going to be able to imply that he is fixing something somebody else broke.
I would have much preferred that he spoke about how he was going to coach them better.
He and the staff did look sharp in the tournament, though. No golf shirts or track suits.
I would have much preferred that he spoke about how he was going to coach them better.
He and the staff did look sharp in the tournament, though. No golf shirts or track suits.
My clock starts mid April 2022. By then we will have seen one more (reasonably normal) season and two more recruiting classes.
LateHit said:
I listened to almost every radio pre and post game this year. He throws "rebuild" into just about every segment. Eventually he is not going to be able to imply that he is fixing something somebody else broke.
I would have much preferred that he spoke about how he was going to coach them better.
He and the staff did look sharp in the tournament, though. No golf shirts or track suits.
When he talks about his coaching he says something like "I told them we need to finish the half the right way" in response to an end of the half collapse. Implying they just didn't listen to him or something.
SFCityBear said:Well, Jeff, If you had heard Fox's radio interview after the game, you would know that what you say is what he will try to do. He said the first order of business will be that the players must all go home to have a visit with their families, whom they have not seen for many months. Then they will return for the hard work that he says is the only way to rebuild a basketball team. He said the team did not have any opportunity to put in that hard work at all last year due to the shutdowns over the virus. That is barring more government shutdowns, and some opening up for sports (indoor high school basketball still not allowed, I believe). Fox has had to try to teach and coach this year on the fly, with few practices, and changing schedules, protocols, etc. It is the politicians and bureaucrats who ran the basketball program this year, not the coach. The team has not been able to use the Haas locker room all season, can't have meals together, and can't shower in Haas, as I understand it. In spite of all this, we have seen a little improvement in this team over the season. Some injuries have healed, some maybe too early to tell. I figure Fox has not had anywhere near two full seasons of coaching, which is barely enough time. In his first season, Fox brought in a large recruiting class out of necessity, and did not have a full summer to work with them and with the returning team members. This season was even worse circumstances.. So he has been here two years, and he and his players have not not yet had even one summer or off season, where he and his players could do the hard work to rebuild the mess left him by Wyking Jones, et al. I understand we are all impatient for results, but think how impatient Fox and the players are for success. I'm sure not wanting to put him on the clock, until I see his team perform after one or two off-seasons of hard work. Once they have done that, and they don't show great improvement, then, I'd say, "Off with his head."Jeff82 said:
He should be meeting with each player, and going over with them what they need to work on in the off season. IMHO, he should also encourage them to stay in the Bay Area if at all possible, to work out together, play in the summer league at Kezar, etc. If the issue was players getting stranded last year due to COVID, and not really being able to effectively work out (I'm thinking very much of K2 here), that should not be a significant issue this off-season. He's got to show player development for next year, if he's going to be successful, and warrant staying on as the Cal coach.
Why do you say he did not have a full Summer or Fall in 2019? He has had almost all of these players for two years. Cal played the most games this year in the PAC-12. We got worse over the course of the season, not better.
Looking forward to football season. This is a critical year for Wilcox. I have hope we can break into the top half of the league this year. I just don't see that happening with Fox, but would be happily surprised if it does.
SFCityBear said:Well, Jeff, If you had heard Fox's radio interview after the game, you would know that what you say is what he will try to do. He said the first order of business will be that the players must all go home to have a visit with their families, whom they have not seen for many months. Then they will return for the hard work that he says is the only way to rebuild a basketball team. He said the team did not have any opportunity to put in that hard work at all last year due to the shutdowns over the virus. That is barring more government shutdowns, and some opening up for sports (indoor high school basketball still not allowed, I believe). Fox has had to try to teach and coach this year on the fly, with few practices, and changing schedules, protocols, etc. It is the politicians and bureaucrats who ran the basketball program this year, not the coach. The team has not been able to use the Haas locker room all season, can't have meals together, and can't shower in Haas, as I understand it. In spite of all this, we have seen a little improvement in this team over the season. Some injuries have healed, some maybe too early to tell. I figure Fox has not had anywhere near two full seasons of coaching, which is barely enough time. In his first season, Fox brought in a large recruiting class out of necessity, and did not have a full summer to work with them and with the returning team members. This season was even worse circumstances.. So he has been here two years, and he and his players have not not yet had even one summer or off season, where he and his players could do the hard work to rebuild the mess left him by Wyking Jones, et al. I understand we are all impatient for results, but think how impatient Fox and the players are for success. I'm sure not wanting to put him on the clock, until I see his team perform after one or two off-seasons of hard work. Once they have done that, and they don't show great improvement, then, I'd say, "Off with his head."Jeff82 said:
He should be meeting with each player, and going over with them what they need to work on in the off season. IMHO, he should also encourage them to stay in the Bay Area if at all possible, to work out together, play in the summer league at Kezar, etc. If the issue was players getting stranded last year due to COVID, and not really being able to effectively work out (I'm thinking very much of K2 here), that should not be a significant issue this off-season. He's got to show player development for next year, if he's going to be successful, and warrant staying on as the Cal coach.
Great post, complete with paragraphing that would make Herman Melville proud!
calumnus said:
Why do you say he did not have a full Summer or Fall in 2019? He has had almost all of these players for two years. Cal played the most games this year in the PAC-12. We got worse over the course of the season, not better.
Looking forward to football season. This is a critical year for Wilcox. I have hope we can break into the top half of the league this year. I just don't see that happening with Fox, but would be happily surprised if it does.
It's not about the games. For this team, at this stage, it was all about the development. Kelly and GA needed to physically develop. Our sophomores have physical/athletic gifts, but are especially raw. What K2, Lars, Thorpe, and Brown needed above everything else was time playing the game, over and over and over, as much as possible. And that's precisely what COVID prevented this team from getting this year.
I think you're in a small minority if you really think this team was worse later in the season than it was early in the season.
We showed some inconsistency (normal in this sport) but I'd say we improved through the season. We did play tougher opposition as the season progressed (e.g. Colorado >> USF) and our opponents were also improving through their seasons so our record didn't look better late.
I must point our one anomaly in my logic: Our next-to-last opponent, Stanford, played much worse at the end. Could that be a negative coaching effect?
I must point our one anomaly in my logic: Our next-to-last opponent, Stanford, played much worse at the end. Could that be a negative coaching effect?
Statistics say otherwise.drizzlybear said:calumnus said:
Why do you say he did not have a full Summer or Fall in 2019? He has had almost all of these players for two years. Cal played the most games this year in the PAC-12. We got worse over the course of the season, not better.
Looking forward to football season. This is a critical year for Wilcox. I have hope we can break into the top half of the league this year. I just don't see that happening with Fox, but would be happily surprised if it does.
It's not about the games. For this team, at this stage, it was all about the development. Kelly and GA needed to physically develop. Our sophomores have physical/athletic gifts, but are especially raw. What K2, Lars, Thorpe, and Brown needed above everything else was time playing the game, over and over and over, as much as possible. And that's precisely what COVID prevented this team from getting this year.
I think you're in a small minority if you really think this team was worse later in the season than it was early in the season.
It may be true that they technically got better as almost every team does. They just got less better than everyone else.
with a season like we just had, the wheels could have come off the bus ... kinda like what happened to stanford ...stu said:
We showed some inconsistency (normal in this sport) but I'd say we improved through the season. We did play tougher opposition as the season progressed (e.g. Colorado >> USF) and our opponents were also improving through their seasons so our record didn't look better late.
I must point our one anomaly in my logic: Our next-to-last opponent, Stanford, played much worse at the end. Could that be a negative coaching effect?
HoopDreams said:with a season like we just had, the wheels could have come off the bus ... kinda like what happened to stanford ...stu said:
We showed some inconsistency (normal in this sport) but I'd say we improved through the season. We did play tougher opposition as the season progressed (e.g. Colorado >> USF) and our opponents were also improving through their seasons so our record didn't look better late.
I must point our one anomaly in my logic: Our next-to-last opponent, Stanford, played much worse at the end. Could that be a negative coaching effect?
Great point.
