drizzlybear said:

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calumnus said:

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drizzlybear said:

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CalLifer said:

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BigDaddy said:

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For the people who say "Fox needs more time" etc., curious as to what you see TODAY that tells you he's the coach to turn things around. He has a two decade body of work... a short 3 year window at Nevada where his success came with an inherited roster. He did nothing at Georgia.

In 16 seasons at Nevada/Georgia/Cal, Mark Fox has 5 NCAA appearances. He has 2 NCAA wins in 16 years. His last tournament win was 2007.

So what Is it? Is Fox an outstanding game coach? An elite recruiter? Would love to hear what you're seeing or hearing that gives you any sort of optimism that he has Cal trending in the right direction.

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I would also add one more question to those who advocate for Fox needing more time: what is your eventual expectation/goal for the level that Cal will hit with Fox? Is the level that you think Fox will take us to making the tournament 1 out of every 2 years? 4? As BigDaddy states above, Fox's level across Nevada and Georgia (let's not include Cal for now) is 5 appearances across 14 seasons. If you ignore the first three seasons at Nevada (3 of those 5 tournament appearances), his last 11 seasons before coming to Cal had 2 NCAA tournament appearances. Is either of those (1 tourney appearance every 3 or 5 seasons) what you envision when you think Fox needs more time? And if your expectations for Fox/Cal are higher than that, what is it in his 14 year D-1 coaching career prior to Cal that leads you to believe that he can achieve that?

Maybe the disconnect is that the expectations for the "Fox needs/deserves more time" crowd is that Cal should be be targeting 1 tournament appearance every 3-5 years and not more.

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I honestly think Cal should be going to the tournament more often than not. And almost always at least the nit. I see it almost like qualifying for a bowl game in that a .500 conference record should pretty much get you in. That's my expectation. But I'm also of the "Rome wasn't built in a day" theory, wrt where we are right now.

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I think you have to do more than just allow for "more time" close your eyes and hope. You need to look at what is happening and determine if it is positive and will bring good results with more time or if it is negative and will bring even worse results with more time.

If a car is starting to roll down hill toward a cliff just giving it more time is not the answer. If there is a grease fire In your kitchen ignoring it and hoping things get better with more time is not the answer.

The longer we wait, the worse the situation the next coach will inherit. The more we will erode fan interest in Cal basketball. Fortunately this is basketball, and unlike an entire city it can be turned around in one (signing) day with the right coach. However waiting is only going to make it harder. I dont see it happening this year though it should.

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Of course you don't close your eyes and hope. This is what i mean about absurd attacks on anyone who feels the jury is still out. I'm sorry you can't fathom anyone who hasn't yet reached the conclusion that Fox should be fired after in his second season after one year of significant improvement and one year, a COVID year no less, of regression.

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1. I am not attacking you, I am addressing your argument. I completely respect you, that is why I want to persuade you, We are having a discussion about an employee of ours that we are paying $millions of dollars of our money to to manage our team. I am only asking you to look at all the evidence and give evidence to support your position.

2. This is not his 2nd year as a coach, learning his craft. Did you watch his Georgia teams and think, I want that guy as our coach? His last NCAA win was 14 years ago. You act like he is Wyking Jones, just starting out. What was your opinion about Jones by the way? Did you think he should have been given more time? Because honestly, I think you could make a better case for Wyking being given more time.

3.. Again, what is he doing in player retention, recruiting, player development, motivation or game day strategy that you find compelling? How do you see us winning more games than not in conference next year? What is your best guess of how we finish next year? My best guess is 11th or 12th. We are battling UW for which formerly good program can be worst. We were one of the lowest scoring teams in the country and now have lost our main scorer. How do you think we score points and win games next year? Where does the scoring come from?

4. As I keep saying, the best argument I see for retaining him and giving him another year and hoping for the best is that we simply cannot afford to fire him. Plus I am not sanguine on Knowlton hiring his replacement. I do believe people in their 50s can still learn, people can change and grow. Or they can get lucky. Maybe one of the incoming players is actually a future NBA superstar? But the jury is still out? I think it is more like the jury has rendered its verdict, but he has been granted an appeal. If he has a great season next year I will be shocked but very happy. It would be very happy to be wrong.

Your post accused me of closing my eyes and hoping, and of not being willing to address a burning house. I view those as unfair attacks, and not a serious consideration of my position. I gave a very lengthy response to another poster's (BigDaddyBear?) request for my view in the matter. If you're really interested in understanding and discussing my view on the matter, take a look at that post and let me know if you still have questions or want to have a respectful debate on any of the points therein.

drizzlybear said:

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OaktownBear said:

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BigDaddy said:

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For the people who say "Fox needs more time" etc., curious as to what you see TODAY that tells you he's the coach to turn things around. He has a two decade body of work... a short 3 year window at Nevada where his success came with an inherited roster. He did nothing at Georgia.

In 16 seasons at Nevada/Georgia/Cal, Mark Fox has 5 NCAA appearances. He has 2 NCAA wins in 16 years. His last tournament win was 2007.

So what Is it? Is Fox an outstanding game coach? An elite recruiter? Would love to hear what you're seeing or hearing that gives you any sort of optimism that he has Cal trending in the right direction.

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They absolutely refuse to answer direct questions like this. I have asked multiple time for people to state what an acceptable outcome is to them and what they think the chances are he gets there. They won't respond because they know these are their options

1. Say they are okay with consistent 6-7 win seasons in conference because that is the only result remotely likely. This option makes them look like total losers who accept worse than mediocrity and they know it.

2. Say they want consistent winning seasons in conference and that he has some reasonable percentage chance like 50% to accomplish that. They won't say that because they can't say it without blushing because they know how far out of reality it would make them look

Or

3. State that acceptable is winning seasons in conference and that he has less than 5% chance of making that happen, but golly gee, he deserves a chance because, well, we are Cal and that is what we do! Just wait until next year when a majority argue for an extension because everyone knows when you are down to 2 years left on the contract you have to extend or the 8-10 ranked recruiting classes might slip to 10-12..

The answer is number 3, but that answer lays bare a much more fundamental issue with our program, so they don't want to say it. They will just say he is not going to be fired so we should just support him and not speak up for change. Some of these people were saying the same thing a week before Dykes got fired. And, while I like Fox more personally and how he carries himself, Dykes was a substantially better coach and anyone who knows my posting history on Dykes knows I'm saying a lot with that comment

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I don't know what "they" you're referring to or pretending to speak for, but I have NEVER declined to respond to a question. If anything I feel I respond to too much, especially on Easter Sunday.

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1. What is an acceptable result in year 3 given where Fox started? Year 4? Year 5? I'll say give a specific conference record that would be acceptable. Note that I didn't say what is an acceptable result given where we are now - no downgrading for interim performance issues. In other words, a reasonably lofty result given where we are now may be 6 conference wins next year, but that should not have been viewed as reasonable when he started if we wanted to improve this program.

2. What are your estimates of the chances we achieve any of those results.

3. What is the ultimate goal? How long is it reasonable to wait until we get there? What are the chances of that happening.

I have had no success getting anyone to answer these questions in a direct manner. So for anyone who supports Fox, not just you, I am providing this form. Fill in the blanks.

I think a reasonable result in year 3 is to win __ games in conference. I think we have a __% chance of doing that under Fox. I think a reasonable result in year 4 is to win __ games in conference. I think we have a __% chance of doing that under Fox. I think a reasonable result in year 5 is to win __ games in conference. I think we have a __% chance of doing that under Fox.

Ultimately I think a reasonable goal for Cal is to go to the tournament __ out of __ years. I think we should finish top 4 in conference __ out of __years. I think we should finish bottom 4 in conference no more than __ out of __ years. I expect any coach to reach that plateau in __ years.


And for optional extra credit.

Recruiting classes that rank __ in conference indicate we have a good shot of getting there. Fox has __% chance of pulling in that class on a regular basis. Recruiting classes that rank __ in conference indicate it is possible if not a great chance we will get there. Fox has __% chance of pulling in that class. If our recruiting classes do not reach that level I have to acknowledge that it is very unlikely we will ever reach the goals I have outlined.

puget sound cal fan said:

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Knowlton needs to be building the buy-out fund, as well as the amount needed to create a men's hoops budget for a top tier HC and staff. What is Fox's buy-out number?

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Fox makes, what, 1.5 million? Has three years left on his contract. I THOUGHT I read somewhere here that he would get full value for Year Three, but only 50% value for Year Four and 25% value for Year Five. If true, that would be quite a favorable buy-out for us: In my experience, these coaches usually get full value on their contract, unless fired for cause. Exception being when they negotiate a cash payout at the time of firing.

In many cases, I wouldn't be surprised if there is some renegotiation of the buy-out at the time of separation. The employer probably threatens an attempt to terminate for cause, which would potentially harm the employee's reputation and thus future earning capacity. Then the employee settles for a somewhat reduced buy-out, in exchange for having only good things said about him.

Cal basketball is in a pretty tough situation right now, financially. Wyking Jones would be in Year Five of his contract next season. Fox in Year Three. We might want to "invest" more in a better coach (or at least to lure one). And then there is the desire to build a dedicated practice facility.


Looming over everything is the question of if Knowlton would be able to hire a better coach this time around, after sort of blowing the last one.

https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/10798904/howard-athletes-surrender-constitutional-rights-other-students-keep

https://www.si.com/college/cal/basketball/ryan-betley-has-not-decided

drizzlybear said:

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Your post accused me of closing my eyes and hoping, and of not being willing to address a burning house. I view those as unfair attacks, and not a serious consideration of my position. I gave a very lengthy response to another poster's (BigDaddyBear?) request for my view in the matter. If you're really interested in understanding and discussing my view on the matter, take a look at that post and let me know if you still have questions or want to have a respectful debate on any of the points therein.

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Look, I DO appreciate you responding in depth to BigDaddyBear, but this is why he characterized it as closing your eyes and hoping. You didn't answer BigDaddy's question. His question was "what do you see today that tells you he is the man to turn things around?" It was not "why aren't you ready to fire him?" This is a very important distinction to those of us on my side. We hear a lot of "these are the reasons why I'm not positive he is going to fail". We hear virtually nothing saying "Here are the reasons he is awesome and is going to put this program on track". We see the other side as approaching this like a criminal court case. We must get 12 out of 12 jurors to find a coach guilty of sucking beyond a reasonable doubt before we can fire the coach. We don't think that is the standard. The standard is, is this guy the one that will turn my program around. We hear a lot of reasons not to fire him. We hear virtually no one saying anything beyond give him a chance. We hear no one pointing to his record or attributes and saying "this is why he is the man to do it". Honestly, you probably did the most in the above post and if you break it down you did very little.

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First, I place some basic level of faith or benefit of the doubt in the people Cal has in place to make the hire in the first place. I understand that lots of people here do not have such faith in the individual nor the process used to hire Fox. I don't have that level of knowledge, so I start by assuming some basic level of competency at Cal.

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See that IS closing your eyes specifically and generally. Specifically, all evidence points to the fact that Cal does not deserve that faith. I'm not even going to bother presenting evidence of that. So giving them that is eye closing.

Generally, I agree with your humility. But while you might not be better than they are, you can look at what people in the same position do and make a judgment. I will tell you that if Cal has to choose between me and Tom Holmoe to coach football, they should hire Tom Holmoe. But I will also tell you that I can easily tell that will be a disaster.

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Given that assumption, I assume there were good reasons for hiring him.

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Since the underlying assumption was eye closing, the follow up assumption is eye closing. Further, Knowlton was very explicit in his reasons for hiring Fox. There is no reason to assume anything beyond that. You should judge that, not assume he had good reasons. If you think his reasons were sound, fine. If you just assume there had to be sound reasons, that is eye closing.

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I don't know enough about the situation to substitute my opinion for those with the responsibility and handsome pay to make those decisions.

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But you do know enough to judge those paid handsomely against others paid handsomely.

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At its most superficial level I see a guy who has had a good amount of experience as a high level college basketball coach, with mixed results of some success and some mediocrity. Mediocre prior results alone don't dictate my view as to what he might bring at this time. (If it did, then the Yankees should never have hired Joe Torre, the A's never hired Tony LaRussa, nor USC hired Pete Carroll, and Wayne a tinkle would've been long gone from Corvallis before he's now become a darling.) I am open to the possibility that people sometimes learn and improve from prior experiences. So I don't dismiss the hire out of hand from the outset, as it appears many do, and maybe including you.

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See, this is directly my point above. There is a difference between saying just because he has been mediocre doesn't mean he will continue to be mediocre and saying this is why he is going to be good. I disagree with your premise. Most mediocre coaches stay mediocre. If you want to hire a good coach, you hire a good coach. You don't hire a mediocre coach and hope he becomes a good one. And if you think one can learn, you don't hire a coach whose conference record has gotten worse 4 years in a row. That is not indicating improvement. But, I'm digressing. The point is that this is not an argument that he is the man for the job. It is an argument that it is possible that he is not not the man for the job.

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This also raises the point that Cal was not in a strong position to attract a coach in high demand.

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Except we know of candidates that were interested.

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It might be the case that Cal's objective was not to select the coach who would get us to the promised land, but rather a coach who would get us out of the burning dumpster and into a place of competitive stability where we could maybe then attract the coach who could get us to the promised land.

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Then Cal lied to us. I can only take what they say at face value:

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Mark Fox is a man of unparalleled integrity with a proven record of success as a head basketball coach," athletic director Jim Knowlton said. "He is an inspiring leader, a teacher and an exceptional communicator who has displayed a strong commitment to developing the entire student-athlete on the court and off the court. We had an exceptional pool of candidates, and through the entire process, one person clearly rose to the top. I am excited to welcome Mark to the Cal family and look forward to him leading Cal men's basketball program to new heights. We want our teams to be exceptional, and I firmly believe that Mark is the person to lead us there

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I also was impressed with the work and experience Fox got in the year prior to coaching Cal. I think he was doing some sort of national team thing that had him on staff with Jeff Van Gundy whom I REALLY like, and others. I heard Fox was bringing into Cal practices well-respected coaches like Van Gundy and Mike Montgomery, etc. This seemed good.

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Hey - THIS was a positive reason. Thank you. It is an extremely weak one. But thank you. Lots of coaches do this sort of thing, especially when they are fired. As an aside, Van Gundy is an okay coach but nothing to write home about. On top of that, Tom Holmoe worked more with Bill Walsh, a much better coach than Van Gundy, and fat lot that demonstrated.

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Then, in Year 1, I thought Fox did a decent job with a super young and depleted roster.

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Positive again, if very faint.

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Anyway, back to Year 1, I thought the floor was raised pretty quickly despite a far less talented roster. And, IIRC, the team generally improved later in the season. So that reflected well on Fox's coaching

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Positive. Very faint, but positive. Note, I did not argue that he should be fired after last year. I don't view it as positive but as a passing grade.

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It's worth noting that none other than Jon Wilner (not known for being a Cal homer) voted Fox Pac12 Coach of the Year. And I believe that wasn't the only COY vote Fox received but can't verify

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Wilner is an idiot. I have no idea if he got any other votes, but you or I can judge results as well as the next. There is no way a coach with that record should get any COY votes. That is more of an indictment on the Cal program than it is a positive.

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I do recall Fox receiving significant praise from the analysts on Pac12net.

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I heard Monty give glowing praise to Braun on television the year he got fired. Almost every telecast gives both coaches praise.

