This is Cal's 8th straight loss to another UC program. That should be reason enough to fire Mark Fox.

Someone should call Brian Dutcher at San Diego State and find out how much $$$$ it would take to get him to come to Cal.

FFS Travis' salary at Montana is $180k / yr AFTER an extension.

MF collected $1.9M in total comp last year for this crapshow, or more than the entire value of Travis' contract.

This isn't a coaching staff, it's an ongoing bank heist.

tequila4kapp said:

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sluggo said:

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I want him to stay. He built this team, he sold his vision, now he should have to live with it. If he is fired then his name won't be in the history books for worst season ever of Cal basketball.

Also, his long term replacement probably already has a job and can't be brought in until after the season, so there is no advantage to firing him.

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Firing incompetent people early begins to set a tone around expectations. It starts to change the culture. We desperately need that. (I acknowledge that "early" is in the eye of the beholder. I would have preferred it happen earlier. But doing it early in the middle of the season is a start).

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This is an important distinction. It's not about "oh, we are going to steal another coach" in the middle of the season, and sure we can have the "the interim off the bench is going to have a miracle run" dream, but it's not about the beginning of the end....this is about the start of a beginning....

southseasbear said:

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I would not be surprised if Knowlton gives him an extension, as our AD seems to hand those out like candy canes in December.

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I wouldn't either. The guy is more reckless with other people's money than SBF

parentswerebears said:

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This outcome was set in motion three years ago. When I looked at Georgia, I knew how this would end- Cal basketball in the toilet and Fox as the cause. This was predictable.

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I don't think this was all that predictable.

Finishing 8-10 in conference most years, maybe an occasional 6th or 7th and an occasional 11th, with no real hope of doing better than middle of the Pac in a good year? Yeah, that was predictable.

This? No, I don't think looking at Georgia made this predictable. Being the first to ever lose to UC Davis? Losing two, including one at home, to UCSD? Staring down a season where the OOC has 6 out of 11 games that are gimmes, and we're 0-2 in those so far? 4-7 OOC may be the best we can hope for, and just because stuff happens, maybe we can hope for 2 conference wins?

Looking at Georgia, nothing made 6-26 seem possible. And maybe, somehow, we do better than that. But for that to be possible, for worse than that to be possible? I hated the Fox hire, the only positive I took from it was that his floor was mediocrity (even if his ceiling was mediocrity), Georgia seemed to back that up, and the first season did nothing to dispel that thought.

But it turns out I was wrong, the floor is so much lower than I could have imagined. Predicting no better than mediocrity from Georgia, sure. Predicting what could be the worst season in Cal basketball history? No.

BigDaddy said:

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This is Cal's 8th straight loss to another UC program. That should be reason enough to fire Mark Fox.

Someone should call Brian Dutcher at San Diego State and find out how much $$$$ it would take to get him to come to Cal.

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The SDSU job is arguably the better job. If SDSU joins the Pac-XX, then it clearly is a better job unless a coach personally values the extremes of the Bay Area.

It sounds like the change needs to be at the AD level first. You can't have your two biggest sports be horrible, with recent HC contract extensions given, and not conclude that the AD is the first problem that needs addressing.

82gradDLSdad said:

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It sounds like the change needs to be at the AD level first. You can't have your two biggest sports be horrible, with recent HC contract extensions given, and not conclude that the AD is the first problem that needs addressing.

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Christ hiring Knowlton when he was not qualified, his doing a horrible job to confirm that, and then Christ giving Knowlton an 8 year contract extension was gross mismanagement.

No. This not exactly how I knew it would happen. But I knew Fox was going to crash and burn. It was obvious that he wasn't the answer when he was hired. And everything he has done has proven that he is just a warm body in the job rather than someone who would make Cal better. There was nothing in his past that Indicated he was a suitable candidate for the job, let alone the one to be hired. And now he has consistently chased off the team's best player(s). All of THAT was predictable.

parentswerebears said:

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No. This not exactly how I knew it would happen. But I knew Fox was going to crash and burn. It was obvious that he wasn't the answer when he was hired. And everything he has done has proven that he is just a warm body in the job rather than someone who would make Cal better. There was nothing in his past that Indicated he was a suitable candidate for the job, let alone the one to be hired. And now he has consistently chased off the team's best player(s). All of THAT was predictable.