I say it because I think it is true. The best I can recollect is that Fox took the job in spring 2019, and ended up inheriting Bradley, Kelly, and Anticevich from Wyking's playing roster and those 3 players were on the roster this year as well. He retained JHD, Gordon, Orender, Erving, and Austin, all of whom are no longer on the roster, and he retained incoming recruits Brown and Thorpe, who are on the roster this year. Fox added South, Thiemann, Klonaras, Kuany, and Alters. My memory of 2019 was that Thiemann and Klonaras arrived later, in the Fall, due to their commitments to European teams. Kuany may have been around but my recollection was that he arrived hurt and unable to practice fully, or injured himself in the first few days of practice in the Fall. Gordon was often injured, not to mention JHD, who was ill or injured much of his career. Thorpe arrived after missing a season and I don't know how far along he was in his rehab. If they did practice, they may not have had enough players to scrimmage. I don't remember hearing any news of any Cal players practicing over the summer.calumnus said:SFCityBear said:Well, Jeff, If you had heard Fox's radio interview after the game, you would know that what you say is what he will try to do. He said the first order of business will be that the players must all go home to have a visit with their families, whom they have not seen for many months. Then they will return for the hard work that he says is the only way to rebuild a basketball team. He said the team did not have any opportunity to put in that hard work at all last year due to the shutdowns over the virus. That is barring more government shutdowns, and some opening up for sports (indoor high school basketball still not allowed, I believe). Fox has had to try to teach and coach this year on the fly, with few practices, and changing schedules, protocols, etc. It is the politicians and bureaucrats who ran the basketball program this year, not the coach. The team has not been able to use the Haas locker room all season, can't have meals together, and can't shower in Haas, as I understand it. In spite of all this, we have seen a little improvement in this team over the season. Some injuries have healed, some maybe too early to tell. I figure Fox has not had anywhere near two full seasons of coaching, which is barely enough time. In his first season, Fox brought in a large recruiting class out of necessity, and did not have a full summer to work with them and with the returning team members. This season was even worse circumstances.. So he has been here two years, and he and his players have not not yet had even one summer or off season, where he and his players could do the hard work to rebuild the mess left him by Wyking Jones, et al. I understand we are all impatient for results, but think how impatient Fox and the players are for success. I'm sure not wanting to put him on the clock, until I see his team perform after one or two off-seasons of hard work. Once they have done that, and they don't show great improvement, then, I'd say, "Off with his head."Jeff82 said:
He should be meeting with each player, and going over with them what they need to work on in the off season. IMHO, he should also encourage them to stay in the Bay Area if at all possible, to work out together, play in the summer league at Kezar, etc. If the issue was players getting stranded last year due to COVID, and not really being able to effectively work out (I'm thinking very much of K2 here), that should not be a significant issue this off-season. He's got to show player development for next year, if he's going to be successful, and warrant staying on as the Cal coach.
Why do you say he did not have a full Summer or Fall in 2019? He has had almost all of these players for two years. Cal played the most games this year in the PAC-12. We got worse over the course of the season, not better.
Looking forward to football season. This is a critical year for Wilcox. I have hope we can break into the top half of the league this year. I just don't see that happening with Fox, but would be happily surprised if it does.
I don't think it is true that Fox has had almost all these players for two years. He has had Bradley, GA, Kelly, Brown, Thorpe, Thiemann, Kuany, Klonaras, and Alters. He has added for this season, Betley, Foreman, Celestine, Hyder, Bowser, and Welle.
I also disagree when you say Cal got worse over the season. Did you miss the tournament games, or are you just making light of those games? It was great win over Stanford, a team which had beaten Cal easily two times. And it Cal put quite a scare into Colorado, having a three to tie the game kick out at the end. Cal shot poorly as I expected they would, but our defense held Colorado to very poor shooting as well, and we came this close to winning the game. Colorado is not chopped liver. They split 2 games with the PAC12 round robin champ, Oregon, and easily beat #2 USC twice during the season and again in the tournament. Colorado may just win this tournament.
If I can read the Bears' minds, I think they were probably downcast after so many losses in the PAC12 season. There was almost no will to win games in the last games of the regular season, where you are playing for nothing but pride, and maybe to move from a 12 seed to an 11 seed in the tournament. But once the tournament starts, as a player, you can see this as a new start to the season, a chance to redeem yourself. They were a different club in the tournament.
I wish you weren't such a defeatist about Fox. Why not let him play out his string at Cal, whatever that may be? He inherited a huge challenge, and things only got worse with the government shutdown of basketball. Fox can control only two things, recruiting, and the teaching of players to play the game. He has not had enough time to be judged on that. You and I can see what Fox has not been able to do yet, but is it enough to actually fire him? Especially since now it looks like the Cal defense may finally be coming around?
SFCityBear
I am with you on this timetable. If we had played poorly in the PAC12 tournament and he had lost the players, that would be a different story. But now we will need to see what his additions next year look like, and whether people like KK and Thorpe can develop further in a non-Covid year.stu said:
My clock starts mid April 2022. By then we will have seen one more (reasonably normal) season and two more recruiting classes.
I might add, and it's no knock on Fox, that I expect Bradley to grad transfer out if he has completed his Cal degree. If he has pro aspirations, it makes sense to pick up experience and exposure in one additional good program, while also picking up a useful grad degree.
This is why Cal can Cal.
The wheels almost did come off. Thankfully, the furd's fell off worse.HoopDreams said:with a season like we just had, the wheels could have come off the bus ... kinda like what happened to stanford ...stu said:
We showed some inconsistency (normal in this sport) but I'd say we improved through the season. We did play tougher opposition as the season progressed (e.g. Colorado >> USF) and our opponents were also improving through their seasons so our record didn't look better late.
I must point our one anomaly in my logic: Our next-to-last opponent, Stanford, played much worse at the end. Could that be a negative coaching effect?
This is absolutely something that somebody else broke. The question is whether Fox is going to be the one to fix it.LateHit said:
Eventually he is not going to be able to imply that he is fixing something somebody else broke.
Not to mention get a real chance of playing in the ncaa tourney. Let's face it there are many good academic schools out there. The chance for a student athlete to play in and experience that tourney is probably worth more than the incremental education advantage cal provides.
SFCityBear said:I say it because I think it is true. The best I can recollect is that Fox took the job in spring 2019, and ended up inheriting Bradley, Kelly, and Anticevich from Wyking's playing roster and those 3 players were on the roster this year as well. He retained JHD, Gordon, Orender, Erving, and Austin, all of whom are no longer on the roster, and he retained incoming recruits Brown and Thorpe, who are on the roster this year. Fox added South, Thiemann, Klonaras, Kuany, and Alters. My memory of 2019 was that Thiemann and Klonaras arrived later, in the Fall, due to their commitments to European teams. Kuany may have been around but my recollection was that he arrived hurt and unable to practice fully, or injured himself in the first few days of practice in the Fall. Gordon was often injured, not to mention JHD, who was ill or injured much of his career. Thorpe arrived after missing a season and I don't know how far along he was in his rehab. If they did practice, they may not have had enough players to scrimmage. I don't remember hearing any news of any Cal players practicing over the summer.calumnus said:SFCityBear said:Well, Jeff, If you had heard Fox's radio interview after the game, you would know that what you say is what he will try to do. He said the first order of business will be that the players must all go home to have a visit with their families, whom they have not seen for many months. Then they will return for the hard work that he says is the only way to rebuild a basketball team. He said the team did not have any opportunity to put in that hard work at all last year due to the shutdowns over the virus. That is barring more government shutdowns, and some opening up for sports (indoor high school basketball still not allowed, I believe). Fox has had to try to teach and coach this year on the fly, with few practices, and changing schedules, protocols, etc. It is the politicians and bureaucrats who ran the basketball program this year, not the coach. The team has not been able to use the Haas locker room all season, can't have meals together, and can't shower in Haas, as I understand it. In spite of all this, we have seen a little improvement in this team over the season. Some injuries have healed, some maybe too early to tell. I figure Fox has not had anywhere near two full seasons of coaching, which is barely enough time. In his first season, Fox brought in a large recruiting class out of necessity, and did not have a full summer to work with them and with the returning team members. This season was even worse circumstances.. So he has been here two years, and he and his players have not not yet had even one summer or off season, where he and his players could do the hard work to rebuild the mess left him by Wyking Jones, et al. I understand we are all impatient for results, but think how impatient Fox and the players are for success. I'm sure not wanting to put him on the clock, until I see his team perform after one or two off-seasons of hard work. Once they have done that, and they don't show great improvement, then, I'd say, "Off with his head."Jeff82 said:
He should be meeting with each player, and going over with them what they need to work on in the off season. IMHO, he should also encourage them to stay in the Bay Area if at all possible, to work out together, play in the summer league at Kezar, etc. If the issue was players getting stranded last year due to COVID, and not really being able to effectively work out (I'm thinking very much of K2 here), that should not be a significant issue this off-season. He's got to show player development for next year, if he's going to be successful, and warrant staying on as the Cal coach.