These are not positives. These are other people's opinions

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Meanwhile, the recruiting seemed so-so, but of course recruiting is usually a longer-term deal, and in any case, Cal was not in a strong position to attract top talent. So, as with Wilcox, I was/am patient on the recruiting issue. Fwiw, I'm encouraged by some of the recruits Fox has brought in so far. They seem to have the long-term potential akin to the players Mike Montgomery brought in.

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Not a positive. So so is optimistic. Monty's classes were clearly rated higher.

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That brings us to this year. My impression of this year is that Cal was awful for the first third or more of the season. It was disappointing. I had hoped for Wilcox-like improvement; not meteoric, but steady. But then I thought the team played consistently decent basketball relative to its talent level over the last half of the season.

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We radically disagree on this point. That is fine. We have discussed it. This is a positive, but I just don't see how you can claim it is a big one.

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To me, not only am I patient enough to suffer a blip of a bad season for whatever reason, but I thought that this team was hit especially hard by covid and it seemed to make sense to what I felt I was seeing. Specifically, what this Cal team needed above anything else during the offseason was time on the court playing together. This team was young and what it needed above anything else, especially players like Brown, Kuany, and Lars who have great physical gifts but whose skills are very raw, was time on the court together. And that's precisely what COVID prevented. So, to me, not only do i have the patience to give a coach a bad year (and maybe even a second one if there should be another), I felt there's actually some reasonable explanation for this particular bad year. The fact that the team, IMO, improved relative to its competition over the course of the season again supported the theory that COVID impacts were particularly difficult for this team early in the season.

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Please stop. The 6 main players this year were 2 juniors, 1 senior, 2 graduates and a sophomore. They are not young or inexperienced. Yes, Covid interfered with practice in November.They have had virtually no interference since then. I'd estimate they had 80-100 days playing and practicing together with minimal Covid interference. This just sounds like a catch all excuse, but it isn't.

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Unfortunately, on this board if you don't support firing the coach yesterday you are depicted as having no critical thinking and no standards for the coaching performance. That's not the case with me. For me, the jury is still out. Of course I'll support the coach as a fan, but I don't mind criticisms. What I do tend to respond to are posts that appear to me to be cheap or unreasonable shots. Unfortunately there's been a lot of those. But that gets misunderstood as an inability or unwillingness to have or state my own criticisms of the coach. In the face of relentless and high-shrill criticisms throughout this season, there hasn't been much space allowed for more nuanced discussion, unfortunately.

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So what do you characterize as a cheap or unreasonable shot? Because I don't see a lot here. I see people arguing his performance is not good enough. I see people arguing he should be fired. If that is cheap and unreasonable, I'm sorry, what am I supposed to do? It feels like just shut up.

Again, I do appreciate you answering, but even so, I'm sorry, some of it sounds like saying things to say things. His recruiting is not "so-so". You want to say it is too early, fine, but it isn't on par with Monty. That is just incorrect so it doesn't seem like you actually critically thought about that. Working with someone like Van Gundy when you are out of work is not special. That doesn't seem like something that was critically thought about. Blaming Covid 3-4 months after it was an issue does not seem like something that was critically thought of. Having "faith" is by definition not critical thought.

But at least you are presenting something I can respond to. I can't respond to "You have to support the team", "If you don't have the money to pay the buy out, shut up". "He isn't getting fired now so what is the point?" "He deserves a chance". These are not arguments. There is nothing there I can respond to.

I have to go back to the unreasonable shot point. Because that is a key one for me. I have been on here for over 20 years. I've been on the fire the coach side and on the support the coach side. But one thing is consistent is that some on the support the coach side always treats the fire the coach side like petulant babies who always want to fire the coach and think there is some nobility in being on the support side. There are some fans that do just vent on the coach, but there are plenty that don't. Frankly, we have mostly purged the "fire the bum" crowd through apathy. I see a lot of detailed arguments and facts coming from the fire side right now and I see a lot of very loose arguments coming from other side. I have not taken cheap shots at Fox at all. I've said he was the wrong guy for this job. I have even said I would consider him for a mid major job.

OaktownBear said:

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... I have had no success getting anyone to answer these questions in a direct manner. So for anyone who supports Fox, not just you, I am providing this form. Fill in the blanks.

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Thanks for this - I think it's a great way to organize the discussion. Partial response:

I think a reasonable result in year 3 is to win 8 games in conference. I think we have a 20% - 50% chance of doing that under Fox.

I think a reasonable result in year 4 is to win 10 games in conference. I think we have a 5% - 35% chance of doing that under Fox.

I think a reasonable result in year 5 is to win 12 games in conference. I think we have a 1% - 25% chance of doing that under Fox.

My estimates of chances vary widely as time passes because less is known and each estimate depends on the previous season's outcome.

Ultimately I think a reasonable goal for Cal is to go to the tournament 1 out of 2 years. I think we should finish top 4 in conference 1 out of 2 years. I think we should finish bottom 4 in conference no more than 1 out of 10 years. I expect any coach to reach that plateau in 5 years (after the Martin-to Jones train wreck). I can't expect Montgomery results but I think we could come close.

BigDaddy said:

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OaktownBear said:

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Mark Fox is a man of unparalleled integrity with a proven record of success as a head basketball coach," athletic director Jim Knowlton said. "He is an inspiring leader, a teacher and an exceptional communicator who has displayed a strong commitment to developing the entire student-athlete on the court and off the court. We had an exceptional pool of candidates, and through the entire process, one person clearly rose to the top. I am excited to welcome Mark to the Cal family and look forward to him leading Cal men's basketball program to new heights. We want our teams to be exceptional, and I firmly believe that Mark is the person to lead us there

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Is there anything you have seen from this coach... player development, coaching, recruiting etc... that you anyone could consider exceptional?!

To be fair I thought that there were GLIMMERS at the end of last season. That is, in part, why this is not a no brainer (for me at least). Then COVID and it makes sense why a "coach em up" group like this would be at a disadvantage compared to players that can rely upon raw basketball skills.

Since FOx is here next year (and the year after?) I think we are really going to have a chance to see if he has these teaching skills. Does Brown turn into a Pac-12 level Point guard? What about rim protection? Does Kelly and Grant take their game to the kind of level were you can imagine them starting or getting mintues on one of the better teams in the league.

If you have followed me you know I think Fox needs to go and isn't a fit. But I think it isn't fair to knock Fox for player development when we saw evidence of that in the second half of year 1.

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Stanford Jonah said:

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puget sound cal fan said:

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Knowlton needs to be building the buy-out fund, as well as the amount needed to create a men's hoops budget for a top tier HC and staff. What is Fox's buy-out number?

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Who in their right mind would give Knowlton money to spend? If I was a donor I'd tell Cal that I'll start giving them money again when I can trust them not to waste it on the wrong people.

No point in giving Cal any money for coaching buyouts until they get a good athletic director.

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Aren't there some deep pocketed Pasternack supporters?

At this point, I'm willing to get over "The Kick". Let's get Joey P. If those big donors pay for it.

stu said:

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BigDaddy said:

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Is there anything you have seen from this coach... player development, coaching, recruiting etc... that you anyone could consider exceptional?!

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Well, losing 6 of the 8 players recruited by the previous coach is at least unusual.

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I count 8 out of 13
Left:
Sueing
McNeil
Vanover
JHD
Gordon
Davis
Bradley
Smith

Stayed:
Kelly
Austin
Anticevich
Thorpe
Brown

It looks like Kelly, Thorpe and Brown will be the Wyking recruits left next year. They should probably be 3 of our starting five.

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I count 8 out of 13
Left:
Sueing
McNeil
Vanover
JHD
Gordon
Davis
Bradley
Smith

Stayed:
Kelly
Austin
Anticevich
Thorpe
Brown

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I wasn't counting Brown, Smith, and Thorpe since they had signed LOIs but not played when Fox was hired. I don't mind including them but then we should count Austin as a Martin recruit. Davis was certainly a Martin recruit, he came in with Brown and Rabb.

Even 8 out of 13 is over 60%. I suppose that's not unprecedented but I wouldn't call it a good sign.

OaktownBear said:

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drizzlybear said:

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Your post accused me of closing my eyes and hoping, and of not being willing to address a burning house. I view those as unfair attacks, and not a serious consideration of my position. I gave a very lengthy response to another poster's (BigDaddyBear?) request for my view in the matter. If you're really interested in understanding and discussing my view on the matter, take a look at that post and let me know if you still have questions or want to have a respectful debate on any of the points therein.

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Look, I DO appreciate you responding in depth to BigDaddyBear, but this is why he characterized it as closing your eyes and hoping. You didn't answer BigDaddy's question. His question was "what do you see today that tells you he is the man to turn things around?" It was not "why aren't you ready to fire him?" This is a very important distinction to those of us on my side. We hear a lot of "these are the reasons why I'm not positive he is going to fail". We hear virtually nothing saying "Here are the reasons he is awesome and is going to put this program on track". We see the other side as approaching this like a criminal court case. We must get 12 out of 12 jurors to find a coach guilty of sucking beyond a reasonable doubt before we can fire the coach. We don't think that is the standard. The standard is, is this guy the one that will turn my program around. We hear a lot of reasons not to fire him. We hear virtually no one saying anything beyond give him a chance. We hear no one pointing to his record or attributes and saying "this is why he is the man to do it". Honestly, you probably did the most in the above post and if you break it down you did very little.

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First, I place some basic level of faith or benefit of the doubt in the people Cal has in place to make the hire in the first place. I understand that lots of people here do not have such faith in the individual nor the process used to hire Fox. I don't have that level of knowledge, so I start by assuming some basic level of competency at Cal.

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See that IS closing your eyes specifically and generally. Specifically, all evidence points to the fact that Cal does not deserve that faith. I'm not even going to bother presenting evidence of that. So giving them that is eye closing.

Generally, I agree with your humility. But while you might not be better than they are, you can look at what people in the same position do and make a judgment. I will tell you that if Cal has to choose between me and Tom Holmoe to coach football, they should hire Tom Holmoe. But I will also tell you that I can easily tell that will be a disaster.

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Given that assumption, I assume there were good reasons for hiring him.

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Since the underlying assumption was eye closing, the follow up assumption is eye closing. Further, Knowlton was very explicit in his reasons for hiring Fox. There is no reason to assume anything beyond that. You should judge that, not assume he had good reasons. If you think his reasons were sound, fine. If you just assume there had to be sound reasons, that is eye closing.

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I don't know enough about the situation to substitute my opinion for those with the responsibility and handsome pay to make those decisions.

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But you do know enough to judge those paid handsomely against others paid handsomely.

Quote:

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At its most superficial level I see a guy who has had a good amount of experience as a high level college basketball coach, with mixed results of some success and some mediocrity. Mediocre prior results alone don't dictate my view as to what he might bring at this time. (If it did, then the Yankees should never have hired Joe Torre, the A's never hired Tony LaRussa, nor USC hired Pete Carroll, and Wayne a tinkle would've been long gone from Corvallis before he's now become a darling.) I am open to the possibility that people sometimes learn and improve from prior experiences. So I don't dismiss the hire out of hand from the outset, as it appears many do, and maybe including you.

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See, this is directly my point above. There is a difference between saying just because he has been mediocre doesn't mean he will continue to be mediocre and saying this is why he is going to be good. I disagree with your premise. Most mediocre coaches stay mediocre. If you want to hire a good coach, you hire a good coach. You don't hire a mediocre coach and hope he becomes a good one. And if you think one can learn, you don't hire a coach whose conference record has gotten worse 4 years in a row. That is not indicating improvement. But, I'm digressing. The point is that this is not an argument that he is the man for the job. It is an argument that it is possible that he is not not the man for the job.

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This also raises the point that Cal was not in a strong position to attract a coach in high demand.

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Except we know of candidates that were interested.

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It might be the case that Cal's objective was not to select the coach who would get us to the promised land, but rather a coach who would get us out of the burning dumpster and into a place of competitive stability where we could maybe then attract the coach who could get us to the promised land.

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Then Cal lied to us. I can only take what they say at face value:

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Mark Fox is a man of unparalleled integrity with a proven record of success as a head basketball coach," athletic director Jim Knowlton said. "He is an inspiring leader, a teacher and an exceptional communicator who has displayed a strong commitment to developing the entire student-athlete on the court and off the court. We had an exceptional pool of candidates, and through the entire process, one person clearly rose to the top. I am excited to welcome Mark to the Cal family and look forward to him leading Cal men's basketball program to new heights. We want our teams to be exceptional, and I firmly believe that Mark is the person to lead us there

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I also was impressed with the work and experience Fox got in the year prior to coaching Cal. I think he was doing some sort of national team thing that had him on staff with Jeff Van Gundy whom I REALLY like, and others. I heard Fox was bringing into Cal practices well-respected coaches like Van Gundy and Mike Montgomery, etc. This seemed good.

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Hey - THIS was a positive reason. Thank you. It is an extremely weak one. But thank you. Lots of coaches do this sort of thing, especially when they are fired. As an aside, Van Gundy is an okay coach but nothing to write home about. On top of that, Tom Holmoe worked more with Bill Walsh, a much better coach than Van Gundy, and fat lot that demonstrated.

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Then, in Year 1, I thought Fox did a decent job with a super young and depleted roster.

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Positive again, if very faint.

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Anyway, back to Year 1, I thought the floor was raised pretty quickly despite a far less talented roster. And, IIRC, the team generally improved later in the season. So that reflected well on Fox's coaching

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Positive. Very faint, but positive. Note, I did not argue that he should be fired after last year. I don't view it as positive but as a passing grade.

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It's worth noting that none other than Jon Wilner (not known for being a Cal homer) voted Fox Pac12 Coach of the Year. And I believe that wasn't the only COY vote Fox received but can't verify

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Wilner is an idiot. I have no idea if he got any other votes, but you or I can judge results as well as the next. There is no way a coach with that record should get any COY votes. That is more of an indictment on the Cal program than it is a positive.

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I do recall Fox receiving significant praise from the analysts on Pac12net.

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I heard Monty give glowing praise to Braun on television the year he got fired. Almost every telecast gives both coaches praise.

These are not positives. These are other people's opinions

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Meanwhile, the recruiting seemed so-so, but of course recruiting is usually a longer-term deal, and in any case, Cal was not in a strong position to attract top talent. So, as with Wilcox, I was/am patient on the recruiting issue. Fwiw, I'm encouraged by some of the recruits Fox has brought in so far. They seem to have the long-term potential akin to the players Mike Montgomery brought in.

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Not a positive. So so is optimistic. Monty's classes were clearly rated higher.

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That brings us to this year. My impression of this year is that Cal was awful for the first third or more of the season. It was disappointing. I had hoped for Wilcox-like improvement; not meteoric, but steady. But then I thought the team played consistently decent basketball relative to its talent level over the last half of the season.

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We radically disagree on this point. That is fine. We have discussed it. This is a positive, but I just don't see how you can claim it is a big one.

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To me, not only am I patient enough to suffer a blip of a bad season for whatever reason, but I thought that this team was hit especially hard by covid and it seemed to make sense to what I felt I was seeing. Specifically, what this Cal team needed above anything else during the offseason was time on the court playing together. This team was young and what it needed above anything else, especially players like Brown, Kuany, and Lars who have great physical gifts but whose skills are very raw, was time on the court together. And that's precisely what COVID prevented. So, to me, not only do i have the patience to give a coach a bad year (and maybe even a second one if there should be another), I felt there's actually some reasonable explanation for this particular bad year. The fact that the team, IMO, improved relative to its competition over the course of the season again supported the theory that COVID impacts were particularly difficult for this team early in the season.

