BC Calfan said:

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It's been 3 weeks since the season ended and… nothing. I guess I'm not surprised, but it's terrifying to think that given the abysmal results the past 2 years, nothing is being done to shake things up.

With impact players entering the portal every day, are we just going to attack it with the same staff that simply can't get it done on the recruiting trail?

If we replaced one of the assistants, they would have already had 2.5 weeks to recruit, recruit and recruit.

But no changes. Everything's fine. Let's just run it back. Good lord.

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BC Calfan said:

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It's been 3 weeks since the season ended and… nothing. I guess I'm not surprised, but it's terrifying to think that given the abysmal results the past 2 years, nothing is being done to shake things up.

With impact players entering the portal every day, are we just going to attack it with the same staff that simply can't get it done on the recruiting trail?

If we replaced one of the assistants, they would have already had 2.5 weeks to recruit, recruit and recruit.

But no changes. Everything's fine. Let's just run it back. Good lord.

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socaltownie said:

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One thing that I have been wondering about (maybe 4th generation would chime in) is that Fox just is sorta lazy. I don't mean abnormally lazy but compared to his ultra driven competitors in the profession. He CLEARLY is a private person in a profession that actually requires extroverts (because, in the end, he is involved in an entertainment product). Maybe it is to make some announcements and not get overshadowed by the tournament. But I am appalled with the lack of news out of the program.

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stu said:

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socaltownie said:

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One thing that I have been wondering about (maybe 4th generation would chime in) is that Fox just is sorta lazy. I don't mean abnormally lazy but compared to his ultra driven competitors in the profession. He CLEARLY is a private person in a profession that actually requires extroverts (because, in the end, he is involved in an entertainment product). Maybe it is to make some announcements and not get overshadowed by the tournament. But I am appalled with the lack of news out of the program.

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I haven't seen any evidence that Fox is lazy. However I think he might not want to do the kind of work which I think needs to be done: scouting (personally), schmoozing with recruits, schmoozing with fans and donors, studying analytic techniques, working on offensive strategies, etc.

To put this in personal terms I'm a teacher. I come to class prepared, make myself available to students, accommodate student needs, and keep up with the subject matter. I don't recruit students, schmooze with Governing Board members, present research papers, or represent the school at national conferences. But I'm not paid millions.

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ducky23 said:

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This is exactly right. He still thinks what "worked" for him before will work for him again. He's completely unwilling to adapt or change. He's an already poor recruiter using completely outdated recruiting techniques and philosophies. I bet the other Pac-12 coaches who are serious about recruiting just laugh at him.

It's astounding that a university known for innovation and being on the cutting edge of every field can employ dinosaurs like fox and knowlton.

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ducky23 said:

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This is exactly right. He still thinks what "worked" for him before will work for him again. He's completely unwilling to adapt or change. He's an already poor recruiter using completely outdated recruiting techniques and philosophies. I bet the other Pac-12 coaches who are serious about recruiting just laugh at him.

It's astounding that a university known for innovation and being on the cutting edge of every field can employ dinosaurs like fox and knowlton.

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sluggo said:

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4thGenCal said:

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socaltownie said:

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PtownBear1 said:

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Fox didn't change any staff members after the abysmal 2020 season and 2 years of practically nonexistent recruiting, so I don't see why he would bother now after more of the same, especially when his employer doesn't care.

I bet Fox is thinking to himself what the hell does it take to get terminated at this school? I don't recruit, I don't engage at all with the fan base, our record is horrible - for ****s sake let me set off into the sunset with the remaining few mill I'm owed and end this failed experiment.

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One thing that I have been wondering about (maybe 4th generation would chime in) is that Fox just is sorta lazy. I don't mean abnormally lazy but compared to his ultra driven competitors in the profession. He CLEARLY is a private person in a profession that actually requires extroverts (because, in the end, he is involved in an entertainment product). Maybe it is to make some announcements and not get overshadowed by the tournament. But I am appalled with the lack of news out of the program.

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My limited experience with him is that he puts in a lot of hours (have received a few text responses 6am and 10pm range) not that it is effective hours - but he is highly competitive, driven as most coaches are (married to a former AD woman and they are a strong supporting team of each other). He is highly stubborn/loyal to his staff and rarely is open about his program - definitely a bit of paranoia, maybe justified from past experience, or just a safe approach. He is not a natural outgoing "people person" in my opinion. However to those who wonder if he is putting in neccessary in person recruiting trips etc - He certainly does and is out on the AAU circuit when its necessary. Gonna be interesting if he keeps his current staff in place (I gotta think Wilson goes?), Kelly is 90% out the door (10% just because he is waiting to have fully vetted where he could play etc) fortunately JB is staying, but its really bleak for next season. The staff is banking on big strides from the 3 freshman (next year's sophomores), and the power forward coming in, though raw. They have to pick up a solid shooter and hope a lower player transfers (not likely currently). He does not naturally reach out to local influential coaches/agents who could put in positive words for young local/future recruits - thus obvious networking is not a focus of his (ie Prolithic Prep/Oakland Soldiers director/coaches/Calvin Andrews types of relationship building).