Why do you say he did not have a full Summer or Fall in 2019? He has had almost all of these players for two years. Cal played the most games this year in the PAC-12. We got worse over the course of the season, not better.
Looking forward to football season. This is a critical year for Wilcox. I have hope we can break into the top half of the league this year. I just don't see that happening with Fox, but would be happily surprised if it does.
I don't think it is true that Fox has had almost all these players for two years. He has had Bradley, GA, Kelly, Brown, Thorpe, Thiemann, Kuany, Klonaras, and Alters. He has added for this season, Betley, Foreman, Celestine, Hyder, Bowser, and Welle.
I also disagree when you say Cal got worse over the season. Did you miss the tournament games, or are you just making light of those games? It was great win over Stanford, a team which had beaten Cal easily two times. And it Cal put quite a scare into Colorado, having a three to tie the game kick out at the end. Cal shot poorly as I expected they would, but our defense held Colorado to very poor shooting as well, and we came this close to winning the game. Colorado is not chopped liver. They split 2 games with the PAC12 round robin champ, Oregon, and easily beat #2 USC twice during the season and again in the tournament. Colorado may just win this tournament.
If I can read the Bears' minds, I think they were probably downcast after so many losses in the PAC12 season. There was almost no will to win games in the last games of the regular season, where you are playing for nothing but pride, and maybe to move from a 12 seed to an 11 seed in the tournament. But once the tournament starts, as a player, you can see this as a new start to the season, a chance to redeem yourself. They were a different club in the tournament.
I wish you weren't such a defeatist about Fox. Why not let him play out his string at Cal, whatever that may be? He inherited a huge challenge, and things only got worse with the government shutdown of basketball. Fox can control only two things, recruiting, and the teaching of players to play the game. He has not had enough time to be judged on that. You and I can see what Fox has not been able to do yet, but is it enough to actually fire him? Especially since now it looks like the Cal defense may finally be coming around?
Fox was hired in March two years ago. The core starters of this team: Bradley, GA and Kelly were here. With one exception all of the newcomers that year were enrolled on July 1 in time for Summer Bridge and summer practices. That included Lars. Klonaras was the one who didn't join the team until August due to his European team commitment. So Bradley, Kelly, GA, Brown, Lars, Thorpe, Kuany (and Welles and Alters since you include them) were all here for the full summer in 2019 with Klonaras joining in August. That is "most" of the team.
The three transfers and two freshmen who came in this year obviously weren't here two years ago, but that is true for the freshmen and transfers on every single team in college basketball.
As far as "got worse" I was mostly referring to the regular season. We had a record number of PAC-12 losses. Wyking had a better record his second year in conference than Fox did in his and we fired him. Losing by 31 to WSU and then double digits to UW? We were getting worse. Statistically, we got worse. Moreover i did not see changes over the season in our coaching strategy. We still tried to force the ball into Lars, we did not work to get shots for Grant, we gave Betley major minutes and let him fire away and our offense came down to Bradley playing hero ball.
We did rally this week. The PAC -12 Tournament win over Stanford (again) was fun because beating Stanford is always fun. We were competitive with Colorado. Both those teams played poorly but I'll grant that our defense may have had something to do with that. Our players did not play that well, but they played hard. I do not think Haase is a good coach, I would not want him at Cal, but I do think he is a better coach than Fox.
My opinion of Fox was formed watching his Georgia teams. Listening to his interviews. I thought Georgia made the right decision in firing him. There was no interest from other programs for a reason. Nothing he has said or done at Cal has changed my opinion. I truly think he not a good coach at this level and is a worse fit for Cal than he was for Georgia. I do not care for his leadership style or style of play and think it is a hindrance to recruiting. If I had known we would hire Fox I would have even been with you in arguing for Wyking to get more time. And I really thought he had to go. At least we would have saved $millions.
Similarly, given the additional $millions it would cost, I am not for firing Fox now unless we are certain Knowlton would hire someone better. We are probably going to have him for at least another year, probably two even if he keeps us at this level. And yes, it is possible he will succeed wildly beyond my expectations. Players may make huge leaps in development. It is possible. I just don't see it. In matters of business I try to deal with reality, facts and logic, not hopes and wishes. In discussing him as our highly paid coach I am just stating my opinion based on the evidence I have seen. Others are free to offer their opinions, that is what these boards are all about. I know sometimes the difference between explaining why a coach has not been successful and making excuses for him is difficult to discern.
BearSD said:This is absolutely something that somebody else broke. The question is whether Fox is going to be the one to fix it.LateHit said:
Eventually he is not going to be able to imply that he is fixing something somebody else broke.
I know there are people here who will argue they would have left anyway, and others who will just insult them, but Vanover, Sueing and McNeil would be major upgrades over the guys that replaced them. At best, Fox's initial speech and obvious attitude did nothing to retain them. The guys that stayed, especially Bradley, Kelly and GA have been the strength of the team with no obvious replacements when they leave.
Patrick Ewing, juwan Howard, penny........jason Kidd.
Just saying
Just saying
ducky23 said:
Patrick Ewing, juwan Howard, penny........jason Kidd.
Just saying
Gates, Legans, DeCuire, Kidd.....are the guys with some connection to Cal and seem like good candidates.
calumnus said:ducky23 said:
Patrick Ewing, juwan Howard, penny........jason Kidd.
Just saying
Gates, Legans, DeCuire, Kidd.....are the guys with some connection to Cal and seem like good candidates.
Not sure you understood the point of my post
ducky23 said:calumnus said:ducky23 said:
Patrick Ewing, juwan Howard, penny........jason Kidd.
Just saying
Gates, Legans, DeCuire, Kidd.....are the guys with some connection to Cal and seem like good candidates.
Not sure you understood the point of my post
Big name ex-NBA players have been very successful as college coaches, especially at their alma maters, and so it follows that Jason Kidd could be a great HC for Cal.
Close?
Patrick Ewing has not proven to be a good coach at Georgetown, regardless of this year's Big East Conference Tournament title.
He's 62-58 overall, and was under .500 this season (10-12) before he won three straight in the BE tourney to end the year. He was an 8th seed, so good for him winning the conference title, but it's his first trip to the NCAA's in 4 years, and you'd have to say he pulled off a miracle to do it at the BE tourney this year.
I doubt he'll last another two years if his regular season percentage doesn't change by then.
He's 62-58 overall, and was under .500 this season (10-12) before he won three straight in the BE tourney to end the year. He was an 8th seed, so good for him winning the conference title, but it's his first trip to the NCAA's in 4 years, and you'd have to say he pulled off a miracle to do it at the BE tourney this year.
I doubt he'll last another two years if his regular season percentage doesn't change by then.