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Please stop. The 6 main players this year were 2 juniors, 1 senior, 2 graduates and a sophomore. They are not young or inexperienced. Yes, Covid interfered with practice in November.They have had virtually no interference since then. I'd estimate they had 80-100 days playing and practicing together with minimal Covid interference. This just sounds like a catch all excuse, but it isn't.

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Unfortunately, on this board if you don't support firing the coach yesterday you are depicted as having no critical thinking and no standards for the coaching performance. That's not the case with me. For me, the jury is still out. Of course I'll support the coach as a fan, but I don't mind criticisms. What I do tend to respond to are posts that appear to me to be cheap or unreasonable shots. Unfortunately there's been a lot of those. But that gets misunderstood as an inability or unwillingness to have or state my own criticisms of the coach. In the face of relentless and high-shrill criticisms throughout this season, there hasn't been much space allowed for more nuanced discussion, unfortunately.

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So what do you characterize as a cheap or unreasonable shot? Because I don't see a lot here. I see people arguing his performance is not good enough. I see people arguing he should be fired. If that is cheap and unreasonable, I'm sorry, what am I supposed to do? It feels like just shut up.

Again, I do appreciate you answering, but even so, I'm sorry, some of it sounds like saying things to say things. His recruiting is not "so-so". You want to say it is too early, fine, but it isn't on par with Monty. That is just incorrect so it doesn't seem like you actually critically thought about that. Working with someone like Van Gundy when you are out of work is not special. That doesn't seem like something that was critically thought about. Blaming Covid 3-4 months after it was an issue does not seem like something that was critically thought of. Having "faith" is by definition not critical thought.

But at least you are presenting something I can respond to. I can't respond to "You have to support the team", "If you don't have the money to pay the buy out, shut up". "He isn't getting fired now so what is the point?" "He deserves a chance". These are not arguments. There is nothing there I can respond to.

I have to go back to the unreasonable shot point. Because that is a key one for me. I have been on here for over 20 years. I've been on the fire the coach side and on the support the coach side. But one thing is consistent is that some on the support the coach side always treats the fire the coach side like petulant babies who always want to fire the coach and think there is some nobility in being on the support side. There are some fans that do just vent on the coach, but there are plenty that don't. Frankly, we have mostly purged the "fire the bum" crowd through apathy. I see a lot of detailed arguments and facts coming from the fire side right now and I see a lot of very loose arguments coming from other side. I have not taken cheap shots at Fox at all. I've said he was the wrong guy for this job. I have even said I would consider him for a mid major job.

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OMG, you are exhausting. I already taxed myself with my lengthy post to BDB.

The simple bottom line is that you clearly had your mind made up about Fox before he started at Cal. I had never heard of him before and am willing to give him a fair try because, yes, I do generally start from a place of giving benefit of the doubt and not assuming people are idiots, whether that's Fox, Knowlton, Wilner, other Cal fans on this board, and the myriad other people you dismiss. (Btw, I don't cite Wilner because I think he's a genius, but at least I recognize and appreciate that it is actually his full-time job to be informed about these things, plus I know he has access to people and information that I don't. Also, it's my experience that he takes his voting responsibilities seriously and transparently. Still, if you want to completely dismiss his view that contradicts yours by calling him an idiot, then I guess that's just more you being you. My point in referencing him is to show one very prominent objectively non-Cal example of someone who believes Fox did an excellent job, indeed the best of all Pac12 coaches, in his first year at Cal. Call me an irrational Cal homer if you like, it's surely true, but you certainly can't call Wilner that (although I guess what you do then is call him an idiot).)

I'm sorry if this bothers you if you think it's not as informed as you are, but simply put, I'm willing to give Fox, or any new Cal coach, a chance. And Fox seemed to do pretty well in year 1, and then year 2 went poorly, but I believe COVID had a significant impact on how the season went. Even if there had been no COVID impacts, I wouldn't toss a coach out just because of one bad year, especially in just his second year, and doubly especially after he seemed to do pretty well his first year.

I don't believe I've said any of those quotes you strung together as inadequate rationales. You commonly use the straw man tactic. You wrote an entire post accusing me of being unwilling to respond to BDB's post. At the very time you were writing and posting such nonsense, I was literally (on Easter Sunday no less) taking the time to write a lengthy response to BDB's questions. And of course you didn't stop there. You went so far as to ostensibly, but of course wrongly and unfairly, speak for me, and then attack the arguments you presented on my behalf. Those are colossally unfair cheap shot tactics.

stu said:

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I count 8 out of 13
Left:
Sueing
McNeil
Vanover
JHD
Gordon
Davis
Bradley
Smith

Stayed:
Kelly
Austin
Anticevich
Thorpe
Brown

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I wasn't counting Brown, Smith, and Thorpe since they had signed LOIs but not played when Fox was hired. I don't mind including them but then we should count Austin as a Martin recruit. Davis was certainly a Martin recruit, he came in with Brown and Rabb.

Even 8 out of 13 is over 60%. I suppose that's not unprecedented but I wouldn't call it a good sign.

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I think it is bad any way you look at it. I do tend to count guys who signed LOIs under the prior coach as guys that need to be "rerecruited" just like the returning players (especially with the transfer portal. It is a new coach's first job. But I count all of them as the prior guy's recruits if they signed with him. If it was just a verbal, maybe not.

It is one thing if you run off the former guys' guys to bring in your own better players, but we lost our top scorers each year and the guys that got their minutes were mostly other Jones recruits or grad transfers. I guess it is good the grad transfers are coming back.

Fyght4Cal said:

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The last 2 or 3 pgs of this thread have made me tired. They were not amenable to binge reading, at least, not for non-lawyers. I will start with this, my acceptable floor for next year is 18 wins, with at least 8 in conference. No excuses, including the loss of Bradley.

As for this '20-'21 I do give Fox a mulligan. Here's why. Both COVID and injuries wreaked havoc this year. We know that the team couldn't practice in Haas, or at full strength for much of the off-season.

But, what I didn't know was that was true for most of the season, as well. In an interview after the tournament victory over Stanford, Fox said, "When we got to March 1st, I think we maybe had three or four practices with everyone on our team cleared to practice. So, we've been, extremely; there's been no continuity, been very disjointed." Fox goes on to say that they pretty much had a full squad to practice every day for the 10 days between the end of the regular season and the Pac-12 tourney.

Skip to 7:10 for his entire answer.

Those ten days seemed to do the team a world of good. They looked like a completely different team against 'furd. Plus they mounted a comeback and damn near beat Colorado. Added to the unexpected improvements in Year 1, those two games showed me that this staff has the ability to coach our guys up under normal circumstances.

Here, now at Cal, Fox has one advantage that he didn't have at Nevada and Georgia - the transfer portal. To be successful next year, he needs to be adept at acquiring 'free agents'. If he's lucky, perhaps he can bring in enough talent to keep Bradley in Berkeley.

Speaking of Bradley. There were a couple of games that he didn't start that seemed to have nothing to do with injury. The 'furd tourney game was one. I wonder if there is some friction between Fox and Bradley. We know Fox is something of a disciplinarian. We also know Matt is high-spirited. A little head bumping would not be surprising.

Finally, I will say this about Knowlton's choice to hire Fox. One thing I heard about Fox is that he runs a clean program. At the time he was hired, college basketball was in the midst of the FBI sting. Plus, Cal basketball specifically experienced a recent sexual harassment problem. I think it's fair to say that Knowlton had a strong desire to hire a coach without a whiff of scandal about him. On this point, I believe that all Cal fans agree.

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Great post. I apologize for my role in the tiresome posts.

I have a hard time putting an absolute number of wins on expectations for next year. What I want to see is reason to believe that significantly better days are in the near future. I realize that's vague and some might say it's a cop out or a means of being able to support future extended retention of Fox (as though I have any actual influence on his status).

But it's not. I have said all along that the jury is still out for me. I will continue to watch with a critical eye. But the things I'll be looking for in 2021-22 won't just be a fixed number of wins. Who knows what good or bad fortune next season will bring? Under the general heading of signs of a better future in the near-term (which I have elsewhere defined as ncaa tournament more often than not), some things I will specifically look for are: meaningful and tangible signs of team development, meaningful and tangible signs of player development, what the incoming freshman look like, what the next recruiting cycle looks like, etc.

Sorry if that sounds like a cop out, but I just can't use a fixed number of wins to define a good coaching job or not. I see that Sluggo has spoken of his approval of Wayne Tinkle over the years, despite consistently poor records. I'm not saying I would tolerate such consistently poor records at Cal, but I use Sluggo's example to say that there are things one can judge (good or bad) in a coach's performance that aren't tied directly to the win-loss record, especially for a program in rebuild mode. Or your own example for 2020-21. Obviously the record was very bad this year, but you see things that mitigate the bad and actually also see some positives. Who knows what fortune next season will bring. And while I can't put a number on success, I will definitely be looking carefully for those things that will be indicators for me.

drizzlybear said:

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Fyght4Cal said:

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The last 2 or 3 pgs of this thread have made me tired. They were not amenable to binge reading, at least, not for non-lawyers. I will start with this, my acceptable floor for next year is 18 wins, with at least 8 in conference. No excuses, including the loss of Bradley.

As for this '20-'21 I do give Fox a mulligan. Here's why. Both COVID and injuries wreaked havoc this year. We know that the team couldn't practice in Haas, or at full strength for much of the off-season.

But, what I didn't know was that was true for most of the season, as well. In an interview after the tournament victory over Stanford, Fox said, "When we got to March 1st, I think we maybe had three or four practices with everyone on our team cleared to practice. So, we've been, extremely; there's been no continuity, been very disjointed." Fox goes on to say that they pretty much had a full squad to practice every day for the 10 days between the end of the regular season and the Pac-12 tourney.

Skip to 7:10 for his entire answer.

Those ten days seemed to do the team a world of good. They looked like a completely different team against 'furd. Plus they mounted a comeback and damn near beat Colorado. Added to the unexpected improvements in Year 1, those two games showed me that this staff has the ability to coach our guys up under normal circumstances.

Here, now at Cal, Fox has one advantage that he didn't have at Nevada and Georgia - the transfer portal. To be successful next year, he needs to be adept at acquiring 'free agents'. If he's lucky, perhaps he can bring in enough talent to keep Bradley in Berkeley.

Speaking of Bradley. There were a couple of games that he didn't start that seemed to have nothing to do with injury. The 'furd tourney game was one. I wonder if there is some friction between Fox and Bradley. We know Fox is something of a disciplinarian. We also know Matt is high-spirited. A little head bumping would not be surprising.

Finally, I will say this about Knowlton's choice to hire Fox. One thing I heard about Fox is that he runs a clean program. At the time he was hired, college basketball was in the midst of the FBI sting. Plus, Cal basketball specifically experienced a recent sexual harassment problem. I think it's fair to say that Knowlton had a strong desire to hire a coach without a whiff of scandal about him. On this point, I believe that all Cal fans agree.

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Great post. I apologize for my role in the tiresome posts.

I have a hard time putting an absolute number of wins on expectations for next year. What I want to see is reason to believe that significantly better days are in the near future. I realize that's vague and some might say it's a cop out or a means of being able to support future extended retention of Fox (as though I have any actual influence on his status).

But it's not. I have said all along that the jury is still out for me. I will continue to watch with a critical eye. But the things I'll be looking for in 2021-22 won't just be a fixed number of wins. Who knows what good or bad fortune next season will bring? Under the general heading of signs of a better future in the near-term (which I have elsewhere defined as ncaa tournament more often than not), some things I will specifically look for are: meaningful and tangible signs of team development, meaningful and tangible signs of player development, what the incoming freshman look like, what the next recruiting cycle looks like, etc.

Sorry if that sounds like a cop out, but I just can't use a fixed number of wins to define a good coaching job or not. I see that Sluggo has spoken of his approval of Wayne Tinkle over the years, despite consistently poor records. I'm not saying I would tolerate such consistently poor records at Cal, but I use Sluggo's example to say that there are things one can judge (good or bad) in a coach's performance that aren't tied directly to the win-loss record, especially for a program in rebuild mode. Or your own example for 2020-21. Obviously the record was very bad this year, but you see things that mitigate the bad and actually also see some positives. Who knows what fortune next season will bring. And while I can't put a number on success, I will definitely be looking carefully for those things that will be indicators for me.

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I saw things that are very troubling. Poor coaching decisions, poor personnel decisions, lack of efficiency on offense, extremely low scoring, boring pace, lack of defensive adjustments, lack of personal accountability/blaming others and public disciplining of players. Maybe we can dismiss it as just COVID, but it is consistent with his personality and coaching over the last 14 years.

Maybe next year will be different. Hopefully Kelly stays. Maybe someone great will transfer in. In any case it will be a challenge because we were among the lowest scoring teams in the country and we just lost our primary scorer. I have to think in part because of the way Mark Fox treated him.

drizzlybear said:

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Fyght4Cal said:

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The last 2 or 3 pgs of this thread have made me tired. They were not amenable to binge reading, at least, not for non-lawyers. I will start with this, my acceptable floor for next year is 18 wins, with at least 8 in conference. No excuses, including the loss of Bradley.

As for this '20-'21 I do give Fox a mulligan. Here's why. Both COVID and injuries wreaked havoc this year. We know that the team couldn't practice in Haas, or at full strength for much of the off-season.

But, what I didn't know was that was true for most of the season, as well. In an interview after the tournament victory over Stanford, Fox said, "When we got to March 1st, I think we maybe had three or four practices with everyone on our team cleared to practice. So, we've been, extremely; there's been no continuity, been very disjointed." Fox goes on to say that they pretty much had a full squad to practice every day for the 10 days between the end of the regular season and the Pac-12 tourney.

Skip to 7:10 for his entire answer.

Those ten days seemed to do the team a world of good. They looked like a completely different team against 'furd. Plus they mounted a comeback and damn near beat Colorado. Added to the unexpected improvements in Year 1, those two games showed me that this staff has the ability to coach our guys up under normal circumstances.

Here, now at Cal, Fox has one advantage that he didn't have at Nevada and Georgia - the transfer portal. To be successful next year, he needs to be adept at acquiring 'free agents'. If he's lucky, perhaps he can bring in enough talent to keep Bradley in Berkeley.

Speaking of Bradley. There were a couple of games that he didn't start that seemed to have nothing to do with injury. The 'furd tourney game was one. I wonder if there is some friction between Fox and Bradley. We know Fox is something of a disciplinarian. We also know Matt is high-spirited. A little head bumping would not be surprising.

Finally, I will say this about Knowlton's choice to hire Fox. One thing I heard about Fox is that he runs a clean program. At the time he was hired, college basketball was in the midst of the FBI sting. Plus, Cal basketball specifically experienced a recent sexual harassment problem. I think it's fair to say that Knowlton had a strong desire to hire a coach without a whiff of scandal about him. On this point, I believe that all Cal fans agree.

---

Great post. I apologize for my role in the tiresome posts.

I have a hard time putting an absolute number of wins on expectations for next year. What I want to see is reason to believe that significantly better days are in the near future. I realize that's vague and some might say it's a cop out or a means of being able to support future extended retention of Fox (as though I have any actual influence on his status).

But it's not. I have said all along that the jury is still out for me. I will continue to watch with a critical eye. But the things I'll be looking for in 2021-22 won't just be a fixed number of wins. Who knows what good or bad fortune next season will bring? Under the general heading of signs of a better future in the near-term (which I have elsewhere defined as ncaa tournament more often than not), some things I will specifically look for are: meaningful and tangible signs of team development, meaningful and tangible signs of player development, what the incoming freshman look like, what the next recruiting cycle looks like, etc.