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Thanks, as always, for sharing info. Banking on the three freshmen is delusional, they averaged a combined five points a game. Okafor will score fewer than five points a game, he is not there yet. And the three top scorers from last year won't be around. I am pessimistic by nature, but I am not wrong.

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4thGenCal said:

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socaltownie said:

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PtownBear1 said:

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Fox didn't change any staff members after the abysmal 2020 season and 2 years of practically nonexistent recruiting, so I don't see why he would bother now after more of the same, especially when his employer doesn't care.

I bet Fox is thinking to himself what the hell does it take to get terminated at this school? I don't recruit, I don't engage at all with the fan base, our record is horrible - for ****s sake let me set off into the sunset with the remaining few mill I'm owed and end this failed experiment.

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One thing that I have been wondering about (maybe 4th generation would chime in) is that Fox just is sorta lazy. I don't mean abnormally lazy but compared to his ultra driven competitors in the profession. He CLEARLY is a private person in a profession that actually requires extroverts (because, in the end, he is involved in an entertainment product). Maybe it is to make some announcements and not get overshadowed by the tournament. But I am appalled with the lack of news out of the program.

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My limited experience with him is that he puts in a lot of hours (have received a few text responses 6am and 10pm range) not that it is effective hours - but he is highly competitive, driven as most coaches are (married to a former AD woman and they are a strong supporting team of each other). He is highly stubborn/loyal to his staff and rarely is open about his program - definitely a bit of paranoia, maybe justified from past experience, or just a safe approach. He is not a natural outgoing "people person" in my opinion. However to those who wonder if he is putting in neccessary in person recruiting trips etc - He certainly does and is out on the AAU circuit when its necessary. Gonna be interesting if he keeps his current staff in place (I gotta think Wilson goes?), Kelly is 90% out the door (10% just because he is waiting to have fully vetted where he could play etc) fortunately JB is staying, but its really bleak for next season. The staff is banking on big strides from the 3 freshman (next year's sophomores), and the power forward coming in, though raw. They have to pick up a solid shooter and hope a lower player transfers (not likely currently). He does not naturally reach out to local influential coaches/agents who could put in positive words for young local/future recruits - thus obvious networking is not a focus of his (ie Prolithic Prep/Oakland Soldiers director/coaches/Calvin Andrews types of relationship building).

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ducky23 said:

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Next year will absolutely be the least talented team in my lifetime (sorry, I'm not as old as most of you, farthest back I go is Campanelli).

Next year may be such a train wreck, knowlton will have no choice but to fire fox

But does anyone have any faith that knowlton will do any better with the next hire. Maybe 4thgen could speak to how much donors may have some say in the next hire or whether knowlton is just going to go with the search firms recommendation again

What I would like to see is knowlton at least putting together an advisory committee made up of guys like shareef, Sean marks, Kidd, maybe even Monty or jaylen brown. While most of those guys are nba guys, you have to believe they know more than knowlton.

What annoys me is that knowlton has such a wealth of basketball knowledge to tap into. The guys I mentioned are all extremely sharp when it comes to the game. Why use an outside search firm?

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eastcoastcal said:

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Perhaps our men's basketball program has never operated like this, but it is incredibly frustrating to hear absolutely nothing regarding the players we're recruiting or looking at. The most information I can gather is from looking at the major recruiting sites and seeing who we're offering, but when I take a look at those players' social media & profiles, we're pretty much never even mentioned. With the football program, it seems like every week we have reports of recruiting targets, how our young guys are progressing, what the status of the various position groups is, etc. With the basketball program, our entire staff could've been abandoned on a deserted island with no internet connection and I'd still have the same amount of information being fed to me. Just slightly annoying and kinda feeds into the whole perception that the basketball program isn't a priority anymore.

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HoopDreams said:

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4thGenCal said:

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socaltownie said:

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PtownBear1 said:

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Fox didn't change any staff members after the abysmal 2020 season and 2 years of practically nonexistent recruiting, so I don't see why he would bother now after more of the same, especially when his employer doesn't care.