I did not appreciate the way you chose to characterize what I was saying about Wyking Jones. If you will remember, not that you should, I was one of the first to criticize Cal for hiring Wyking Jones. I felt he had no experience, but even worse were his first press conferences Upon taking over, he promptly outlined his strategy for success would be a full court press which would lead to lots of fast breaks and easy buckets. then after a couple of games, he announced that Don Coleman would be "our go-to guy on offense". The press failed because we didn't have the personnel (or quickness) for it, and Coleman failed, because he was, well, Coleman, crazy-wild recklless and inconsistent. Maybe he failed because Wyking put him in that position.calumnus said:SFCityBear said:I say it because I think it is true. The best I can recollect is that Fox took the job in spring 2019, and ended up inheriting Bradley, Kelly, and Anticevich from Wyking's playing roster and those 3 players were on the roster this year as well. He retained JHD, Gordon, Orender, Erving, and Austin, all of whom are no longer on the roster, and he retained incoming recruits Brown and Thorpe, who are on the roster this year. Fox added South, Thiemann, Klonaras, Kuany, and Alters. My memory of 2019 was that Thiemann and Klonaras arrived later, in the Fall, due to their commitments to European teams. Kuany may have been around but my recollection was that he arrived hurt and unable to practice fully, or injured himself in the first few days of practice in the Fall. Gordon was often injured, not to mention JHD, who was ill or injured much of his career. Thorpe arrived after missing a season and I don't know how far along he was in his rehab. If they did practice, they may not have had enough players to scrimmage. I don't remember hearing any news of any Cal players practicing over the summer.calumnus said:SFCityBear said:Well, Jeff, If you had heard Fox's radio interview after the game, you would know that what you say is what he will try to do. He said the first order of business will be that the players must all go home to have a visit with their families, whom they have not seen for many months. Then they will return for the hard work that he says is the only way to rebuild a basketball team. He said the team did not have any opportunity to put in that hard work at all last year due to the shutdowns over the virus. That is barring more government shutdowns, and some opening up for sports (indoor high school basketball still not allowed, I believe). Fox has had to try to teach and coach this year on the fly, with few practices, and changing schedules, protocols, etc. It is the politicians and bureaucrats who ran the basketball program this year, not the coach. The team has not been able to use the Haas locker room all season, can't have meals together, and can't shower in Haas, as I understand it. In spite of all this, we have seen a little improvement in this team over the season. Some injuries have healed, some maybe too early to tell. I figure Fox has not had anywhere near two full seasons of coaching, which is barely enough time. In his first season, Fox brought in a large recruiting class out of necessity, and did not have a full summer to work with them and with the returning team members. This season was even worse circumstances.. So he has been here two years, and he and his players have not not yet had even one summer or off season, where he and his players could do the hard work to rebuild the mess left him by Wyking Jones, et al. I understand we are all impatient for results, but think how impatient Fox and the players are for success. I'm sure not wanting to put him on the clock, until I see his team perform after one or two off-seasons of hard work. Once they have done that, and they don't show great improvement, then, I'd say, "Off with his head."Jeff82 said:
He should be meeting with each player, and going over with them what they need to work on in the off season. IMHO, he should also encourage them to stay in the Bay Area if at all possible, to work out together, play in the summer league at Kezar, etc. If the issue was players getting stranded last year due to COVID, and not really being able to effectively work out (I'm thinking very much of K2 here), that should not be a significant issue this off-season. He's got to show player development for next year, if he's going to be successful, and warrant staying on as the Cal coach.
Why do you say he did not have a full Summer or Fall in 2019? He has had almost all of these players for two years. Cal played the most games this year in the PAC-12. We got worse over the course of the season, not better.
Looking forward to football season. This is a critical year for Wilcox. I have hope we can break into the top half of the league this year. I just don't see that happening with Fox, but would be happily surprised if it does.
I don't think it is true that Fox has had almost all these players for two years. He has had Bradley, GA, Kelly, Brown, Thorpe, Thiemann, Kuany, Klonaras, and Alters. He has added for this season, Betley, Foreman, Celestine, Hyder, Bowser, and Welle.
I also disagree when you say Cal got worse over the season. Did you miss the tournament games, or are you just making light of those games? It was great win over Stanford, a team which had beaten Cal easily two times. And it Cal put quite a scare into Colorado, having a three to tie the game kick out at the end. Cal shot poorly as I expected they would, but our defense held Colorado to very poor shooting as well, and we came this close to winning the game. Colorado is not chopped liver. They split 2 games with the PAC12 round robin champ, Oregon, and easily beat #2 USC twice during the season and again in the tournament. Colorado may just win this tournament.
If I can read the Bears' minds, I think they were probably downcast after so many losses in the PAC12 season. There was almost no will to win games in the last games of the regular season, where you are playing for nothing but pride, and maybe to move from a 12 seed to an 11 seed in the tournament. But once the tournament starts, as a player, you can see this as a new start to the season, a chance to redeem yourself. They were a different club in the tournament.
I wish you weren't such a defeatist about Fox. Why not let him play out his string at Cal, whatever that may be? He inherited a huge challenge, and things only got worse with the government shutdown of basketball. Fox can control only two things, recruiting, and the teaching of players to play the game. He has not had enough time to be judged on that. You and I can see what Fox has not been able to do yet, but is it enough to actually fire him? Especially since now it looks like the Cal defense may finally be coming around?
Fox was hired in March two years ago. The core starters of this team: Bradley, GA and Kelly were here. With one exception all of the newcomers that year were enrolled on July 1 in time for Summer Bridge and summer practices. That included Lars. Klonaras was the one who didn't join the team until August due to his European team commitment. So Bradley, Kelly, GA, Brown, Lars, Thorpe, Kuany (and Welles and Alters since you include them) were all here for the full summer in 2019 with Klonaras joining in August. That is "most" of the team.
The three transfers and two freshmen who came in this year obviously weren't here two years ago, but that is true for the freshmen and transfers on every single team in college basketball.
As far as "got worse" I was mostly referring to the regular season. We had a record number of PAC-12 losses. Wyking had a better record his second year in conference than Fox did in his and we fired him. Losing by 31 to WSU and then double digits to UW? We were getting worse. Statistically, we got worse. Moreover i did not see changes over the season in our coaching strategy. We still tried to force the ball into Lars, we did not work to get shots for Grant, we gave Betley major minutes and let him fire away and our offense came down to Bradley playing hero ball.
We did rally this week. The PAC -12 Tournament win over Stanford (again) was fun because beating Stanford is always fun. We were competitive with Colorado. Both those teams played poorly but I'll grant that our defense may have had something to do with that. Our players did not play that well, but they played hard. I do not think Haase is a good coach, I would not want him at Cal, but I do think he is a better coach than Fox.
My opinion of Fox was formed watching his Georgia teams. Listening to his interviews. I thought Georgia made the right decision in firing him. There was no interest from other programs for a reason. Nothing he has said or done at Cal has changed my opinion. I truly think he not a good coach at this level and is a worse fit for Cal than he was for Georgia. I do not care for his leadership style or style of play and think it is a hindrance to recruiting. If I had known we would hire Fox I would have even been with you in arguing for Wyking to get more time. And I really thought he had to go. At least we would have saved $millions.
Similarly, given the additional $millions it would cost, I am not for firing Fox now unless we are certain Knowlton would hire someone better. We are probably going to have him for at least another year, probably two even if he keeps us at this level. And yes, it is possible he will succeed wildly beyond my expectations. Players may make huge leaps in development. It is possible. I just don't see it. In matters of business I try to deal with reality, facts and logic, not hopes and wishes. In discussing him as our highly paid coach I am just stating my opinion based on the evidence I have seen. Others are free to offer their opinions, that is what these boards are all about. I know sometimes the difference between explaining why a coach has not been successful and making excuses for him is difficult to discern.
I criticized that team steadily during and after that season. I did argue for more time for Wyking during each season because I don't like it when a coach gets fired during a season. I think coaches should be fired after the season is over. You say you have done business, and in business you are concerned with facts. If you have done business, then you are familiar with ethics and usual business practices and form. I think the only acceptable reasons for firing a coach mid-season should be criminal or moral offenses, not because a coach is incompetent as a coach in teaching players to improve, preparing for games, tactics in games or winning games. Things like assaulting a player, sexual harassment, paying recruits under the table, stuff like that. You and I both grew up in an era where many coaches verbally abused players, and I for one, have no problem with that. But Wyking (and Fox) have done none of those things, as far as I know.
I also think firing a coach mid-season is bad form, because it disrupts the team, creates chaos, and just leaves a void that is hard to fill for the remaining games. It sends a bad signal to future recruits, that there is chaos and uncertainty should they decide to come to Cal. We have a reputation to uphold, and Cal demands a lot of its athletes, in sports and in academics, and if we add chaos and uncertainty to their load, I think that is asking a lot of them.
Because there was so much negative feeling among the fans here on the board, I tried to make the case that Wyking not be fired during the season, and I feel the same way about Fox. For a while now, you in particular never seem to miss an opportunity to bash this coach. I know you want him fired. I haven't seen a lot to like about Fox, and I can understand the calls to fire him. That is fine with me, as long as you get this done before the next season starts, to be fair to this fan and to the players and recruits who might be thinking of coming here. If the off-season passes, and Fox is still here in the Fall, I'd like to enjoy the team as much as I can next season without having to live through a fifth season of so many calls to fire the coach. They are not yet very watchable, but I like to have my hopes that they will become more so.