Sorry if that sounds like a cop out, but I just can't use a fixed number of wins to define a good coaching job or not. I see that Sluggo has spoken of his approval of Wayne Tinkle over the years, despite consistently poor records. I'm not saying I would tolerate such consistently poor records at Cal, but I use Sluggo's example to say that there are things one can judge (good or bad) in a coach's performance that aren't tied directly to the win-loss record, especially for a program in rebuild mode. Or your own example for 2020-21. Obviously the record was very bad this year, but you see things that mitigate the bad and actually also see some positives. Who knows what fortune next season will bring. And while I can't put a number on success, I will definitely be looking carefully for those things that will be indicators for me.

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Thank you for the thoughtful post. There's certainly no need to apologize for your views. We are in a very tenuous, unknowable situation. Things could improve, or the wheels could fall off. Only time will tell.

I agree regarding the indicators. Our bench contains a lot of coaching firepower. Fox has the staff he wants. So, I expect all or most of the indicators to point upwards next season.

As a concession to the hardcore bunch, I chose a number of wins. But I'm certainly not going to argue with anyone about it. A number pulled out of a hat has about much meaning. Like you, I'm committed to watch, wait and see.

Go Bears!

Memo. That was not a sexual harassment problem. It was a joke and it quickly was pretty much exposed as one. Was it a pretty Bush league effort at making a pass at a girl? Sure. But we all cant member rickie suave

drizzlybear said:

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OaktownBear said:

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drizzlybear said:

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Your post accused me of closing my eyes and hoping, and of not being willing to address a burning house. I view those as unfair attacks, and not a serious consideration of my position. I gave a very lengthy response to another poster's (BigDaddyBear?) request for my view in the matter. If you're really interested in understanding and discussing my view on the matter, take a look at that post and let me know if you still have questions or want to have a respectful debate on any of the points therein.

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Look, I DO appreciate you responding in depth to BigDaddyBear, but this is why he characterized it as closing your eyes and hoping. You didn't answer BigDaddy's question. His question was "what do you see today that tells you he is the man to turn things around?" It was not "why aren't you ready to fire him?" This is a very important distinction to those of us on my side. We hear a lot of "these are the reasons why I'm not positive he is going to fail". We hear virtually nothing saying "Here are the reasons he is awesome and is going to put this program on track". We see the other side as approaching this like a criminal court case. We must get 12 out of 12 jurors to find a coach guilty of sucking beyond a reasonable doubt before we can fire the coach. We don't think that is the standard. The standard is, is this guy the one that will turn my program around. We hear a lot of reasons not to fire him. We hear virtually no one saying anything beyond give him a chance. We hear no one pointing to his record or attributes and saying "this is why he is the man to do it". Honestly, you probably did the most in the above post and if you break it down you did very little.

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First, I place some basic level of faith or benefit of the doubt in the people Cal has in place to make the hire in the first place. I understand that lots of people here do not have such faith in the individual nor the process used to hire Fox. I don't have that level of knowledge, so I start by assuming some basic level of competency at Cal.

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See that IS closing your eyes specifically and generally. Specifically, all evidence points to the fact that Cal does not deserve that faith. I'm not even going to bother presenting evidence of that. So giving them that is eye closing.

Generally, I agree with your humility. But while you might not be better than they are, you can look at what people in the same position do and make a judgment. I will tell you that if Cal has to choose between me and Tom Holmoe to coach football, they should hire Tom Holmoe. But I will also tell you that I can easily tell that will be a disaster.

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Given that assumption, I assume there were good reasons for hiring him.

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Since the underlying assumption was eye closing, the follow up assumption is eye closing. Further, Knowlton was very explicit in his reasons for hiring Fox. There is no reason to assume anything beyond that. You should judge that, not assume he had good reasons. If you think his reasons were sound, fine. If you just assume there had to be sound reasons, that is eye closing.

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I don't know enough about the situation to substitute my opinion for those with the responsibility and handsome pay to make those decisions.

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But you do know enough to judge those paid handsomely against others paid handsomely.

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At its most superficial level I see a guy who has had a good amount of experience as a high level college basketball coach, with mixed results of some success and some mediocrity. Mediocre prior results alone don't dictate my view as to what he might bring at this time. (If it did, then the Yankees should never have hired Joe Torre, the A's never hired Tony LaRussa, nor USC hired Pete Carroll, and Wayne a tinkle would've been long gone from Corvallis before he's now become a darling.) I am open to the possibility that people sometimes learn and improve from prior experiences. So I don't dismiss the hire out of hand from the outset, as it appears many do, and maybe including you.

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See, this is directly my point above. There is a difference between saying just because he has been mediocre doesn't mean he will continue to be mediocre and saying this is why he is going to be good. I disagree with your premise. Most mediocre coaches stay mediocre. If you want to hire a good coach, you hire a good coach. You don't hire a mediocre coach and hope he becomes a good one. And if you think one can learn, you don't hire a coach whose conference record has gotten worse 4 years in a row. That is not indicating improvement. But, I'm digressing. The point is that this is not an argument that he is the man for the job. It is an argument that it is possible that he is not not the man for the job.

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This also raises the point that Cal was not in a strong position to attract a coach in high demand.

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Except we know of candidates that were interested.

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It might be the case that Cal's objective was not to select the coach who would get us to the promised land, but rather a coach who would get us out of the burning dumpster and into a place of competitive stability where we could maybe then attract the coach who could get us to the promised land.

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Then Cal lied to us. I can only take what they say at face value:

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Mark Fox is a man of unparalleled integrity with a proven record of success as a head basketball coach," athletic director Jim Knowlton said. "He is an inspiring leader, a teacher and an exceptional communicator who has displayed a strong commitment to developing the entire student-athlete on the court and off the court. We had an exceptional pool of candidates, and through the entire process, one person clearly rose to the top. I am excited to welcome Mark to the Cal family and look forward to him leading Cal men's basketball program to new heights. We want our teams to be exceptional, and I firmly believe that Mark is the person to lead us there

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I also was impressed with the work and experience Fox got in the year prior to coaching Cal. I think he was doing some sort of national team thing that had him on staff with Jeff Van Gundy whom I REALLY like, and others. I heard Fox was bringing into Cal practices well-respected coaches like Van Gundy and Mike Montgomery, etc. This seemed good.

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Hey - THIS was a positive reason. Thank you. It is an extremely weak one. But thank you. Lots of coaches do this sort of thing, especially when they are fired. As an aside, Van Gundy is an okay coach but nothing to write home about. On top of that, Tom Holmoe worked more with Bill Walsh, a much better coach than Van Gundy, and fat lot that demonstrated.

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Then, in Year 1, I thought Fox did a decent job with a super young and depleted roster.

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Positive again, if very faint.

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Anyway, back to Year 1, I thought the floor was raised pretty quickly despite a far less talented roster. And, IIRC, the team generally improved later in the season. So that reflected well on Fox's coaching

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Positive. Very faint, but positive. Note, I did not argue that he should be fired after last year. I don't view it as positive but as a passing grade.

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It's worth noting that none other than Jon Wilner (not known for being a Cal homer) voted Fox Pac12 Coach of the Year. And I believe that wasn't the only COY vote Fox received but can't verify

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Wilner is an idiot. I have no idea if he got any other votes, but you or I can judge results as well as the next. There is no way a coach with that record should get any COY votes. That is more of an indictment on the Cal program than it is a positive.

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I do recall Fox receiving significant praise from the analysts on Pac12net.

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I heard Monty give glowing praise to Braun on television the year he got fired. Almost every telecast gives both coaches praise.

These are not positives. These are other people's opinions

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Meanwhile, the recruiting seemed so-so, but of course recruiting is usually a longer-term deal, and in any case, Cal was not in a strong position to attract top talent. So, as with Wilcox, I was/am patient on the recruiting issue. Fwiw, I'm encouraged by some of the recruits Fox has brought in so far. They seem to have the long-term potential akin to the players Mike Montgomery brought in.

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Not a positive. So so is optimistic. Monty's classes were clearly rated higher.

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That brings us to this year. My impression of this year is that Cal was awful for the first third or more of the season. It was disappointing. I had hoped for Wilcox-like improvement; not meteoric, but steady. But then I thought the team played consistently decent basketball relative to its talent level over the last half of the season.

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We radically disagree on this point. That is fine. We have discussed it. This is a positive, but I just don't see how you can claim it is a big one.

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To me, not only am I patient enough to suffer a blip of a bad season for whatever reason, but I thought that this team was hit especially hard by covid and it seemed to make sense to what I felt I was seeing. Specifically, what this Cal team needed above anything else during the offseason was time on the court playing together. This team was young and what it needed above anything else, especially players like Brown, Kuany, and Lars who have great physical gifts but whose skills are very raw, was time on the court together. And that's precisely what COVID prevented. So, to me, not only do i have the patience to give a coach a bad year (and maybe even a second one if there should be another), I felt there's actually some reasonable explanation for this particular bad year. The fact that the team, IMO, improved relative to its competition over the course of the season again supported the theory that COVID impacts were particularly difficult for this team early in the season.

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Please stop. The 6 main players this year were 2 juniors, 1 senior, 2 graduates and a sophomore. They are not young or inexperienced. Yes, Covid interfered with practice in November.They have had virtually no interference since then. I'd estimate they had 80-100 days playing and practicing together with minimal Covid interference. This just sounds like a catch all excuse, but it isn't.

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Unfortunately, on this board if you don't support firing the coach yesterday you are depicted as having no critical thinking and no standards for the coaching performance. That's not the case with me. For me, the jury is still out. Of course I'll support the coach as a fan, but I don't mind criticisms. What I do tend to respond to are posts that appear to me to be cheap or unreasonable shots. Unfortunately there's been a lot of those. But that gets misunderstood as an inability or unwillingness to have or state my own criticisms of the coach. In the face of relentless and high-shrill criticisms throughout this season, there hasn't been much space allowed for more nuanced discussion, unfortunately.

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So what do you characterize as a cheap or unreasonable shot? Because I don't see a lot here. I see people arguing his performance is not good enough. I see people arguing he should be fired. If that is cheap and unreasonable, I'm sorry, what am I supposed to do? It feels like just shut up.

Again, I do appreciate you answering, but even so, I'm sorry, some of it sounds like saying things to say things. His recruiting is not "so-so". You want to say it is too early, fine, but it isn't on par with Monty. That is just incorrect so it doesn't seem like you actually critically thought about that. Working with someone like Van Gundy when you are out of work is not special. That doesn't seem like something that was critically thought about. Blaming Covid 3-4 months after it was an issue does not seem like something that was critically thought of. Having "faith" is by definition not critical thought.

But at least you are presenting something I can respond to. I can't respond to "You have to support the team", "If you don't have the money to pay the buy out, shut up". "He isn't getting fired now so what is the point?" "He deserves a chance". These are not arguments. There is nothing there I can respond to.

I have to go back to the unreasonable shot point. Because that is a key one for me. I have been on here for over 20 years. I've been on the fire the coach side and on the support the coach side. But one thing is consistent is that some on the support the coach side always treats the fire the coach side like petulant babies who always want to fire the coach and think there is some nobility in being on the support side. There are some fans that do just vent on the coach, but there are plenty that don't. Frankly, we have mostly purged the "fire the bum" crowd through apathy. I see a lot of detailed arguments and facts coming from the fire side right now and I see a lot of very loose arguments coming from other side. I have not taken cheap shots at Fox at all. I've said he was the wrong guy for this job. I have even said I would consider him for a mid major job.

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OMG, you are exhausting. I already taxed myself with my lengthy post to BDB.

The simple bottom line is that you clearly had your mind made up about Fox before he started at Cal. I had never heard of him before and am willing to give him a fair try because, yes, I do generally start from a place of giving benefit of the doubt and not assuming people are idiots, whether that's Fox, Knowlton, Wilner, other Cal fans on this board, and the myriad other people you dismiss. (Btw, I don't cite Wilner because I think he's a genius, but at least I recognize and appreciate that it is actually his full-time job to be informed about these things, plus I know he has access to people and information that I don't. Also, it's my experience that he takes his voting responsibilities seriously and transparently. Still, if you want to completely dismiss his view that contradicts yours by calling him an idiot, then I guess that's just more you being you. My point in referencing him is to show one very prominent objectively non-Cal example of someone who believes Fox did an excellent job, indeed the best of all Pac12 coaches, in his first year at Cal. Call me an irrational Cal homer if you like, it's surely true, but you certainly can't call Wilner that (although I guess what you do then is call him an idiot).)

I'm sorry if this bothers you if you think it's not as informed as you are, but simply put, I'm willing to give Fox, or any new Cal coach, a chance. And Fox seemed to do pretty well in year 1, and then year 2 went poorly, but I believe COVID had a significant impact on how the season went. Even if there had been no COVID impacts, I wouldn't toss a coach out just because of one bad year, especially in just his second year, and doubly especially after he seemed to do pretty well his first year.

I don't believe I've said any of those quotes you strung together as inadequate rationales. You commonly use the straw man tactic. You wrote an entire post accusing me of being unwilling to respond to BDB's post. At the very time you were writing and posting such nonsense, I was literally (on Easter Sunday no less) taking the time to write a lengthy response to BDB's questions. And of course you didn't stop there. You went so far as to ostensibly, but of course wrongly and unfairly, speak for me, and then attack the arguments you presented on my behalf. Those are colossally unfair cheap shot tactics.

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I didn't say YOU said any of those quotes. They've all been said here in the past month. They are not straw men.

I didn't accuse you of not being willing to respond to Big Daddy.

Forgive me for not trusting your "I can't put a number on it. I want to see development" arguments when you see development in a 3 win season that is a major step back from the year before. It is not like you can't say 8 games and then later say well, we only won 6, but we recruited the next Jason Kidd, so I'm happy. This isn't an unbreakable vow. Your life savings isn't riding on it. Broadly, what would you find acceptable. The problem with the combo of not being upset based on one season and then looking for development is that you effectively have reset the bar so that showing improvement over 3 wins is acceptable. The point is to have a point of analysis. Okay, we didn't meet that goal, we missed by this much. Here is why. I can accept that or not. I don't see any world where barring tragedy 3 conference wins was acceptable. I'd say 9 conference wins would be a reasonable goal and only getting a third of that is way off the mark. You don't have to agree, but if you at least put a number out there we can see what you are basing things on.

If I had judged Fox unworthy I would have wanted him fired last year and I didn't. I make no bones about the hire being stupid, but I also said sometimes stupid hires work out. I think you are the one that has preconceived notions about everyone who is unhappy with the direction of the program

Make no mistake. I am not a loud minority. The vast majority are frustrated but have left because they have given up hope and this has become the "let's all talk about how wonderful it is that the kids try so hard" board for ten of you. A couple of my more strident posts have more stars than there are critics posting here. I'm sorry. It is a free board for the whole community and you are going to need to deal with the fact that not everyone is happy to spend $1.8M on trying hard and losing 80% of the time.

socaltownie said:

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Memo. That was not a sexual harassment problem. It was a joke and it quickly was pretty much exposed as one. Was it a pretty Bush league effort at making a pass at a girl? Sure. But we all cant member rickie suave

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'Incident' would have been a better word. But it didn't come to me at 12:15am. The bottom line is that sexually suggestive joking in the workplace is a Bozo no-no.

