4thGenCal said:
eastcoastcal said:
4thGenCal said:
HoopDreams said:
hey some good news for Cal basketball !
that is very welcome news ... thanks for the info
and also thanks for explaining the housing situation, which is huge.
Thanks for the message - its a goal of mine to continue to help with the football housing, along with the basketball housing that several of us helped initially with the current basketball property purchase.
Football has a huge hurdle to overcome with finding enough good housing close to campus/stadium. The players have a very demanding schedule with early morning workouts, combined with class schedules (including summer). It's imperative that convenient and affordable housing be available to the football student athletes. The need was reinforced today when a highly sought after transfer Cal got, has 30 day temporary housing only (we were able to arrange thru the downtime between students vacating a unit June and moving in August 1) and is scrambling (along with football operations efforts) to find a longer term quality housing solution, that can be paid for via football monthly scholarship disbursements. Too often due to the high rental rates in Berkeley (to find one's own room in a close to campus location), players turn to substandard living situations that are located 15-25 minutes from campus/stadium. Its a tough outcome given lack of overseeing the player's surroundings, and can impact the player being on time for all team required meetings/workouts etc.
Ideally some passionate Cal alums who have the capability to invest toward local housing, could reach out to address this problem via the staff. I started this quest after hearing first hand the challenges faced from HC Wilcox, Coach Mike Saffel and Head of Football Operations Andrew McGraw. The quality of the staff that has been assembled is very attentive, personable and is creating a genuine "family' atmosphere w/in the program. No question, its time to show progress and a better W/L record, but its apparent that the feeling within the program is very bullish. Improving the housing crunch will be a valuable recruiting lever and certainly improve the players overall experience at Cal.
Your messages are always so insightful and detailed. If you are willing to share, is there at least a perception within the building that recruiting has not been up to snuff? Meaning, do Knowlton/Fox recognize that coaching/schemes aside, we just aren't getting enough talent coming in through the recruiting pipeline? Do they have plans to change up the recruiting message or is it seen as a Cal-centric issue?
Thank you and absolutely Knowlton is hammering/meeting with Fox nearly weekly to get updates and an understanding of what is being done on the recruiting front to improve the level of player. Knowlton is organized and has put in place with Fox expectations for him. Yes Knowlton is stubborn and not a basketball guy by background, but He is very aware that the skill level on the roster is not Pac12 level and He has made that very clear to Fox that it must be improved along with conf results, or a change will be done. I am in the camp that a change needs to be made, but Knowlton believes that Fox deserves a longer rope because of 1) what he inherited 2) Covid limitations hit the program harder than other conf programs 3) the inherent obstacles Cal has with no practice facility, academic restrictions- meaning generally outside of Monty two seasons+ and Cuonzo one/two seasons, its mostly been bleak over the past 15 years 4) financial/program/dept limitations for buyouts 5) Not wanting to be seen a an AD with a short fuse thus a bit harder to get the next quality coach 6) Its his guy and He likes Fox. Not saying I agree on all of the areas stated, but they all play into giving Fox the longer lease.
I guess this should satisfy the AD needs to crack down on Fox crowd, of which there are actual members. You think Fox would want to recruit better because he is tired of failure and wants his lucrative job, the last lucrative jobs he gets. Because he would not have gotten even this lucrative job if it were not for (likely) the most mismanaged athletic department in the country. When Fox was hired I said he brought absolutely nothing to the table, and I have been vindicated. Right now Fox (and Jones for two years before) has had poor recent results, no history ever of success at the NCAA tournament, and little success putting players in the pros. His last three recruiting classes contained only one freshman, Celestine, who should even have been recruited unless double digits is the goal. Cal plays a very unattractive style to both fans and recruits, and the best player has transferred the last two years. After all this failure, inexplicably, not a single new assistant coach has been brought in. The Cal basketball ball brand is completely broken. The only way to fix it is to get rid of the two men, Fox and Knowlton, who are stealing money from it. But I would settle for Fox and hope Knowlton gets it right since a broken clock is right twice a day, so you never know.
Cal basketball has not been bleak until now. The team has been up and down and competed for the middle of the conference, sometimes better, ever since I started at Cal in the 80s. And Cal is the best public school in the world by some measures, has the best weather I have ever experienced, and is an interesting urban environment. I won't believe that someone else could not recruit decent players to Cal. Every other coach has.