SFCityBear
SFCityBear said:I did not appreciate the way you chose to characterize what I was saying about Wyking Jones. If you will remember, not that you should, I was one of the first to criticize Cal for hiring Wyking Jones. I felt he had no experience, but even worse were his first press conferences Upon taking over, he promptly outlined his strategy for success would be a full court press which would lead to lots of fast breaks and easy buckets. then after a couple of games, he announced that Don Coleman would be "our go-to guy on offense". The press failed because we didn't have the personnel (or quickness) for it, and Coleman failed, because he was, well, Coleman, crazy-wild recklless and inconsistent. Maybe he failed because Wyking put him in that position.calumnus said:SFCityBear said:I say it because I think it is true. The best I can recollect is that Fox took the job in spring 2019, and ended up inheriting Bradley, Kelly, and Anticevich from Wyking's playing roster and those 3 players were on the roster this year as well. He retained JHD, Gordon, Orender, Erving, and Austin, all of whom are no longer on the roster, and he retained incoming recruits Brown and Thorpe, who are on the roster this year. Fox added South, Thiemann, Klonaras, Kuany, and Alters. My memory of 2019 was that Thiemann and Klonaras arrived later, in the Fall, due to their commitments to European teams. Kuany may have been around but my recollection was that he arrived hurt and unable to practice fully, or injured himself in the first few days of practice in the Fall. Gordon was often injured, not to mention JHD, who was ill or injured much of his career. Thorpe arrived after missing a season and I don't know how far along he was in his rehab. If they did practice, they may not have had enough players to scrimmage. I don't remember hearing any news of any Cal players practicing over the summer.calumnus said:SFCityBear said:Well, Jeff, If you had heard Fox's radio interview after the game, you would know that what you say is what he will try to do. He said the first order of business will be that the players must all go home to have a visit with their families, whom they have not seen for many months. Then they will return for the hard work that he says is the only way to rebuild a basketball team. He said the team did not have any opportunity to put in that hard work at all last year due to the shutdowns over the virus. That is barring more government shutdowns, and some opening up for sports (indoor high school basketball still not allowed, I believe). Fox has had to try to teach and coach this year on the fly, with few practices, and changing schedules, protocols, etc. It is the politicians and bureaucrats who ran the basketball program this year, not the coach. The team has not been able to use the Haas locker room all season, can't have meals together, and can't shower in Haas, as I understand it. In spite of all this, we have seen a little improvement in this team over the season. Some injuries have healed, some maybe too early to tell. I figure Fox has not had anywhere near two full seasons of coaching, which is barely enough time. In his first season, Fox brought in a large recruiting class out of necessity, and did not have a full summer to work with them and with the returning team members. This season was even worse circumstances.. So he has been here two years, and he and his players have not not yet had even one summer or off season, where he and his players could do the hard work to rebuild the mess left him by Wyking Jones, et al. I understand we are all impatient for results, but think how impatient Fox and the players are for success. I'm sure not wanting to put him on the clock, until I see his team perform after one or two off-seasons of hard work. Once they have done that, and they don't show great improvement, then, I'd say, "Off with his head."Jeff82 said:
He should be meeting with each player, and going over with them what they need to work on in the off season. IMHO, he should also encourage them to stay in the Bay Area if at all possible, to work out together, play in the summer league at Kezar, etc. If the issue was players getting stranded last year due to COVID, and not really being able to effectively work out (I'm thinking very much of K2 here), that should not be a significant issue this off-season. He's got to show player development for next year, if he's going to be successful, and warrant staying on as the Cal coach.
Why do you say he did not have a full Summer or Fall in 2019? He has had almost all of these players for two years. Cal played the most games this year in the PAC-12. We got worse over the course of the season, not better.
Looking forward to football season. This is a critical year for Wilcox. I have hope we can break into the top half of the league this year. I just don't see that happening with Fox, but would be happily surprised if it does.
I don't think it is true that Fox has had almost all these players for two years. He has had Bradley, GA, Kelly, Brown, Thorpe, Thiemann, Kuany, Klonaras, and Alters. He has added for this season, Betley, Foreman, Celestine, Hyder, Bowser, and Welle.
I also disagree when you say Cal got worse over the season. Did you miss the tournament games, or are you just making light of those games? It was great win over Stanford, a team which had beaten Cal easily two times. And it Cal put quite a scare into Colorado, having a three to tie the game kick out at the end. Cal shot poorly as I expected they would, but our defense held Colorado to very poor shooting as well, and we came this close to winning the game. Colorado is not chopped liver. They split 2 games with the PAC12 round robin champ, Oregon, and easily beat #2 USC twice during the season and again in the tournament. Colorado may just win this tournament.
If I can read the Bears' minds, I think they were probably downcast after so many losses in the PAC12 season. There was almost no will to win games in the last games of the regular season, where you are playing for nothing but pride, and maybe to move from a 12 seed to an 11 seed in the tournament. But once the tournament starts, as a player, you can see this as a new start to the season, a chance to redeem yourself. They were a different club in the tournament.
I wish you weren't such a defeatist about Fox. Why not let him play out his string at Cal, whatever that may be? He inherited a huge challenge, and things only got worse with the government shutdown of basketball. Fox can control only two things, recruiting, and the teaching of players to play the game. He has not had enough time to be judged on that. You and I can see what Fox has not been able to do yet, but is it enough to actually fire him? Especially since now it looks like the Cal defense may finally be coming around?
Fox was hired in March two years ago. The core starters of this team: Bradley, GA and Kelly were here. With one exception all of the newcomers that year were enrolled on July 1 in time for Summer Bridge and summer practices. That included Lars. Klonaras was the one who didn't join the team until August due to his European team commitment. So Bradley, Kelly, GA, Brown, Lars, Thorpe, Kuany (and Welles and Alters since you include them) were all here for the full summer in 2019 with Klonaras joining in August. That is "most" of the team.
The three transfers and two freshmen who came in this year obviously weren't here two years ago, but that is true for the freshmen and transfers on every single team in college basketball.
As far as "got worse" I was mostly referring to the regular season. We had a record number of PAC-12 losses. Wyking had a better record his second year in conference than Fox did in his and we fired him. Losing by 31 to WSU and then double digits to UW? We were getting worse. Statistically, we got worse. Moreover i did not see changes over the season in our coaching strategy. We still tried to force the ball into Lars, we did not work to get shots for Grant, we gave Betley major minutes and let him fire away and our offense came down to Bradley playing hero ball.
We did rally this week. The PAC -12 Tournament win over Stanford (again) was fun because beating Stanford is always fun. We were competitive with Colorado. Both those teams played poorly but I'll grant that our defense may have had something to do with that. Our players did not play that well, but they played hard. I do not think Haase is a good coach, I would not want him at Cal, but I do think he is a better coach than Fox.
My opinion of Fox was formed watching his Georgia teams. Listening to his interviews. I thought Georgia made the right decision in firing him. There was no interest from other programs for a reason. Nothing he has said or done at Cal has changed my opinion. I truly think he not a good coach at this level and is a worse fit for Cal than he was for Georgia. I do not care for his leadership style or style of play and think it is a hindrance to recruiting. If I had known we would hire Fox I would have even been with you in arguing for Wyking to get more time. And I really thought he had to go. At least we would have saved $millions.
Similarly, given the additional $millions it would cost, I am not for firing Fox now unless we are certain Knowlton would hire someone better. We are probably going to have him for at least another year, probably two even if he keeps us at this level. And yes, it is possible he will succeed wildly beyond my expectations. Players may make huge leaps in development. It is possible. I just don't see it. In matters of business I try to deal with reality, facts and logic, not hopes and wishes. In discussing him as our highly paid coach I am just stating my opinion based on the evidence I have seen. Others are free to offer their opinions, that is what these boards are all about. I know sometimes the difference between explaining why a coach has not been successful and making excuses for him is difficult to discern.