Fyght4Cal said:

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The last 2 or 3 pgs of this thread have made me tired. They were not amenable to binge reading, at least, not for non-lawyers. I will start with this, my acceptable floor for next year is 18 wins, with at least 8 in conference. No excuses, including the loss of Bradley.

As for this '20-'21 I do give Fox a mulligan. Here's why. Both COVID and injuries wreaked havoc this year. We know that the team couldn't practice in Haas, or at full strength for much of the off-season.

But, what I didn't know was that was true for most of the season, as well. In an interview after the tournament victory over Stanford, Fox said, "When we got to March 1st, I think we maybe had three or four practices with everyone on our team cleared to practice. So, we've been, extremely; there's been no continuity, been very disjointed." Fox goes on to say that they pretty much had a full squad to practice every day for the 10 days between the end of the regular season and the Pac-12 tourney.

Skip to 7:10 for his entire answer.

Those ten days seemed to do the team a world of good. They looked like a completely different team against 'furd. Plus they mounted a comeback and damn near beat Colorado. Added to the unexpected improvements in Year 1, those two games showed me that this staff has the ability to coach our guys up under normal circumstances.

Here, now at Cal, Fox has one advantage that he didn't have at Nevada and Georgia - the transfer portal. To be successful next year, he needs to be adept at acquiring 'free agents'. If he's lucky, perhaps he can bring in enough talent to keep Bradley in Berkeley.

Speaking of Bradley. There were a couple of games that he didn't start that seemed to have nothing to do with injury. The 'furd tourney game was one. I wonder if there is some friction between Fox and Bradley. We know Fox is something of a disciplinarian. We also know Matt is high-spirited. A little head bumping would not be surprising.

Finally, I will say this about Knowlton's choice to hire Fox. One thing I heard about Fox is that he runs a clean program. At the time he was hired, college basketball was in the midst of the FBI sting. Plus, Cal basketball specifically experienced a recent sexual harassment problem. I think it's fair to say that Knowlton had a strong desire to hire a coach without a whiff of scandal about him. On this point, I believe that all Cal fans agree.

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Fair post, but we will need more current Cal players to enter the portal for Fox to bring in more talent and retain Bradley.

Civil Bear said:

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Fyght4Cal said:

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The last 2 or 3 pgs of this thread have made me tired. They were not amenable to binge reading, at least, not for non-lawyers. I will start with this, my acceptable floor for next year is 18 wins, with at least 8 in conference. No excuses, including the loss of Bradley.

As for this '20-'21 I do give Fox a mulligan. Here's why. Both COVID and injuries wreaked havoc this year. We know that the team couldn't practice in Haas, or at full strength for much of the off-season.

But, what I didn't know was that was true for most of the season, as well. In an interview after the tournament victory over Stanford, Fox said, "When we got to March 1st, I think we maybe had three or four practices with everyone on our team cleared to practice. So, we've been, extremely; there's been no continuity, been very disjointed." Fox goes on to say that they pretty much had a full squad to practice every day for the 10 days between the end of the regular season and the Pac-12 tourney.

Skip to 7:10 for his entire answer.

Those ten days seemed to do the team a world of good. They looked like a completely different team against 'furd. Plus they mounted a comeback and damn near beat Colorado. Added to the unexpected improvements in Year 1, those two games showed me that this staff has the ability to coach our guys up under normal circumstances.

Here, now at Cal, Fox has one advantage that he didn't have at Nevada and Georgia - the transfer portal. To be successful next year, he needs to be adept at acquiring 'free agents'. If he's lucky, perhaps he can bring in enough talent to keep Bradley in Berkeley.

Speaking of Bradley. There were a couple of games that he didn't start that seemed to have nothing to do with injury. The 'furd tourney game was one. I wonder if there is some friction between Fox and Bradley. We know Fox is something of a disciplinarian. We also know Matt is high-spirited. A little head bumping would not be surprising.

Finally, I will say this about Knowlton's choice to hire Fox. One thing I heard about Fox is that he runs a clean program. At the time he was hired, college basketball was in the midst of the FBI sting. Plus, Cal basketball specifically experienced a recent sexual harassment problem. I think it's fair to say that Knowlton had a strong desire to hire a coach without a whiff of scandal about him. On this point, I believe that all Cal fans agree.

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Fair post, but we will need more current Cal players to enter the portal for Fox to bring in more talent and retain Bradley.

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A fair point. I have some thoughts that I will keep to myself.

Wilner on Cal in his latest Pac-12 Stock Report:

Falling: Cal Basketball

The Hotline will publish projections for the 2021-22 conference race later this month, once we gain clarity on the rosters.

Spoiler alert: The Bears will be picked last.

That was our lean immediately after the season, but it's obvious now that star guard Matt Bradley has entered the transfer portal.

Bradley was the only high-level talent on the roster, the only player who averaged more than 10 points per game the player who made everyone better. There's always a chance Bradley reverses course and returns for 2021-22, but we're assuming he's gone for good, desiring a change of scenery and chance for success.

In his three seasons, the Bears are 13-43 in conference play. Third-year coach Mark Fox needs help, immediately, but Cal lacks flexibility with the transfer portal because of the academic piece.

The outlook is gloomy in Berkeley.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/04/07/pac-12-stock-report-major-change-likely-for-intra-conference-transfer-policy-for-football-and-basketball-players/

Fyght4Cal said:

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socaltownie said:

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Memo. That was not a sexual harassment problem. It was a joke and it quickly was pretty much exposed as one. Was it a pretty Bush league effort at making a pass at a girl? Sure. But we all cant member rickie suave

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'Incident' would have been a better word. But it didn't come to me at 12:15am. The bottom line is that sexually suggestive joking in the workplace is a Bozo no-no.

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Not going to dispute the second part of the sentance but it was pretty clear that the "reporter" in question had no problems flirting with both players and assistant coaches. He clearly shouldn't have done what he did but that was very much an anti-cal mountain build from a molehill.

Meanwhile did I miss the multipart Comical expose of Brock Turner?

Picked 12th?

Great, we'll going to the Elite Eight!

BigDaddy said:

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Wilner on Cal in his latest Pac-12 Stock Report:

Falling: Cal Basketball

The Hotline will publish projections for the 2021-22 conference race later this month, once we gain clarity on the rosters.

Spoiler alert: The Bears will be picked last.

That was our lean immediately after the season, but it's obvious now that star guard Matt Bradley has entered the transfer portal.

Bradley was the only high-level talent on the roster, the only player who averaged more than 10 points per game the player who made everyone better. There's always a chance Bradley reverses course and returns for 2021-22, but we're assuming he's gone for good, desiring a change of scenery and chance for success.

In his three seasons, the Bears are 13-43 in conference play. Third-year coach Mark Fox needs help, immediately, but Cal lacks flexibility with the transfer portal because of the academic piece.

The outlook is gloomy in Berkeley.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/04/07/pac-12-stock-report-major-change-likely-for-intra-conference-transfer-policy-for-football-and-basketball-players/

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drizzlybear said:

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OaktownBear said:

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drizzlybear said:

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Your post accused me of closing my eyes and hoping, and of not being willing to address a burning house. I view those as unfair attacks, and not a serious consideration of my position. I gave a very lengthy response to another poster's (BigDaddyBear?) request for my view in the matter. If you're really interested in understanding and discussing my view on the matter, take a look at that post and let me know if you still have questions or want to have a respectful debate on any of the points therein.

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Look, I DO appreciate you responding in depth to BigDaddyBear, but this is why he characterized it as closing your eyes and hoping. You didn't answer BigDaddy's question. His question was "what do you see today that tells you he is the man to turn things around?" It was not "why aren't you ready to fire him?" This is a very important distinction to those of us on my side. We hear a lot of "these are the reasons why I'm not positive he is going to fail". We hear virtually nothing saying "Here are the reasons he is awesome and is going to put this program on track". We see the other side as approaching this like a criminal court case. We must get 12 out of 12 jurors to find a coach guilty of sucking beyond a reasonable doubt before we can fire the coach. We don't think that is the standard. The standard is, is this guy the one that will turn my program around. We hear a lot of reasons not to fire him. We hear virtually no one saying anything beyond give him a chance. We hear no one pointing to his record or attributes and saying "this is why he is the man to do it". Honestly, you probably did the most in the above post and if you break it down you did very little.

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First, I place some basic level of faith or benefit of the doubt in the people Cal has in place to make the hire in the first place. I understand that lots of people here do not have such faith in the individual nor the process used to hire Fox. I don't have that level of knowledge, so I start by assuming some basic level of competency at Cal.

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See that IS closing your eyes specifically and generally. Specifically, all evidence points to the fact that Cal does not deserve that faith. I'm not even going to bother presenting evidence of that. So giving them that is eye closing.

Generally, I agree with your humility. But while you might not be better than they are, you can look at what people in the same position do and make a judgment. I will tell you that if Cal has to choose between me and Tom Holmoe to coach football, they should hire Tom Holmoe. But I will also tell you that I can easily tell that will be a disaster.

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Given that assumption, I assume there were good reasons for hiring him.

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Since the underlying assumption was eye closing, the follow up assumption is eye closing. Further, Knowlton was very explicit in his reasons for hiring Fox. There is no reason to assume anything beyond that. You should judge that, not assume he had good reasons. If you think his reasons were sound, fine. If you just assume there had to be sound reasons, that is eye closing.

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I don't know enough about the situation to substitute my opinion for those with the responsibility and handsome pay to make those decisions.

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But you do know enough to judge those paid handsomely against others paid handsomely.

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At its most superficial level I see a guy who has had a good amount of experience as a high level college basketball coach, with mixed results of some success and some mediocrity. Mediocre prior results alone don't dictate my view as to what he might bring at this time. (If it did, then the Yankees should never have hired Joe Torre, the A's never hired Tony LaRussa, nor USC hired Pete Carroll, and Wayne a tinkle would've been long gone from Corvallis before he's now become a darling.) I am open to the possibility that people sometimes learn and improve from prior experiences. So I don't dismiss the hire out of hand from the outset, as it appears many do, and maybe including you.

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See, this is directly my point above. There is a difference between saying just because he has been mediocre doesn't mean he will continue to be mediocre and saying this is why he is going to be good. I disagree with your premise. Most mediocre coaches stay mediocre. If you want to hire a good coach, you hire a good coach. You don't hire a mediocre coach and hope he becomes a good one. And if you think one can learn, you don't hire a coach whose conference record has gotten worse 4 years in a row. That is not indicating improvement. But, I'm digressing. The point is that this is not an argument that he is the man for the job. It is an argument that it is possible that he is not not the man for the job.

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This also raises the point that Cal was not in a strong position to attract a coach in high demand.

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Except we know of candidates that were interested.

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It might be the case that Cal's objective was not to select the coach who would get us to the promised land, but rather a coach who would get us out of the burning dumpster and into a place of competitive stability where we could maybe then attract the coach who could get us to the promised land.

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Then Cal lied to us. I can only take what they say at face value:

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Mark Fox is a man of unparalleled integrity with a proven record of success as a head basketball coach," athletic director Jim Knowlton said. "He is an inspiring leader, a teacher and an exceptional communicator who has displayed a strong commitment to developing the entire student-athlete on the court and off the court. We had an exceptional pool of candidates, and through the entire process, one person clearly rose to the top. I am excited to welcome Mark to the Cal family and look forward to him leading Cal men's basketball program to new heights. We want our teams to be exceptional, and I firmly believe that Mark is the person to lead us there

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I also was impressed with the work and experience Fox got in the year prior to coaching Cal. I think he was doing some sort of national team thing that had him on staff with Jeff Van Gundy whom I REALLY like, and others. I heard Fox was bringing into Cal practices well-respected coaches like Van Gundy and Mike Montgomery, etc. This seemed good.

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Hey - THIS was a positive reason. Thank you. It is an extremely weak one. But thank you. Lots of coaches do this sort of thing, especially when they are fired. As an aside, Van Gundy is an okay coach but nothing to write home about. On top of that, Tom Holmoe worked more with Bill Walsh, a much better coach than Van Gundy, and fat lot that demonstrated.

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Then, in Year 1, I thought Fox did a decent job with a super young and depleted roster.

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Positive again, if very faint.

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Anyway, back to Year 1, I thought the floor was raised pretty quickly despite a far less talented roster. And, IIRC, the team generally improved later in the season. So that reflected well on Fox's coaching

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Positive. Very faint, but positive. Note, I did not argue that he should be fired after last year. I don't view it as positive but as a passing grade.

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It's worth noting that none other than Jon Wilner (not known for being a Cal homer) voted Fox Pac12 Coach of the Year. And I believe that wasn't the only COY vote Fox received but can't verify

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Wilner is an idiot. I have no idea if he got any other votes, but you or I can judge results as well as the next. There is no way a coach with that record should get any COY votes. That is more of an indictment on the Cal program than it is a positive.

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I do recall Fox receiving significant praise from the analysts on Pac12net.

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I heard Monty give glowing praise to Braun on television the year he got fired. Almost every telecast gives both coaches praise.

These are not positives. These are other people's opinions

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Meanwhile, the recruiting seemed so-so, but of course recruiting is usually a longer-term deal, and in any case, Cal was not in a strong position to attract top talent. So, as with Wilcox, I was/am patient on the recruiting issue. Fwiw, I'm encouraged by some of the recruits Fox has brought in so far. They seem to have the long-term potential akin to the players Mike Montgomery brought in.

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Not a positive. So so is optimistic. Monty's classes were clearly rated higher.

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That brings us to this year. My impression of this year is that Cal was awful for the first third or more of the season. It was disappointing. I had hoped for Wilcox-like improvement; not meteoric, but steady. But then I thought the team played consistently decent basketball relative to its talent level over the last half of the season.

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We radically disagree on this point. That is fine. We have discussed it. This is a positive, but I just don't see how you can claim it is a big one.

Quote:

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To me, not only am I patient enough to suffer a blip of a bad season for whatever reason, but I thought that this team was hit especially hard by covid and it seemed to make sense to what I felt I was seeing. Specifically, what this Cal team needed above anything else during the offseason was time on the court playing together. This team was young and what it needed above anything else, especially players like Brown, Kuany, and Lars who have great physical gifts but whose skills are very raw, was time on the court together. And that's precisely what COVID prevented. So, to me, not only do i have the patience to give a coach a bad year (and maybe even a second one if there should be another), I felt there's actually some reasonable explanation for this particular bad year. The fact that the team, IMO, improved relative to its competition over the course of the season again supported the theory that COVID impacts were particularly difficult for this team early in the season.

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Please stop. The 6 main players this year were 2 juniors, 1 senior, 2 graduates and a sophomore. They are not young or inexperienced. Yes, Covid interfered with practice in November.They have had virtually no interference since then. I'd estimate they had 80-100 days playing and practicing together with minimal Covid interference. This just sounds like a catch all excuse, but it isn't.

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Unfortunately, on this board if you don't support firing the coach yesterday you are depicted as having no critical thinking and no standards for the coaching performance. That's not the case with me. For me, the jury is still out. Of course I'll support the coach as a fan, but I don't mind criticisms. What I do tend to respond to are posts that appear to me to be cheap or unreasonable shots. Unfortunately there's been a lot of those. But that gets misunderstood as an inability or unwillingness to have or state my own criticisms of the coach. In the face of relentless and high-shrill criticisms throughout this season, there hasn't been much space allowed for more nuanced discussion, unfortunately.

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So what do you characterize as a cheap or unreasonable shot? Because I don't see a lot here. I see people arguing his performance is not good enough. I see people arguing he should be fired. If that is cheap and unreasonable, I'm sorry, what am I supposed to do? It feels like just shut up.