I bet Fox is thinking to himself what the hell does it take to get terminated at this school? I don't recruit, I don't engage at all with the fan base, our record is horrible - for ****s sake let me set off into the sunset with the remaining few mill I'm owed and end this failed experiment.

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One thing that I have been wondering about (maybe 4th generation would chime in) is that Fox just is sorta lazy. I don't mean abnormally lazy but compared to his ultra driven competitors in the profession. He CLEARLY is a private person in a profession that actually requires extroverts (because, in the end, he is involved in an entertainment product). Maybe it is to make some announcements and not get overshadowed by the tournament. But I am appalled with the lack of news out of the program.

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My limited experience with him is that he puts in a lot of hours (have received a few text responses 6am and 10pm range) not that it is effective hours - but he is highly competitive, driven as most coaches are (married to a former AD woman and they are a strong supporting team of each other). He is highly stubborn/loyal to his staff and rarely is open about his program - definitely a bit of paranoia, maybe justified from past experience, or just a safe approach. He is not a natural outgoing "people person" in my opinion. However to those who wonder if he is putting in neccessary in person recruiting trips etc - He certainly does and is out on the AAU circuit when its necessary. Gonna be interesting if he keeps his current staff in place (I gotta think Wilson goes?), Kelly is 90% out the door (10% just because he is waiting to have fully vetted where he could play etc) fortunately JB is staying, but its really bleak for next season. The staff is banking on big strides from the 3 freshman (next year's sophomores), and the power forward coming in, though raw. They have to pick up a solid shooter and hope a lower player transfers (not likely currently). He does not naturally reach out to local influential coaches/agents who could put in positive words for young local/future recruits - thus obvious networking is not a focus of his (ie Prolithic Prep/Oakland Soldiers director/coaches/Calvin Andrews types of relationship building).

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Thanks for the post. It's tiring how some posters continue to pound on every possible angle to make the case that Fox should be fired. You don't need an F grade in every class to flunk out of school.

As for next year's team, it's great news that Brown is staying at Cal, and that the rest of our starters are likely to stay too. Celestine, 2K and Lars are key players. Sam provides some upside.

But we need at least 3 things to avoid sliding backwards:

1. shooting
2. quality big
3. PG

So it's critical that we find one player that can be two of these things. But even then, we will have a big hole in the third thing.

AND this assumes that one of the current freshmen has a breakout year AND one of the freshmen is an instant impact player

If all of those good things happen, and no bad things happen (e.g. injury) then we might be about as good as this season

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4thGenCal said:

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socaltownie said:

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PtownBear1 said:

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Fox didn't change any staff members after the abysmal 2020 season and 2 years of practically nonexistent recruiting, so I don't see why he would bother now after more of the same, especially when his employer doesn't care.

I bet Fox is thinking to himself what the hell does it take to get terminated at this school? I don't recruit, I don't engage at all with the fan base, our record is horrible - for ****s sake let me set off into the sunset with the remaining few mill I'm owed and end this failed experiment.

---

One thing that I have been wondering about (maybe 4th generation would chime in) is that Fox just is sorta lazy. I don't mean abnormally lazy but compared to his ultra driven competitors in the profession. He CLEARLY is a private person in a profession that actually requires extroverts (because, in the end, he is involved in an entertainment product). Maybe it is to make some announcements and not get overshadowed by the tournament. But I am appalled with the lack of news out of the program.

---

My limited experience with him is that he puts in a lot of hours (have received a few text responses 6am and 10pm range) not that it is effective hours - but he is highly competitive, driven as most coaches are (married to a former AD woman and they are a strong supporting team of each other). He is highly stubborn/loyal to his staff and rarely is open about his program - definitely a bit of paranoia, maybe justified from past experience, or just a safe approach. He is not a natural outgoing "people person" in my opinion. However to those who wonder if he is putting in neccessary in person recruiting trips etc - He certainly does and is out on the AAU circuit when its necessary. Gonna be interesting if he keeps his current staff in place (I gotta think Wilson goes?), Kelly is 90% out the door (10% just because he is waiting to have fully vetted where he could play etc) fortunately JB is staying, but its really bleak for next season. The staff is banking on big strides from the 3 freshman (next year's sophomores), and the power forward coming in, though raw. They have to pick up a solid shooter and hope a lower player transfers (not likely currently). He does not naturally reach out to local influential coaches/agents who could put in positive words for young local/future recruits - thus obvious networking is not a focus of his (ie Prolithic Prep/Oakland Soldiers director/coaches/Calvin Andrews types of relationship building).

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