I criticized that team steadily during and after that season. I did argue for more time for Wyking during each season because I don't like it when a coach gets fired during a season. I think coaches should be fired after the season is over. You say you have done business, and in business you are concerned with facts. If you have done business, then you are familiar with ethics and usual business practices and form. I think the only acceptable reasons for firing a coach mid-season should be criminal or moral offenses, not because a coach is incompetent as a coach in teaching players to improve, preparing for games, tactics in games or winning games. Things like assaulting a player, sexual harassment, paying recruits under the table, stuff like that. You and I both grew up in an era where many coaches verbally abused players, and I for one, have no problem with that. But Wyking (and Fox) have done none of those things, as far as I know.
I also think firing a coach mid-season is bad form, because it disrupts the team, creates chaos, and just leaves a void that is hard to fill for the remaining games. It sends a bad signal to future recruits, that there is chaos and uncertainty should they decide to come to Cal. We have a reputation to uphold, and Cal demands a lot of its athletes, in sports and in academics, and if we add chaos and uncertainty to their load, I think that is asking a lot of them.
Because there was so much negative feeling among the fans here on the board, I tried to make the case that Wyking not be fired during the season, and I feel the same way about Fox. For a while now, you in particular never seem to miss an opportunity to bash this coach. I know you want him fired. I haven't seen a lot to like about Fox, and I can understand the calls to fire him. That is fine with me, as long as you get this done before the next season starts, to be fair to this fan and to the players and recruits who might be thinking of coming here. If the off-season passes, and Fox is still here in the Fall, I'd like to enjoy the team as much as I can next season without having to live through a fifth season of so many calls to fire the coach. They are not yet very watchable, but I like to have my hopes that they will become more so.
My recollection was that you defended Jones even after the season, just like you are defending Fox now. If that was not the case I apologize.
It was immaterial to my point. If I had known we would hire Fox, I would have been for giving Jones more time. Most of Jones' mistakes were from inexperience. It was possible he could grow substantially as a coach. I thought he had good upside potential. I was for moving on because he should be doing that learning at a lower level and not on our dime. If Fox was going to figure it out and become a top coach he would have already done so at Georgia.
You make an interesting point. Watching Oregon State switching to a zone after they were getting abused playing man to man made me think How pissed I was when Fox refused to make this change against multiple teams. We have no one that can defend the post yet he insists on man to man. The coaching has not been stellar. But maybe not worse than watching a lost soul like Wyking Jones who really had no clue.calumnus said:SFCityBear said:I did not appreciate the way you chose to characterize what I was saying about Wyking Jones. If you will remember, not that you should, I was one of the first to criticize Cal for hiring Wyking Jones. I felt he had no experience, but even worse were his first press conferences Upon taking over, he promptly outlined his strategy for success would be a full court press which would lead to lots of fast breaks and easy buckets. then after a couple of games, he announced that Don Coleman would be "our go-to guy on offense". The press failed because we didn't have the personnel (or quickness) for it, and Coleman failed, because he was, well, Coleman, crazy-wild recklless and inconsistent. Maybe he failed because Wyking put him in that position.calumnus said:SFCityBear said:I say it because I think it is true. The best I can recollect is that Fox took the job in spring 2019, and ended up inheriting Bradley, Kelly, and Anticevich from Wyking's playing roster and those 3 players were on the roster this year as well. He retained JHD, Gordon, Orender, Erving, and Austin, all of whom are no longer on the roster, and he retained incoming recruits Brown and Thorpe, who are on the roster this year. Fox added South, Thiemann, Klonaras, Kuany, and Alters. My memory of 2019 was that Thiemann and Klonaras arrived later, in the Fall, due to their commitments to European teams. Kuany may have been around but my recollection was that he arrived hurt and unable to practice fully, or injured himself in the first few days of practice in the Fall. Gordon was often injured, not to mention JHD, who was ill or injured much of his career. Thorpe arrived after missing a season and I don't know how far along he was in his rehab. If they did practice, they may not have had enough players to scrimmage. I don't remember hearing any news of any Cal players practicing over the summer.calumnus said:SFCityBear said:Well, Jeff, If you had heard Fox's radio interview after the game, you would know that what you say is what he will try to do. He said the first order of business will be that the players must all go home to have a visit with their families, whom they have not seen for many months. Then they will return for the hard work that he says is the only way to rebuild a basketball team. He said the team did not have any opportunity to put in that hard work at all last year due to the shutdowns over the virus. That is barring more government shutdowns, and some opening up for sports (indoor high school basketball still not allowed, I believe). Fox has had to try to teach and coach this year on the fly, with few practices, and changing schedules, protocols, etc. It is the politicians and bureaucrats who ran the basketball program this year, not the coach. The team has not been able to use the Haas locker room all season, can't have meals together, and can't shower in Haas, as I understand it. In spite of all this, we have seen a little improvement in this team over the season. Some injuries have healed, some maybe too early to tell. I figure Fox has not had anywhere near two full seasons of coaching, which is barely enough time. In his first season, Fox brought in a large recruiting class out of necessity, and did not have a full summer to work with them and with the returning team members. This season was even worse circumstances.. So he has been here two years, and he and his players have not not yet had even one summer or off season, where he and his players could do the hard work to rebuild the mess left him by Wyking Jones, et al. I understand we are all impatient for results, but think how impatient Fox and the players are for success. I'm sure not wanting to put him on the clock, until I see his team perform after one or two off-seasons of hard work. Once they have done that, and they don't show great improvement, then, I'd say, "Off with his head."Jeff82 said:
He should be meeting with each player, and going over with them what they need to work on in the off season. IMHO, he should also encourage them to stay in the Bay Area if at all possible, to work out together, play in the summer league at Kezar, etc. If the issue was players getting stranded last year due to COVID, and not really being able to effectively work out (I'm thinking very much of K2 here), that should not be a significant issue this off-season. He's got to show player development for next year, if he's going to be successful, and warrant staying on as the Cal coach.
Why do you say he did not have a full Summer or Fall in 2019? He has had almost all of these players for two years. Cal played the most games this year in the PAC-12. We got worse over the course of the season, not better.
Looking forward to football season. This is a critical year for Wilcox. I have hope we can break into the top half of the league this year. I just don't see that happening with Fox, but would be happily surprised if it does.
I don't think it is true that Fox has had almost all these players for two years. He has had Bradley, GA, Kelly, Brown, Thorpe, Thiemann, Kuany, Klonaras, and Alters. He has added for this season, Betley, Foreman, Celestine, Hyder, Bowser, and Welle.
I also disagree when you say Cal got worse over the season. Did you miss the tournament games, or are you just making light of those games? It was great win over Stanford, a team which had beaten Cal easily two times. And it Cal put quite a scare into Colorado, having a three to tie the game kick out at the end. Cal shot poorly as I expected they would, but our defense held Colorado to very poor shooting as well, and we came this close to winning the game. Colorado is not chopped liver. They split 2 games with the PAC12 round robin champ, Oregon, and easily beat #2 USC twice during the season and again in the tournament. Colorado may just win this tournament.
If I can read the Bears' minds, I think they were probably downcast after so many losses in the PAC12 season. There was almost no will to win games in the last games of the regular season, where you are playing for nothing but pride, and maybe to move from a 12 seed to an 11 seed in the tournament. But once the tournament starts, as a player, you can see this as a new start to the season, a chance to redeem yourself. They were a different club in the tournament.
I wish you weren't such a defeatist about Fox. Why not let him play out his string at Cal, whatever that may be? He inherited a huge challenge, and things only got worse with the government shutdown of basketball. Fox can control only two things, recruiting, and the teaching of players to play the game. He has not had enough time to be judged on that. You and I can see what Fox has not been able to do yet, but is it enough to actually fire him? Especially since now it looks like the Cal defense may finally be coming around?
Fox was hired in March two years ago. The core starters of this team: Bradley, GA and Kelly were here. With one exception all of the newcomers that year were enrolled on July 1 in time for Summer Bridge and summer practices. That included Lars. Klonaras was the one who didn't join the team until August due to his European team commitment. So Bradley, Kelly, GA, Brown, Lars, Thorpe, Kuany (and Welles and Alters since you include them) were all here for the full summer in 2019 with Klonaras joining in August. That is "most" of the team.
The three transfers and two freshmen who came in this year obviously weren't here two years ago, but that is true for the freshmen and transfers on every single team in college basketball.