Again, I do appreciate you answering, but even so, I'm sorry, some of it sounds like saying things to say things. His recruiting is not "so-so". You want to say it is too early, fine, but it isn't on par with Monty. That is just incorrect so it doesn't seem like you actually critically thought about that. Working with someone like Van Gundy when you are out of work is not special. That doesn't seem like something that was critically thought about. Blaming Covid 3-4 months after it was an issue does not seem like something that was critically thought of. Having "faith" is by definition not critical thought.

But at least you are presenting something I can respond to. I can't respond to "You have to support the team", "If you don't have the money to pay the buy out, shut up". "He isn't getting fired now so what is the point?" "He deserves a chance". These are not arguments. There is nothing there I can respond to.

I have to go back to the unreasonable shot point. Because that is a key one for me. I have been on here for over 20 years. I've been on the fire the coach side and on the support the coach side. But one thing is consistent is that some on the support the coach side always treats the fire the coach side like petulant babies who always want to fire the coach and think there is some nobility in being on the support side. There are some fans that do just vent on the coach, but there are plenty that don't. Frankly, we have mostly purged the "fire the bum" crowd through apathy. I see a lot of detailed arguments and facts coming from the fire side right now and I see a lot of very loose arguments coming from other side. I have not taken cheap shots at Fox at all. I've said he was the wrong guy for this job. I have even said I would consider him for a mid major job.

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OMG, you are exhausting. I already taxed myself with my lengthy post to BDB.

I don't cite Wilner because I think he's a genius, but at least I recognize and appreciate that it is actually his full-time job to be informed about these things, plus I know he has access to people and information that I don't. Also, it's my experience that he takes his voting responsibilities seriously and transparently. Still, if you want to completely dismiss his view that contradicts yours by calling him an idiot, then I guess that's just more you being you. My point in referencing him is to show one very prominent objectively non-Cal example of someone who believes Fox did an excellent job, indeed the best of all Pac12 coaches, in his first year at Cal. Call me an irrational Cal homer if you like, it's surely true, but you certainly can't call Wilner that (although I guess what you do then is call him an idiot).)

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Help Wanted. Goal post Movers. Please contact drizzly to apply.

Quote:

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Falling: Cal Basketball

The Hotline will publish projections for the 2021-22 conference race later this month, once we gain clarity on the rosters.

Spoiler alert: The Bears will be picked last.

That was our lean immediately after the season, but it's obvious now that star guard Matt Bradley has entered the transfer portal.

Bradley was the only high-level talent on the roster, the only player who averaged more than 10 points per game the player who made everyone better. There's always a chance Bradley reverses course and returns for 2021-22, but we're assuming he's gone for good, desiring a change of scenery and chance for success.

In his three seasons, the Bears are 13-43 in conference play. Third-year coach Mark Fox needs help, immediately, but Cal lacks flexibility with the transfer portal because of the academic piece.

The outlook is gloomy in Berkeley.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/04/07/pac-12-stock-report-major-change-likely-for-intra-conference-transfer-policy-for-football-and-basketball-players/

---

By the way. Wilner does not have a vote for coach of the year. He does not have to take his "vote" seriously. He just wrote his unofficial post season awards in a column. The coach of the year award is voted on by coaches.

socaltownie said:

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Fyght4Cal said:

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socaltownie said:

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Memo. That was not a sexual harassment problem. It was a joke and it quickly was pretty much exposed as one. Was it a pretty Bush league effort at making a pass at a girl? Sure. But we all cant member rickie suave

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'Incident' would have been a better word. But it didn't come to me at 12:15am. The bottom line is that sexually suggestive joking in the workplace is a Bozo no-no.

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Not going to dispute the second part of the sentance but it was pretty clear that the "reporter" in question had no problems flirting with both players and assistant coaches. He clearly shouldn't have done what he did but that was very much an anti-cal mountain build from a molehill.

Meanwhile did I miss the multipart Comical expose of Brock Turner?

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The Brock Turner rape continues to astound and disgust. I certainly did not see the coverage in Bay Area media. But I can't help feeling this guy got away with a terrible crime, with the help of way too many elite institutions.

On the other hand, when someone at Cal sneezes, it's treated like the coming of a pandemic. The coverage the world's bet public university gets from its home media is a crying shame.

OaktownBear said:

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drizzlybear said:

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OaktownBear said:

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drizzlybear said:

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Your post accused me of closing my eyes and hoping, and of not being willing to address a burning house. I view those as unfair attacks, and not a serious consideration of my position. I gave a very lengthy response to another poster's (BigDaddyBear?) request for my view in the matter. If you're really interested in understanding and discussing my view on the matter, take a look at that post and let me know if you still have questions or want to have a respectful debate on any of the points therein.

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Look, I DO appreciate you responding in depth to BigDaddyBear, but this is why he characterized it as closing your eyes and hoping. You didn't answer BigDaddy's question. His question was "what do you see today that tells you he is the man to turn things around?" It was not "why aren't you ready to fire him?" This is a very important distinction to those of us on my side. We hear a lot of "these are the reasons why I'm not positive he is going to fail". We hear virtually nothing saying "Here are the reasons he is awesome and is going to put this program on track". We see the other side as approaching this like a criminal court case. We must get 12 out of 12 jurors to find a coach guilty of sucking beyond a reasonable doubt before we can fire the coach. We don't think that is the standard. The standard is, is this guy the one that will turn my program around. We hear a lot of reasons not to fire him. We hear virtually no one saying anything beyond give him a chance. We hear no one pointing to his record or attributes and saying "this is why he is the man to do it". Honestly, you probably did the most in the above post and if you break it down you did very little.

Quote:

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First, I place some basic level of faith or benefit of the doubt in the people Cal has in place to make the hire in the first place. I understand that lots of people here do not have such faith in the individual nor the process used to hire Fox. I don't have that level of knowledge, so I start by assuming some basic level of competency at Cal.

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See that IS closing your eyes specifically and generally. Specifically, all evidence points to the fact that Cal does not deserve that faith. I'm not even going to bother presenting evidence of that. So giving them that is eye closing.

Generally, I agree with your humility. But while you might not be better than they are, you can look at what people in the same position do and make a judgment. I will tell you that if Cal has to choose between me and Tom Holmoe to coach football, they should hire Tom Holmoe. But I will also tell you that I can easily tell that will be a disaster.

Quote:

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Given that assumption, I assume there were good reasons for hiring him.

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Since the underlying assumption was eye closing, the follow up assumption is eye closing. Further, Knowlton was very explicit in his reasons for hiring Fox. There is no reason to assume anything beyond that. You should judge that, not assume he had good reasons. If you think his reasons were sound, fine. If you just assume there had to be sound reasons, that is eye closing.

Quote:

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I don't know enough about the situation to substitute my opinion for those with the responsibility and handsome pay to make those decisions.

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But you do know enough to judge those paid handsomely against others paid handsomely.

Quote:

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At its most superficial level I see a guy who has had a good amount of experience as a high level college basketball coach, with mixed results of some success and some mediocrity. Mediocre prior results alone don't dictate my view as to what he might bring at this time. (If it did, then the Yankees should never have hired Joe Torre, the A's never hired Tony LaRussa, nor USC hired Pete Carroll, and Wayne a tinkle would've been long gone from Corvallis before he's now become a darling.) I am open to the possibility that people sometimes learn and improve from prior experiences. So I don't dismiss the hire out of hand from the outset, as it appears many do, and maybe including you.

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See, this is directly my point above. There is a difference between saying just because he has been mediocre doesn't mean he will continue to be mediocre and saying this is why he is going to be good. I disagree with your premise. Most mediocre coaches stay mediocre. If you want to hire a good coach, you hire a good coach. You don't hire a mediocre coach and hope he becomes a good one. And if you think one can learn, you don't hire a coach whose conference record has gotten worse 4 years in a row. That is not indicating improvement. But, I'm digressing. The point is that this is not an argument that he is the man for the job. It is an argument that it is possible that he is not not the man for the job.

Quote:

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This also raises the point that Cal was not in a strong position to attract a coach in high demand.

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Except we know of candidates that were interested.

Quote:

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It might be the case that Cal's objective was not to select the coach who would get us to the promised land, but rather a coach who would get us out of the burning dumpster and into a place of competitive stability where we could maybe then attract the coach who could get us to the promised land.

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Then Cal lied to us. I can only take what they say at face value:

Quote:

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Mark Fox is a man of unparalleled integrity with a proven record of success as a head basketball coach," athletic director Jim Knowlton said. "He is an inspiring leader, a teacher and an exceptional communicator who has displayed a strong commitment to developing the entire student-athlete on the court and off the court. We had an exceptional pool of candidates, and through the entire process, one person clearly rose to the top. I am excited to welcome Mark to the Cal family and look forward to him leading Cal men's basketball program to new heights. We want our teams to be exceptional, and I firmly believe that Mark is the person to lead us there

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Quote:

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I also was impressed with the work and experience Fox got in the year prior to coaching Cal. I think he was doing some sort of national team thing that had him on staff with Jeff Van Gundy whom I REALLY like, and others. I heard Fox was bringing into Cal practices well-respected coaches like Van Gundy and Mike Montgomery, etc. This seemed good.

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Hey - THIS was a positive reason. Thank you. It is an extremely weak one. But thank you. Lots of coaches do this sort of thing, especially when they are fired. As an aside, Van Gundy is an okay coach but nothing to write home about. On top of that, Tom Holmoe worked more with Bill Walsh, a much better coach than Van Gundy, and fat lot that demonstrated.

Quote:

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Then, in Year 1, I thought Fox did a decent job with a super young and depleted roster.

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Positive again, if very faint.

Quote:

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Anyway, back to Year 1, I thought the floor was raised pretty quickly despite a far less talented roster. And, IIRC, the team generally improved later in the season. So that reflected well on Fox's coaching

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Positive. Very faint, but positive. Note, I did not argue that he should be fired after last year. I don't view it as positive but as a passing grade.

Quote:

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It's worth noting that none other than Jon Wilner (not known for being a Cal homer) voted Fox Pac12 Coach of the Year. And I believe that wasn't the only COY vote Fox received but can't verify

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Wilner is an idiot. I have no idea if he got any other votes, but you or I can judge results as well as the next. There is no way a coach with that record should get any COY votes. That is more of an indictment on the Cal program than it is a positive.

Quote:

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I do recall Fox receiving significant praise from the analysts on Pac12net.

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I heard Monty give glowing praise to Braun on television the year he got fired. Almost every telecast gives both coaches praise.

These are not positives. These are other people's opinions

Quote:

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Meanwhile, the recruiting seemed so-so, but of course recruiting is usually a longer-term deal, and in any case, Cal was not in a strong position to attract top talent. So, as with Wilcox, I was/am patient on the recruiting issue. Fwiw, I'm encouraged by some of the recruits Fox has brought in so far. They seem to have the long-term potential akin to the players Mike Montgomery brought in.

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Not a positive. So so is optimistic. Monty's classes were clearly rated higher.

Quote:

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That brings us to this year. My impression of this year is that Cal was awful for the first third or more of the season. It was disappointing. I had hoped for Wilcox-like improvement; not meteoric, but steady. But then I thought the team played consistently decent basketball relative to its talent level over the last half of the season.

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We radically disagree on this point. That is fine. We have discussed it. This is a positive, but I just don't see how you can claim it is a big one.

Quote:

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To me, not only am I patient enough to suffer a blip of a bad season for whatever reason, but I thought that this team was hit especially hard by covid and it seemed to make sense to what I felt I was seeing. Specifically, what this Cal team needed above anything else during the offseason was time on the court playing together. This team was young and what it needed above anything else, especially players like Brown, Kuany, and Lars who have great physical gifts but whose skills are very raw, was time on the court together. And that's precisely what COVID prevented. So, to me, not only do i have the patience to give a coach a bad year (and maybe even a second one if there should be another), I felt there's actually some reasonable explanation for this particular bad year. The fact that the team, IMO, improved relative to its competition over the course of the season again supported the theory that COVID impacts were particularly difficult for this team early in the season.

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Please stop. The 6 main players this year were 2 juniors, 1 senior, 2 graduates and a sophomore. They are not young or inexperienced. Yes, Covid interfered with practice in November.They have had virtually no interference since then. I'd estimate they had 80-100 days playing and practicing together with minimal Covid interference. This just sounds like a catch all excuse, but it isn't.

Quote:

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Unfortunately, on this board if you don't support firing the coach yesterday you are depicted as having no critical thinking and no standards for the coaching performance. That's not the case with me. For me, the jury is still out. Of course I'll support the coach as a fan, but I don't mind criticisms. What I do tend to respond to are posts that appear to me to be cheap or unreasonable shots. Unfortunately there's been a lot of those. But that gets misunderstood as an inability or unwillingness to have or state my own criticisms of the coach. In the face of relentless and high-shrill criticisms throughout this season, there hasn't been much space allowed for more nuanced discussion, unfortunately.

---

So what do you characterize as a cheap or unreasonable shot? Because I don't see a lot here. I see people arguing his performance is not good enough. I see people arguing he should be fired. If that is cheap and unreasonable, I'm sorry, what am I supposed to do? It feels like just shut up.

Again, I do appreciate you answering, but even so, I'm sorry, some of it sounds like saying things to say things. His recruiting is not "so-so". You want to say it is too early, fine, but it isn't on par with Monty. That is just incorrect so it doesn't seem like you actually critically thought about that. Working with someone like Van Gundy when you are out of work is not special. That doesn't seem like something that was critically thought about. Blaming Covid 3-4 months after it was an issue does not seem like something that was critically thought of. Having "faith" is by definition not critical thought.

But at least you are presenting something I can respond to. I can't respond to "You have to support the team", "If you don't have the money to pay the buy out, shut up". "He isn't getting fired now so what is the point?" "He deserves a chance". These are not arguments. There is nothing there I can respond to.

I have to go back to the unreasonable shot point. Because that is a key one for me. I have been on here for over 20 years. I've been on the fire the coach side and on the support the coach side. But one thing is consistent is that some on the support the coach side always treats the fire the coach side like petulant babies who always want to fire the coach and think there is some nobility in being on the support side. There are some fans that do just vent on the coach, but there are plenty that don't. Frankly, we have mostly purged the "fire the bum" crowd through apathy. I see a lot of detailed arguments and facts coming from the fire side right now and I see a lot of very loose arguments coming from other side. I have not taken cheap shots at Fox at all. I've said he was the wrong guy for this job. I have even said I would consider him for a mid major job.

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OMG, you are exhausting. I already taxed myself with my lengthy post to BDB.

I don't cite Wilner because I think he's a genius, but at least I recognize and appreciate that it is actually his full-time job to be informed about these things, plus I know he has access to people and information that I don't. Also, it's my experience that he takes his voting responsibilities seriously and transparently. Still, if you want to completely dismiss his view that contradicts yours by calling him an idiot, then I guess that's just more you being you. My point in referencing him is to show one very prominent objectively non-Cal example of someone who believes Fox did an excellent job, indeed the best of all Pac12 coaches, in his first year at Cal. Call me an irrational Cal homer if you like, it's surely true, but you certainly can't call Wilner that (although I guess what you do then is call him an idiot).)

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Help Wanted. Goal post Movers. Please contact drizzly to apply.

Quote:

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Falling: Cal Basketball

The Hotline will publish projections for the 2021-22 conference race later this month, once we gain clarity on the rosters.

Spoiler alert: The Bears will be picked last.

