Bobodeluxe said:
At a mere low five-figure donor, I never considered myself a "big donor", and let's just say, I never felt the slightest consideration as such from the AD. I bailed after Martin's last game, not because I would miss him as a coach, but because of the awful showing the Bears put on in that NIT game, disrespectful to fans and University. He was a bum, and he destroyed whatever was left of the program. Sure, Williams deserves some credit, but the Martin hire was bad mojo.
I thought the Bakersfield game was the low point in Cal basketball history (at least in terms of what was visible - we didn't see Bozeman cheating). And then the Jones era happened. Even ignoring Theo and Winston and McCullough and Chauca and . . . well, all the behind the scenes stuff, most games of the Jones era were the Bakersfield game multiplied many, many times. Disrespectful to the fans and the University. Playing too many games without sufficient effort and with the fundamentals of a bad 5th grade CYO team.
Martin didn't destroy the program, because a quality hire could have put the program right back on track.
Williams deserves more credit than anyone for the destruction. The Jones hire said we don't give a crap about basketball, and put the program in grave. Fox definitely isn't the guy to resurrect it, but he didn't kill the program, and while Martin may have put the program in ICU, we could easily have recovered from the injuries. But instead of bringing in someone to heal the injuries, Williams brought in someone to commit malpractice.