As far as "got worse" I was mostly referring to the regular season. We had a record number of PAC-12 losses. Wyking had a better record his second year in conference than Fox did in his and we fired him. Losing by 31 to WSU and then double digits to UW? We were getting worse. Statistically, we got worse. Moreover i did not see changes over the season in our coaching strategy. We still tried to force the ball into Lars, we did not work to get shots for Grant, we gave Betley major minutes and let him fire away and our offense came down to Bradley playing hero ball.
We did rally this week. The PAC -12 Tournament win over Stanford (again) was fun because beating Stanford is always fun. We were competitive with Colorado. Both those teams played poorly but I'll grant that our defense may have had something to do with that. Our players did not play that well, but they played hard. I do not think Haase is a good coach, I would not want him at Cal, but I do think he is a better coach than Fox.
My opinion of Fox was formed watching his Georgia teams. Listening to his interviews. I thought Georgia made the right decision in firing him. There was no interest from other programs for a reason. Nothing he has said or done at Cal has changed my opinion. I truly think he not a good coach at this level and is a worse fit for Cal than he was for Georgia. I do not care for his leadership style or style of play and think it is a hindrance to recruiting. If I had known we would hire Fox I would have even been with you in arguing for Wyking to get more time. And I really thought he had to go. At least we would have saved $millions.
Similarly, given the additional $millions it would cost, I am not for firing Fox now unless we are certain Knowlton would hire someone better. We are probably going to have him for at least another year, probably two even if he keeps us at this level. And yes, it is possible he will succeed wildly beyond my expectations. Players may make huge leaps in development. It is possible. I just don't see it. In matters of business I try to deal with reality, facts and logic, not hopes and wishes. In discussing him as our highly paid coach I am just stating my opinion based on the evidence I have seen. Others are free to offer their opinions, that is what these boards are all about. I know sometimes the difference between explaining why a coach has not been successful and making excuses for him is difficult to discern.
I criticized that team steadily during and after that season. I did argue for more time for Wyking during each season because I don't like it when a coach gets fired during a season. I think coaches should be fired after the season is over. You say you have done business, and in business you are concerned with facts. If you have done business, then you are familiar with ethics and usual business practices and form. I think the only acceptable reasons for firing a coach mid-season should be criminal or moral offenses, not because a coach is incompetent as a coach in teaching players to improve, preparing for games, tactics in games or winning games. Things like assaulting a player, sexual harassment, paying recruits under the table, stuff like that. You and I both grew up in an era where many coaches verbally abused players, and I for one, have no problem with that. But Wyking (and Fox) have done none of those things, as far as I know.
I also think firing a coach mid-season is bad form, because it disrupts the team, creates chaos, and just leaves a void that is hard to fill for the remaining games. It sends a bad signal to future recruits, that there is chaos and uncertainty should they decide to come to Cal. We have a reputation to uphold, and Cal demands a lot of its athletes, in sports and in academics, and if we add chaos and uncertainty to their load, I think that is asking a lot of them.
Because there was so much negative feeling among the fans here on the board, I tried to make the case that Wyking not be fired during the season, and I feel the same way about Fox. For a while now, you in particular never seem to miss an opportunity to bash this coach. I know you want him fired. I haven't seen a lot to like about Fox, and I can understand the calls to fire him. That is fine with me, as long as you get this done before the next season starts, to be fair to this fan and to the players and recruits who might be thinking of coming here. If the off-season passes, and Fox is still here in the Fall, I'd like to enjoy the team as much as I can next season without having to live through a fifth season of so many calls to fire the coach. They are not yet very watchable, but I like to have my hopes that they will become more so.
My recollection was that you defended Jones even after the season, just like you are defending Fox now. If that was not the case I apologize.
It was immaterial to my point. If I had known we would hire Fox, I would have been for giving Jones more time.
Go Bears!
I too thought we should have played more zone, at least as a change uposkidunker said:You make an interesting point. Watching Oregon State switching to a zone after they were getting abused playing man to man made me think How pissed I was when Fox refused to make this change against multiple teams. We have no one that can defend the post yet he insists on man to man. The coaching has not been stellar. But maybe not worse than watching a lost soul like Wyking Jones who really had no clue.calumnus said:My recollection was that you defended Jones even after the season, just like you are defending Fox now. If that was not the case I apologize.SFCityBear said:I did not appreciate the way you chose to characterize what I was saying about Wyking Jones. If you will remember, not that you should, I was one of the first to criticize Cal for hiring Wyking Jones. I felt he had no experience, but even worse were his first press conferences Upon taking over, he promptly outlined his strategy for success would be a full court press which would lead to lots of fast breaks and easy buckets. then after a couple of games, he announced that Don Coleman would be "our go-to guy on offense". The press failed because we didn't have the personnel (or quickness) for it, and Coleman failed, because he was, well, Coleman, crazy-wild recklless and inconsistent. Maybe he failed because Wyking put him in that position.calumnus said:SFCityBear said:I say it because I think it is true. The best I can recollect is that Fox took the job in spring 2019, and ended up inheriting Bradley, Kelly, and Anticevich from Wyking's playing roster and those 3 players were on the roster this year as well. He retained JHD, Gordon, Orender, Erving, and Austin, all of whom are no longer on the roster, and he retained incoming recruits Brown and Thorpe, who are on the roster this year. Fox added South, Thiemann, Klonaras, Kuany, and Alters. My memory of 2019 was that Thiemann and Klonaras arrived later, in the Fall, due to their commitments to European teams. Kuany may have been around but my recollection was that he arrived hurt and unable to practice fully, or injured himself in the first few days of practice in the Fall. Gordon was often injured, not to mention JHD, who was ill or injured much of his career. Thorpe arrived after missing a season and I don't know how far along he was in his rehab. If they did practice, they may not have had enough players to scrimmage. I don't remember hearing any news of any Cal players practicing over the summer.calumnus said:SFCityBear said:Well, Jeff, If you had heard Fox's radio interview after the game, you would know that what you say is what he will try to do. He said the first order of business will be that the players must all go home to have a visit with their families, whom they have not seen for many months. Then they will return for the hard work that he says is the only way to rebuild a basketball team. He said the team did not have any opportunity to put in that hard work at all last year due to the shutdowns over the virus. That is barring more government shutdowns, and some opening up for sports (indoor high school basketball still not allowed, I believe). Fox has had to try to teach and coach this year on the fly, with few practices, and changing schedules, protocols, etc. It is the politicians and bureaucrats who ran the basketball program this year, not the coach. The team has not been able to use the Haas locker room all season, can't have meals together, and can't shower in Haas, as I understand it. In spite of all this, we have seen a little improvement in this team over the season. Some injuries have healed, some maybe too early to tell. I figure Fox has not had anywhere near two full seasons of coaching, which is barely enough time. In his first season, Fox brought in a large recruiting class out of necessity, and did not have a full summer to work with them and with the returning team members. This season was even worse circumstances.. So he has been here two years, and he and his players have not not yet had even one summer or off season, where he and his players could do the hard work to rebuild the mess left him by Wyking Jones, et al. I understand we are all impatient for results, but think how impatient Fox and the players are for success. I'm sure not wanting to put him on the clock, until I see his team perform after one or two off-seasons of hard work. Once they have done that, and they don't show great improvement, then, I'd say, "Off with his head."Jeff82 said:
He should be meeting with each player, and going over with them what they need to work on in the off season. IMHO, he should also encourage them to stay in the Bay Area if at all possible, to work out together, play in the summer league at Kezar, etc. If the issue was players getting stranded last year due to COVID, and not really being able to effectively work out (I'm thinking very much of K2 here), that should not be a significant issue this off-season. He's got to show player development for next year, if he's going to be successful, and warrant staying on as the Cal coach.
Why do you say he did not have a full Summer or Fall in 2019? He has had almost all of these players for two years. Cal played the most games this year in the PAC-12. We got worse over the course of the season, not better.
Looking forward to football season. This is a critical year for Wilcox. I have hope we can break into the top half of the league this year. I just don't see that happening with Fox, but would be happily surprised if it does.
I don't think it is true that Fox has had almost all these players for two years. He has had Bradley, GA, Kelly, Brown, Thorpe, Thiemann, Kuany, Klonaras, and Alters. He has added for this season, Betley, Foreman, Celestine, Hyder, Bowser, and Welle.