That was our lean immediately after the season, but it's obvious now that star guard Matt Bradley has entered the transfer portal.

Bradley was the only high-level talent on the roster, the only player who averaged more than 10 points per game the player who made everyone better. There's always a chance Bradley reverses course and returns for 2021-22, but we're assuming he's gone for good, desiring a change of scenery and chance for success.

In his three seasons, the Bears are 13-43 in conference play. Third-year coach Mark Fox needs help, immediately, but Cal lacks flexibility with the transfer portal because of the academic piece.

The outlook is gloomy in Berkeley.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/04/07/pac-12-stock-report-major-change-likely-for-intra-conference-transfer-policy-for-football-and-basketball-players/

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By the way. Wilner does not have a vote for coach of the year. He does not have to take his "vote" seriously. He just wrote his unofficial post season awards in a column. The coach of the year award is voted on by coaches.

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Wait, are you dismissing Wilner's credibility but then simultaneously also citing Wilner to make a point? Talk about moving goal posts. I believe the only point you're proving is that you do indeed continue to take unfair shots. I have no idea what you're referring to by accusing me of "moving goal posts", but I am starting to enjoy how much my "jury's still out" position bothers you.

drizzlybear said:

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OaktownBear said:

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drizzlybear said:

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OaktownBear said:

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drizzlybear said:

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Your post accused me of closing my eyes and hoping, and of not being willing to address a burning house. I view those as unfair attacks, and not a serious consideration of my position. I gave a very lengthy response to another poster's (BigDaddyBear?) request for my view in the matter. If you're really interested in understanding and discussing my view on the matter, take a look at that post and let me know if you still have questions or want to have a respectful debate on any of the points therein.

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Look, I DO appreciate you responding in depth to BigDaddyBear, but this is why he characterized it as closing your eyes and hoping. You didn't answer BigDaddy's question. His question was "what do you see today that tells you he is the man to turn things around?" It was not "why aren't you ready to fire him?" This is a very important distinction to those of us on my side. We hear a lot of "these are the reasons why I'm not positive he is going to fail". We hear virtually nothing saying "Here are the reasons he is awesome and is going to put this program on track". We see the other side as approaching this like a criminal court case. We must get 12 out of 12 jurors to find a coach guilty of sucking beyond a reasonable doubt before we can fire the coach. We don't think that is the standard. The standard is, is this guy the one that will turn my program around. We hear a lot of reasons not to fire him. We hear virtually no one saying anything beyond give him a chance. We hear no one pointing to his record or attributes and saying "this is why he is the man to do it". Honestly, you probably did the most in the above post and if you break it down you did very little.

Quote:

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First, I place some basic level of faith or benefit of the doubt in the people Cal has in place to make the hire in the first place. I understand that lots of people here do not have such faith in the individual nor the process used to hire Fox. I don't have that level of knowledge, so I start by assuming some basic level of competency at Cal.

---

See that IS closing your eyes specifically and generally. Specifically, all evidence points to the fact that Cal does not deserve that faith. I'm not even going to bother presenting evidence of that. So giving them that is eye closing.

Generally, I agree with your humility. But while you might not be better than they are, you can look at what people in the same position do and make a judgment. I will tell you that if Cal has to choose between me and Tom Holmoe to coach football, they should hire Tom Holmoe. But I will also tell you that I can easily tell that will be a disaster.

Quote:

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Given that assumption, I assume there were good reasons for hiring him.

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Since the underlying assumption was eye closing, the follow up assumption is eye closing. Further, Knowlton was very explicit in his reasons for hiring Fox. There is no reason to assume anything beyond that. You should judge that, not assume he had good reasons. If you think his reasons were sound, fine. If you just assume there had to be sound reasons, that is eye closing.

Quote:

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I don't know enough about the situation to substitute my opinion for those with the responsibility and handsome pay to make those decisions.

---

But you do know enough to judge those paid handsomely against others paid handsomely.

Quote:

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At its most superficial level I see a guy who has had a good amount of experience as a high level college basketball coach, with mixed results of some success and some mediocrity. Mediocre prior results alone don't dictate my view as to what he might bring at this time. (If it did, then the Yankees should never have hired Joe Torre, the A's never hired Tony LaRussa, nor USC hired Pete Carroll, and Wayne a tinkle would've been long gone from Corvallis before he's now become a darling.) I am open to the possibility that people sometimes learn and improve from prior experiences. So I don't dismiss the hire out of hand from the outset, as it appears many do, and maybe including you.

---

See, this is directly my point above. There is a difference between saying just because he has been mediocre doesn't mean he will continue to be mediocre and saying this is why he is going to be good. I disagree with your premise. Most mediocre coaches stay mediocre. If you want to hire a good coach, you hire a good coach. You don't hire a mediocre coach and hope he becomes a good one. And if you think one can learn, you don't hire a coach whose conference record has gotten worse 4 years in a row. That is not indicating improvement. But, I'm digressing. The point is that this is not an argument that he is the man for the job. It is an argument that it is possible that he is not not the man for the job.

Quote:

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This also raises the point that Cal was not in a strong position to attract a coach in high demand.

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Except we know of candidates that were interested.

Quote:

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It might be the case that Cal's objective was not to select the coach who would get us to the promised land, but rather a coach who would get us out of the burning dumpster and into a place of competitive stability where we could maybe then attract the coach who could get us to the promised land.

---

Then Cal lied to us. I can only take what they say at face value:

Quote:

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Mark Fox is a man of unparalleled integrity with a proven record of success as a head basketball coach," athletic director Jim Knowlton said. "He is an inspiring leader, a teacher and an exceptional communicator who has displayed a strong commitment to developing the entire student-athlete on the court and off the court. We had an exceptional pool of candidates, and through the entire process, one person clearly rose to the top. I am excited to welcome Mark to the Cal family and look forward to him leading Cal men's basketball program to new heights. We want our teams to be exceptional, and I firmly believe that Mark is the person to lead us there

---

Quote:

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I also was impressed with the work and experience Fox got in the year prior to coaching Cal. I think he was doing some sort of national team thing that had him on staff with Jeff Van Gundy whom I REALLY like, and others. I heard Fox was bringing into Cal practices well-respected coaches like Van Gundy and Mike Montgomery, etc. This seemed good.

---

Hey - THIS was a positive reason. Thank you. It is an extremely weak one. But thank you. Lots of coaches do this sort of thing, especially when they are fired. As an aside, Van Gundy is an okay coach but nothing to write home about. On top of that, Tom Holmoe worked more with Bill Walsh, a much better coach than Van Gundy, and fat lot that demonstrated.

Quote:

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Then, in Year 1, I thought Fox did a decent job with a super young and depleted roster.

---

Positive again, if very faint.

Quote:

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Anyway, back to Year 1, I thought the floor was raised pretty quickly despite a far less talented roster. And, IIRC, the team generally improved later in the season. So that reflected well on Fox's coaching

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Positive. Very faint, but positive. Note, I did not argue that he should be fired after last year. I don't view it as positive but as a passing grade.

Quote:

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It's worth noting that none other than Jon Wilner (not known for being a Cal homer) voted Fox Pac12 Coach of the Year. And I believe that wasn't the only COY vote Fox received but can't verify

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Wilner is an idiot. I have no idea if he got any other votes, but you or I can judge results as well as the next. There is no way a coach with that record should get any COY votes. That is more of an indictment on the Cal program than it is a positive.

Quote:

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I do recall Fox receiving significant praise from the analysts on Pac12net.

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I heard Monty give glowing praise to Braun on television the year he got fired. Almost every telecast gives both coaches praise.

These are not positives. These are other people's opinions

Quote:

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Meanwhile, the recruiting seemed so-so, but of course recruiting is usually a longer-term deal, and in any case, Cal was not in a strong position to attract top talent. So, as with Wilcox, I was/am patient on the recruiting issue. Fwiw, I'm encouraged by some of the recruits Fox has brought in so far. They seem to have the long-term potential akin to the players Mike Montgomery brought in.

---

Not a positive. So so is optimistic. Monty's classes were clearly rated higher.

Quote:

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That brings us to this year. My impression of this year is that Cal was awful for the first third or more of the season. It was disappointing. I had hoped for Wilcox-like improvement; not meteoric, but steady. But then I thought the team played consistently decent basketball relative to its talent level over the last half of the season.

---

We radically disagree on this point. That is fine. We have discussed it. This is a positive, but I just don't see how you can claim it is a big one.

Quote:

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To me, not only am I patient enough to suffer a blip of a bad season for whatever reason, but I thought that this team was hit especially hard by covid and it seemed to make sense to what I felt I was seeing. Specifically, what this Cal team needed above anything else during the offseason was time on the court playing together. This team was young and what it needed above anything else, especially players like Brown, Kuany, and Lars who have great physical gifts but whose skills are very raw, was time on the court together. And that's precisely what COVID prevented. So, to me, not only do i have the patience to give a coach a bad year (and maybe even a second one if there should be another), I felt there's actually some reasonable explanation for this particular bad year. The fact that the team, IMO, improved relative to its competition over the course of the season again supported the theory that COVID impacts were particularly difficult for this team early in the season.

---

Please stop. The 6 main players this year were 2 juniors, 1 senior, 2 graduates and a sophomore. They are not young or inexperienced. Yes, Covid interfered with practice in November.They have had virtually no interference since then. I'd estimate they had 80-100 days playing and practicing together with minimal Covid interference. This just sounds like a catch all excuse, but it isn't.

Quote:

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Unfortunately, on this board if you don't support firing the coach yesterday you are depicted as having no critical thinking and no standards for the coaching performance. That's not the case with me. For me, the jury is still out. Of course I'll support the coach as a fan, but I don't mind criticisms. What I do tend to respond to are posts that appear to me to be cheap or unreasonable shots. Unfortunately there's been a lot of those. But that gets misunderstood as an inability or unwillingness to have or state my own criticisms of the coach. In the face of relentless and high-shrill criticisms throughout this season, there hasn't been much space allowed for more nuanced discussion, unfortunately.

---

So what do you characterize as a cheap or unreasonable shot? Because I don't see a lot here. I see people arguing his performance is not good enough. I see people arguing he should be fired. If that is cheap and unreasonable, I'm sorry, what am I supposed to do? It feels like just shut up.

Again, I do appreciate you answering, but even so, I'm sorry, some of it sounds like saying things to say things. His recruiting is not "so-so". You want to say it is too early, fine, but it isn't on par with Monty. That is just incorrect so it doesn't seem like you actually critically thought about that. Working with someone like Van Gundy when you are out of work is not special. That doesn't seem like something that was critically thought about. Blaming Covid 3-4 months after it was an issue does not seem like something that was critically thought of. Having "faith" is by definition not critical thought.

But at least you are presenting something I can respond to. I can't respond to "You have to support the team", "If you don't have the money to pay the buy out, shut up". "He isn't getting fired now so what is the point?" "He deserves a chance". These are not arguments. There is nothing there I can respond to.

I have to go back to the unreasonable shot point. Because that is a key one for me. I have been on here for over 20 years. I've been on the fire the coach side and on the support the coach side. But one thing is consistent is that some on the support the coach side always treats the fire the coach side like petulant babies who always want to fire the coach and think there is some nobility in being on the support side. There are some fans that do just vent on the coach, but there are plenty that don't. Frankly, we have mostly purged the "fire the bum" crowd through apathy. I see a lot of detailed arguments and facts coming from the fire side right now and I see a lot of very loose arguments coming from other side. I have not taken cheap shots at Fox at all. I've said he was the wrong guy for this job. I have even said I would consider him for a mid major job.

---

OMG, you are exhausting. I already taxed myself with my lengthy post to BDB.

I don't cite Wilner because I think he's a genius, but at least I recognize and appreciate that it is actually his full-time job to be informed about these things, plus I know he has access to people and information that I don't. Also, it's my experience that he takes his voting responsibilities seriously and transparently. Still, if you want to completely dismiss his view that contradicts yours by calling him an idiot, then I guess that's just more you being you. My point in referencing him is to show one very prominent objectively non-Cal example of someone who believes Fox did an excellent job, indeed the best of all Pac12 coaches, in his first year at Cal. Call me an irrational Cal homer if you like, it's surely true, but you certainly can't call Wilner that (although I guess what you do then is call him an idiot).)

---

Help Wanted. Goal post Movers. Please contact drizzly to apply.

Quote:

---

Falling: Cal Basketball

The Hotline will publish projections for the 2021-22 conference race later this month, once we gain clarity on the rosters.

Spoiler alert: The Bears will be picked last.

That was our lean immediately after the season, but it's obvious now that star guard Matt Bradley has entered the transfer portal.

Bradley was the only high-level talent on the roster, the only player who averaged more than 10 points per game the player who made everyone better. There's always a chance Bradley reverses course and returns for 2021-22, but we're assuming he's gone for good, desiring a change of scenery and chance for success.

In his three seasons, the Bears are 13-43 in conference play. Third-year coach Mark Fox needs help, immediately, but Cal lacks flexibility with the transfer portal because of the academic piece.

The outlook is gloomy in Berkeley.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/04/07/pac-12-stock-report-major-change-likely-for-intra-conference-transfer-policy-for-football-and-basketball-players/

---

By the way. Wilner does not have a vote for coach of the year. He does not have to take his "vote" seriously. He just wrote his unofficial post season awards in a column. The coach of the year award is voted on by coaches.

---

Wait, are you dismissing Wilner's credibility but then simultaneously also citing Wilner to make a point? Talk about moving goal posts. I believe the only point you're proving is that you do indeed continue to take unfair shots. I have no idea what you're referring to by accusing me of "moving goal posts", but I am starting to enjoy how much my "jury's still out" position bothers you.

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No dude. I don't care what Wilmer thinks. He stated the obvious and it doesn't bolster my point whatsoever. YOU WERE THE ONE WHO MADE SUCH A BIG DEAL ABOUT HOW IMPORTANT IT WAS THAT WILNER, a man paid for his expertise. A man who supposedly has sources (he doesn't) a man neutral to Cal, said Fox did a good job. YOU WERE THE ONE CHAMPIONING HIS CREDIBILITY AND YOU MADE IT A BIG PART OF YOUR ARGUMENT FOR FOX. I said he is an idiot and then you defended him some more.

I'm citing it as cratering your point. Either WILNER is a good source or he isn't. I say he isn't, BUT YOU SAY HE US. So your source just told you he sees us clearly in last next year and things look very bad. Not w what are you going to do with that? You can't cite him as a great source when he says what you want and ignore it when he doesn't. I think he is a lousy source and am happy to ignore him which would eviscerate your initial point. Or we can call him a good source which means Wilner has now changed his mind based on new info and sees our program being in the toilet, also eviscerating your point.

Further, when I then went back and looked, you totally misrepresented the COY thing. Fox didn't get any votes. A guy who wrote a column picked him as his choice and also in that column said he would face lots of derision for it.

Fyght4Cal said:

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socaltownie said:

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Fyght4Cal said:

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socaltownie said:

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Memo. That was not a sexual harassment problem. It was a joke and it quickly was pretty much exposed as one. Was it a pretty Bush league effort at making a pass at a girl? Sure. But we all cant member rickie suave

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'Incident' would have been a better word. But it didn't come to me at 12:15am. The bottom line is that sexually suggestive joking in the workplace is a Bozo no-no.

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Not going to dispute the second part of the sentance but it was pretty clear that the "reporter" in question had no problems flirting with both players and assistant coaches. He clearly shouldn't have done what he did but that was very much an anti-cal mountain build from a molehill.

Meanwhile did I miss the multipart Comical expose of Brock Turner?

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The Brock Turner rape continues to astound and disgust. I certainly did not see the coverage in Bay Area media. But I can't help feeling this guy got away with a terrible crime, with the help of way too many elite institutions.

On the other hand, when someone at Cal sneezes, it's treated like the coming of a pandemic. The coverage the world's bet public university gets from its home media is a crying shame.

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I'm sorry, but this is not the case. The Bay Area media and national media was filled with outrage. There were not many institutions that helped him get away with it. There was one judge. That was what was frustrating. This was one of the rare cases where everything went right. Turner was stopped. He was turned in. The school took it seriously. The police took it seriously. The prosecutor went after him. He was convicted. And then one asshat judge gave him a ridiculous sentence. And because that judge did that stupid thing, voters recalled him and kicked him out of office. That never happens.

One man failed. Everyone else, including society at large did their job. And while Turner could not be punished further, the judge lost his career, rightfully so.

OaktownBear said:

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drizzlybear said:

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OaktownBear said:

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drizzlybear said:

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OaktownBear said:

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drizzlybear said:

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Your post accused me of closing my eyes and hoping, and of not being willing to address a burning house. I view those as unfair attacks, and not a serious consideration of my position. I gave a very lengthy response to another poster's (BigDaddyBear?) request for my view in the matter. If you're really interested in understanding and discussing my view on the matter, take a look at that post and let me know if you still have questions or want to have a respectful debate on any of the points therein.

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Look, I DO appreciate you responding in depth to BigDaddyBear, but this is why he characterized it as closing your eyes and hoping. You didn't answer BigDaddy's question. His question was "what do you see today that tells you he is the man to turn things around?" It was not "why aren't you ready to fire him?" This is a very important distinction to those of us on my side. We hear a lot of "these are the reasons why I'm not positive he is going to fail". We hear virtually nothing saying "Here are the reasons he is awesome and is going to put this program on track". We see the other side as approaching this like a criminal court case. We must get 12 out of 12 jurors to find a coach guilty of sucking beyond a reasonable doubt before we can fire the coach. We don't think that is the standard. The standard is, is this guy the one that will turn my program around. We hear a lot of reasons not to fire him. We hear virtually no one saying anything beyond give him a chance. We hear no one pointing to his record or attributes and saying "this is why he is the man to do it". Honestly, you probably did the most in the above post and if you break it down you did very little.

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First, I place some basic level of faith or benefit of the doubt in the people Cal has in place to make the hire in the first place. I understand that lots of people here do not have such faith in the individual nor the process used to hire Fox. I don't have that level of knowledge, so I start by assuming some basic level of competency at Cal.

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See that IS closing your eyes specifically and generally. Specifically, all evidence points to the fact that Cal does not deserve that faith. I'm not even going to bother presenting evidence of that. So giving them that is eye closing.

Generally, I agree with your humility. But while you might not be better than they are, you can look at what people in the same position do and make a judgment. I will tell you that if Cal has to choose between me and Tom Holmoe to coach football, they should hire Tom Holmoe. But I will also tell you that I can easily tell that will be a disaster.

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Given that assumption, I assume there were good reasons for hiring him.

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Since the underlying assumption was eye closing, the follow up assumption is eye closing. Further, Knowlton was very explicit in his reasons for hiring Fox. There is no reason to assume anything beyond that. You should judge that, not assume he had good reasons. If you think his reasons were sound, fine. If you just assume there had to be sound reasons, that is eye closing.

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I don't know enough about the situation to substitute my opinion for those with the responsibility and handsome pay to make those decisions.

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But you do know enough to judge those paid handsomely against others paid handsomely.

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At its most superficial level I see a guy who has had a good amount of experience as a high level college basketball coach, with mixed results of some success and some mediocrity. Mediocre prior results alone don't dictate my view as to what he might bring at this time. (If it did, then the Yankees should never have hired Joe Torre, the A's never hired Tony LaRussa, nor USC hired Pete Carroll, and Wayne a tinkle would've been long gone from Corvallis before he's now become a darling.) I am open to the possibility that people sometimes learn and improve from prior experiences. So I don't dismiss the hire out of hand from the outset, as it appears many do, and maybe including you.

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See, this is directly my point above. There is a difference between saying just because he has been mediocre doesn't mean he will continue to be mediocre and saying this is why he is going to be good. I disagree with your premise. Most mediocre coaches stay mediocre. If you want to hire a good coach, you hire a good coach. You don't hire a mediocre coach and hope he becomes a good one. And if you think one can learn, you don't hire a coach whose conference record has gotten worse 4 years in a row. That is not indicating improvement. But, I'm digressing. The point is that this is not an argument that he is the man for the job. It is an argument that it is possible that he is not not the man for the job.

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This also raises the point that Cal was not in a strong position to attract a coach in high demand.

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Except we know of candidates that were interested.

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It might be the case that Cal's objective was not to select the coach who would get us to the promised land, but rather a coach who would get us out of the burning dumpster and into a place of competitive stability where we could maybe then attract the coach who could get us to the promised land.

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Then Cal lied to us. I can only take what they say at face value:

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Mark Fox is a man of unparalleled integrity with a proven record of success as a head basketball coach," athletic director Jim Knowlton said. "He is an inspiring leader, a teacher and an exceptional communicator who has displayed a strong commitment to developing the entire student-athlete on the court and off the court. We had an exceptional pool of candidates, and through the entire process, one person clearly rose to the top. I am excited to welcome Mark to the Cal family and look forward to him leading Cal men's basketball program to new heights. We want our teams to be exceptional, and I firmly believe that Mark is the person to lead us there

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I also was impressed with the work and experience Fox got in the year prior to coaching Cal. I think he was doing some sort of national team thing that had him on staff with Jeff Van Gundy whom I REALLY like, and others. I heard Fox was bringing into Cal practices well-respected coaches like Van Gundy and Mike Montgomery, etc. This seemed good.

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Hey - THIS was a positive reason. Thank you. It is an extremely weak one. But thank you. Lots of coaches do this sort of thing, especially when they are fired. As an aside, Van Gundy is an okay coach but nothing to write home about. On top of that, Tom Holmoe worked more with Bill Walsh, a much better coach than Van Gundy, and fat lot that demonstrated.

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Then, in Year 1, I thought Fox did a decent job with a super young and depleted roster.

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Positive again, if very faint.

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Anyway, back to Year 1, I thought the floor was raised pretty quickly despite a far less talented roster. And, IIRC, the team generally improved later in the season. So that reflected well on Fox's coaching

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Positive. Very faint, but positive. Note, I did not argue that he should be fired after last year. I don't view it as positive but as a passing grade.

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It's worth noting that none other than Jon Wilner (not known for being a Cal homer) voted Fox Pac12 Coach of the Year. And I believe that wasn't the only COY vote Fox received but can't verify

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Wilner is an idiot. I have no idea if he got any other votes, but you or I can judge results as well as the next. There is no way a coach with that record should get any COY votes. That is more of an indictment on the Cal program than it is a positive.

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I do recall Fox receiving significant praise from the analysts on Pac12net.

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I heard Monty give glowing praise to Braun on television the year he got fired. Almost every telecast gives both coaches praise.

These are not positives. These are other people's opinions

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Meanwhile, the recruiting seemed so-so, but of course recruiting is usually a longer-term deal, and in any case, Cal was not in a strong position to attract top talent. So, as with Wilcox, I was/am patient on the recruiting issue. Fwiw, I'm encouraged by some of the recruits Fox has brought in so far. They seem to have the long-term potential akin to the players Mike Montgomery brought in.

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Not a positive. So so is optimistic. Monty's classes were clearly rated higher.

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That brings us to this year. My impression of this year is that Cal was awful for the first third or more of the season. It was disappointing. I had hoped for Wilcox-like improvement; not meteoric, but steady. But then I thought the team played consistently decent basketball relative to its talent level over the last half of the season.

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We radically disagree on this point. That is fine. We have discussed it. This is a positive, but I just don't see how you can claim it is a big one.

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To me, not only am I patient enough to suffer a blip of a bad season for whatever reason, but I thought that this team was hit especially hard by covid and it seemed to make sense to what I felt I was seeing. Specifically, what this Cal team needed above anything else during the offseason was time on the court playing together. This team was young and what it needed above anything else, especially players like Brown, Kuany, and Lars who have great physical gifts but whose skills are very raw, was time on the court together. And that's precisely what COVID prevented. So, to me, not only do i have the patience to give a coach a bad year (and maybe even a second one if there should be another), I felt there's actually some reasonable explanation for this particular bad year. The fact that the team, IMO, improved relative to its competition over the course of the season again supported the theory that COVID impacts were particularly difficult for this team early in the season.

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Please stop. The 6 main players this year were 2 juniors, 1 senior, 2 graduates and a sophomore. They are not young or inexperienced. Yes, Covid interfered with practice in November.They have had virtually no interference since then. I'd estimate they had 80-100 days playing and practicing together with minimal Covid interference. This just sounds like a catch all excuse, but it isn't.

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Unfortunately, on this board if you don't support firing the coach yesterday you are depicted as having no critical thinking and no standards for the coaching performance. That's not the case with me. For me, the jury is still out. Of course I'll support the coach as a fan, but I don't mind criticisms. What I do tend to respond to are posts that appear to me to be cheap or unreasonable shots. Unfortunately there's been a lot of those. But that gets misunderstood as an inability or unwillingness to have or state my own criticisms of the coach. In the face of relentless and high-shrill criticisms throughout this season, there hasn't been much space allowed for more nuanced discussion, unfortunately.

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So what do you characterize as a cheap or unreasonable shot? Because I don't see a lot here. I see people arguing his performance is not good enough. I see people arguing he should be fired. If that is cheap and unreasonable, I'm sorry, what am I supposed to do? It feels like just shut up.

Again, I do appreciate you answering, but even so, I'm sorry, some of it sounds like saying things to say things. His recruiting is not "so-so". You want to say it is too early, fine, but it isn't on par with Monty. That is just incorrect so it doesn't seem like you actually critically thought about that. Working with someone like Van Gundy when you are out of work is not special. That doesn't seem like something that was critically thought about. Blaming Covid 3-4 months after it was an issue does not seem like something that was critically thought of. Having "faith" is by definition not critical thought.

But at least you are presenting something I can respond to. I can't respond to "You have to support the team", "If you don't have the money to pay the buy out, shut up". "He isn't getting fired now so what is the point?" "He deserves a chance". These are not arguments. There is nothing there I can respond to.

I have to go back to the unreasonable shot point. Because that is a key one for me. I have been on here for over 20 years. I've been on the fire the coach side and on the support the coach side. But one thing is consistent is that some on the support the coach side always treats the fire the coach side like petulant babies who always want to fire the coach and think there is some nobility in being on the support side. There are some fans that do just vent on the coach, but there are plenty that don't. Frankly, we have mostly purged the "fire the bum" crowd through apathy. I see a lot of detailed arguments and facts coming from the fire side right now and I see a lot of very loose arguments coming from other side. I have not taken cheap shots at Fox at all. I've said he was the wrong guy for this job. I have even said I would consider him for a mid major job.

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OMG, you are exhausting. I already taxed myself with my lengthy post to BDB.

I don't cite Wilner because I think he's a genius, but at least I recognize and appreciate that it is actually his full-time job to be informed about these things, plus I know he has access to people and information that I don't. Also, it's my experience that he takes his voting responsibilities seriously and transparently. Still, if you want to completely dismiss his view that contradicts yours by calling him an idiot, then I guess that's just more you being you. My point in referencing him is to show one very prominent objectively non-Cal example of someone who believes Fox did an excellent job, indeed the best of all Pac12 coaches, in his first year at Cal. Call me an irrational Cal homer if you like, it's surely true, but you certainly can't call Wilner that (although I guess what you do then is call him an idiot).)

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Help Wanted. Goal post Movers. Please contact drizzly to apply.

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Falling: Cal Basketball

The Hotline will publish projections for the 2021-22 conference race later this month, once we gain clarity on the rosters.

Spoiler alert: The Bears will be picked last.

That was our lean immediately after the season, but it's obvious now that star guard Matt Bradley has entered the transfer portal.

Bradley was the only high-level talent on the roster, the only player who averaged more than 10 points per game the player who made everyone better. There's always a chance Bradley reverses course and returns for 2021-22, but we're assuming he's gone for good, desiring a change of scenery and chance for success.

In his three seasons, the Bears are 13-43 in conference play. Third-year coach Mark Fox needs help, immediately, but Cal lacks flexibility with the transfer portal because of the academic piece.

The outlook is gloomy in Berkeley.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/04/07/pac-12-stock-report-major-change-likely-for-intra-conference-transfer-policy-for-football-and-basketball-players/

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By the way. Wilner does not have a vote for coach of the year. He does not have to take his "vote" seriously. He just wrote his unofficial post season awards in a column. The coach of the year award is voted on by coaches.

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Wait, are you dismissing Wilner's credibility but then simultaneously also citing Wilner to make a point? Talk about moving goal posts. I believe the only point you're proving is that you do indeed continue to take unfair shots. I have no idea what you're referring to by accusing me of "moving goal posts", but I am starting to enjoy how much my "jury's still out" position bothers you.

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No dude. I don't care what Wilmer thinks. He stated the obvious and it doesn't bolster my point whatsoever. YOU WERE THE ONE WHO MADE SUCH A BIG DEAL ABOUT HOW IMPORTANT IT WAS THAT WILNER, a man paid for his expertise. A man who supposedly has sources (he doesn't) a man neutral to Cal, said Fox did a good job. YOU WERE THE ONE CHAMPIONING HIS CREDIBILITY AND YOU MADE IT A BIG PART OF YOUR ARGUMENT FOR FOX. I said he is an idiot and then you defended him some more.

I'm citing it as cratering your point. Either WILNER is a good source or he isn't. I say he isn't, BUT YOU SAY HE US. So your source just told you he sees us clearly in last next year and things look very bad. Not w what are you going to do with that? You can't cite him as a great source when he says what you want and ignore it when he doesn't. I think he is a lousy source and am happy to ignore him which would eviscerate your initial point. Or we can call him a good source which means Wilner has now changed his mind based on new info and sees our program being in the toilet, also eviscerating your point.

Further, when I then went back and looked, you totally misrepresented the COY thing. Fox didn't get any votes. A guy who wrote a column picked him as his choice and also in that column said he would face lots of derision for it.

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Nope. Once again you've incorrectly assumed my argument, put words in my mouth, and then argued against those words you made up for me because apparently you can't adequately argue against the words I actually do say. Let me be clear: I have no problem with Wilner picking Cal, at this point in time, to finish in last place next season. So, no, I'm not the inconsistent one. You are the one who is making a big deal out of what Wilner says now, but calling him an idiot when his view is contrary to yours. Keep trying.

Also, even though you bold what I wrote, you continue to misunderstand it. I will repeat: I did not cite Wilner because I thought he was a genius. I cited him to provide an example of at least one prominent professional Pac12 voice who is not a Cal fan yet publicly stated that Fox did a good job his first year at Cal, and in fact selected Mark Fox for his Coach if the Year selection. This might break your brain because of how much you've invested yourself in an inaccurate perception of my opinion of Fox, but I actually do not agree with Wilner in that selection. I think Fox did a decent job in Year 1, but not COY level.
But go ahead, keep arguing against your fantasy of me. Btw, you still haven't come up with any basis for your "move the goal posts" shot. We're still waiting...