I also disagree when you say Cal got worse over the season. Did you miss the tournament games, or are you just making light of those games? It was great win over Stanford, a team which had beaten Cal easily two times. And it Cal put quite a scare into Colorado, having a three to tie the game kick out at the end. Cal shot poorly as I expected they would, but our defense held Colorado to very poor shooting as well, and we came this close to winning the game. Colorado is not chopped liver. They split 2 games with the PAC12 round robin champ, Oregon, and easily beat #2 USC twice during the season and again in the tournament. Colorado may just win this tournament.
If I can read the Bears' minds, I think they were probably downcast after so many losses in the PAC12 season. There was almost no will to win games in the last games of the regular season, where you are playing for nothing but pride, and maybe to move from a 12 seed to an 11 seed in the tournament. But once the tournament starts, as a player, you can see this as a new start to the season, a chance to redeem yourself. They were a different club in the tournament.
I wish you weren't such a defeatist about Fox. Why not let him play out his string at Cal, whatever that may be? He inherited a huge challenge, and things only got worse with the government shutdown of basketball. Fox can control only two things, recruiting, and the teaching of players to play the game. He has not had enough time to be judged on that. You and I can see what Fox has not been able to do yet, but is it enough to actually fire him? Especially since now it looks like the Cal defense may finally be coming around?
Fox was hired in March two years ago. The core starters of this team: Bradley, GA and Kelly were here. With one exception all of the newcomers that year were enrolled on July 1 in time for Summer Bridge and summer practices. That included Lars. Klonaras was the one who didn't join the team until August due to his European team commitment. So Bradley, Kelly, GA, Brown, Lars, Thorpe, Kuany (and Welles and Alters since you include them) were all here for the full summer in 2019 with Klonaras joining in August. That is "most" of the team.
The three transfers and two freshmen who came in this year obviously weren't here two years ago, but that is true for the freshmen and transfers on every single team in college basketball.
As far as "got worse" I was mostly referring to the regular season. We had a record number of PAC-12 losses. Wyking had a better record his second year in conference than Fox did in his and we fired him. Losing by 31 to WSU and then double digits to UW? We were getting worse. Statistically, we got worse. Moreover i did not see changes over the season in our coaching strategy. We still tried to force the ball into Lars, we did not work to get shots for Grant, we gave Betley major minutes and let him fire away and our offense came down to Bradley playing hero ball.
We did rally this week. The PAC -12 Tournament win over Stanford (again) was fun because beating Stanford is always fun. We were competitive with Colorado. Both those teams played poorly but I'll grant that our defense may have had something to do with that. Our players did not play that well, but they played hard. I do not think Haase is a good coach, I would not want him at Cal, but I do think he is a better coach than Fox.
My opinion of Fox was formed watching his Georgia teams. Listening to his interviews. I thought Georgia made the right decision in firing him. There was no interest from other programs for a reason. Nothing he has said or done at Cal has changed my opinion. I truly think he not a good coach at this level and is a worse fit for Cal than he was for Georgia. I do not care for his leadership style or style of play and think it is a hindrance to recruiting. If I had known we would hire Fox I would have even been with you in arguing for Wyking to get more time. And I really thought he had to go. At least we would have saved $millions.
Similarly, given the additional $millions it would cost, I am not for firing Fox now unless we are certain Knowlton would hire someone better. We are probably going to have him for at least another year, probably two even if he keeps us at this level. And yes, it is possible he will succeed wildly beyond my expectations. Players may make huge leaps in development. It is possible. I just don't see it. In matters of business I try to deal with reality, facts and logic, not hopes and wishes. In discussing him as our highly paid coach I am just stating my opinion based on the evidence I have seen. Others are free to offer their opinions, that is what these boards are all about. I know sometimes the difference between explaining why a coach has not been successful and making excuses for him is difficult to discern.
I criticized that team steadily during and after that season. I did argue for more time for Wyking during each season because I don't like it when a coach gets fired during a season. I think coaches should be fired after the season is over. You say you have done business, and in business you are concerned with facts. If you have done business, then you are familiar with ethics and usual business practices and form. I think the only acceptable reasons for firing a coach mid-season should be criminal or moral offenses, not because a coach is incompetent as a coach in teaching players to improve, preparing for games, tactics in games or winning games. Things like assaulting a player, sexual harassment, paying recruits under the table, stuff like that. You and I both grew up in an era where many coaches verbally abused players, and I for one, have no problem with that. But Wyking (and Fox) have done none of those things, as far as I know.
I also think firing a coach mid-season is bad form, because it disrupts the team, creates chaos, and just leaves a void that is hard to fill for the remaining games. It sends a bad signal to future recruits, that there is chaos and uncertainty should they decide to come to Cal. We have a reputation to uphold, and Cal demands a lot of its athletes, in sports and in academics, and if we add chaos and uncertainty to their load, I think that is asking a lot of them.
Because there was so much negative feeling among the fans here on the board, I tried to make the case that Wyking not be fired during the season, and I feel the same way about Fox. For a while now, you in particular never seem to miss an opportunity to bash this coach. I know you want him fired. I haven't seen a lot to like about Fox, and I can understand the calls to fire him. That is fine with me, as long as you get this done before the next season starts, to be fair to this fan and to the players and recruits who might be thinking of coming here. If the off-season passes, and Fox is still here in the Fall, I'd like to enjoy the team as much as I can next season without having to live through a fifth season of so many calls to fire the coach. They are not yet very watchable, but I like to have my hopes that they will become more so.
It was immaterial to my point. If I had known we would hire Fox, I would have been for giving Jones more time.
Stanford Jonah said:
Sigh.
Cal fans have such low expectations. At any other university, fans would be demanding he be gone already.
Cal fans quickly start making excuses for the millionaire getting our money, blaming ourselves and imagining that Oregon State has recruiting advantages over us.
Fox was a horrible hire done with a horrible process all laid bare in the press. Other than the fact that many Cal fans do not yet think Fox was a bad hire, the issues with replacing Fox as with replacing Jones: 1) Financial, do we have the money to buy him out? and 2) who is going to hire the next guy/what is the process/who do we hire? Because if it is Knowlton and a search firm looking for someone he relates to.....why bother?
Perhaps more to the point: Can Cal attract a proven commodity? The program has a very modest pedigree, barely adequate facility and is unlikely to offer big $. In my lifetime (going back to Nibs Price) the only established major college coaches we've hired have been Newell, Montgomery, Martin and Fox, if you concede he qualifies on the basis of his resume. We've had better success with guys from mid-major programs (Campanelli, Braun) than major level assistants (Herrerias, Kuchen, Jones). Bozeman looked like a find until his scandal brought him down. The likelihood is that within a year or 2 we'll be back in the market and sifting among bright young assistants, mid-major risers and recycled mediocrities all over again.calumnus said:Stanford Jonah said:
Sigh.
Cal fans have such low expectations. At any other university, fans would be demanding he be gone already.
Cal fans quickly start making excuses for the millionaire getting our money, blaming ourselves and imagining that Oregon State has recruiting advantages over us.
Fox was a horrible hire done with a horrible process all laid bare in the press. Other than the fact that many Cal fans do not yet think Fox was a bad hire, the issues with replacing Fox as with replacing Jones: 1) Financial, do we have the money to buy him out? and 2) who is going to hire the next guy/what is the process/who do we hire? Because if it is Knowlton and a search firm looking for someone he relates to.....why bother?
As always, the question is this: If you fire the coach, can you hire someone better?
If not, it's pointless, confusing activity with achievement.
If you are sure you have a better candidate available, then the other questions come into play: Can you afford the process financially? How will it affect current players and recruits? What do the big donors think?
For me, step one is identifying the coach you want, and I certainly don't know enough to pick one out. And from the discussions I've seen on this board, I'm not sure anyone does.
If not, it's pointless, confusing activity with achievement.
If you are sure you have a better candidate available, then the other questions come into play: Can you afford the process financially? How will it affect current players and recruits? What do the big donors think?
For me, step one is identifying the coach you want, and I certainly don't know enough to pick one out. And from the discussions I've seen on this board, I'm not sure anyone does.
Featured Stories
See All
From the Other Sideline: Cal vs SMU Preview
by Jim McGill
Cal Football Weekly Tuesday Presser
by Jim McGill
Mendoza Named ACC Quarterback Of The Week
by Cal Athletics
Bears Slip By Sac State, 83-77
by Jim McGill