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And we knew if from that horrific first video that some IDIOT released showing him meet the team. I wonder if Donut Boy had that saved on his phone so he could show any player showing an interest in Cal.

I can't watch it anymore. Knowlton needs to go first and foremost, fox would be my immediate fire and bring in gates

socaltownie said:

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I think the thing we just don't know (maybe Bill does, maybe he doesn't - I suspect the latter as that isn't really thin the thing that is shared) is how he is doing with what _IS_ his number one responsibility - development.

There are actually SOME positive smoke signals that MIGHT be good signs. It really hurts but if he is actually helping non-revenue sports build sustainable endowments that will allow them to operate without subsidies from revenue sports that is ia huge long term benefit to MBB and Football. He doesn't have a clue about coaching hires and thinks he is at the academy but if he is endowing positions that is really benificial in the long run.

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End of the day, it is Cal donors, not Knowlton, that are bringing in the funds and deserve the credit. Unless someone explains to me why they give money to Cal under Knowlton, but wouldn't if there was a different AD, then I am not giving him credit for taking our alumni's money (especially since he is then throwing it away).

CalGrad95 said:

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FFS Travis' salary at Montana is $180k / yr AFTER an extension.

MF collected $1.9M in total comp last year for this crapshow, or more than the entire value of Travis' contract.

This isn't a coaching staff, it's an ongoing bank heist.

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Lol - I read "MF" as ... well not as Mark Fox but something else, and it read much better.

Fox has (further) degraded our brand. Even with a new coach, hard to believe recruits would want to come to the place where "winning goes to die."

F Knowlton and F Fox.

CalGrad95 said:

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FFS Travis' salary at Montana is $180k / yr AFTER an extension.

MF collected $1.9M in total comp last year for this crapshow, or more than the entire value of Travis' contract.

This isn't a coaching staff, it's an ongoing bank heist.

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He just lost to a coach who makes 4% of what he makes.

BearGreg said:

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This is beyond embarrassing. No one is being helped by Mark Fox continuing to be the leader of our basketball program. Beyond the indifference to fan and donor support, beyond the poor scouting and lazy recruiting, he has proven he cannot develop talent. And most importantly, the team is barely competitive at the very lowest levels of D1 Basketball.

Cal Men's Basketball hit an all-time low tonight and it's past time for a change.

Share your thoughts with Jim Knowlton - jim.knowlton@berkeley.edu

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Do you have Fox's email? I'd rather send an email to Fox and insist that he resign. That is the only respectable thing for him to do. Every game he doesn't resign, I'll send him an invoice for the cost of two chairback seats in sec M that he, himself and all alone has devalued to zero by masquerading as a basketball coach.

parentswerebears said:

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No. This not exactly how I knew it would happen. But I knew Fox was going to crash and burn. It was obvious that he wasn't the answer when he was hired. And everything he has done has proven that he is just a warm body in the job rather than someone who would make Cal better. There was nothing in his past that Indicated he was a suitable candidate for the job, let alone the one to be hired. And now he has consistently chased off the team's best player(s). All of THAT was predictable.

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I didn't know he would crash and burn. I thought it was an awful, uninspiring hire just for the thought of just bringing up the floor (as opposed to hiring on the upside) which meant like at most 15 wins at his peak (which he kind of reached in 2019-2020). I didn't expect this freefall, but it's here.

socaltownie said:

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parentswerebears said:

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No. This not exactly how I knew it would happen. But I knew Fox was going to crash and burn. It was obvious that he wasn't the answer when he was hired. And everything he has done has proven that he is just a warm body in the job rather than someone who would make Cal better. There was nothing in his past that Indicated he was a suitable candidate for the job, let alone the one to be hired. And now he has consistently chased off the team's best player(s). All of THAT was predictable.

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And we knew if from that horrific first video that some IDIOT released showing him meet the team. I wonder if Donut Boy had that saved on his phone so he could show any player showing an interest in Cal.

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Bingo! That video told me right away that this was an AWFUL choice. You could just see that in the look on the players' faces.

GET HIM OUT NOW.

This is simply the worst hire I have ever seen in Cal sports. We've had other bad hires but at least there was some semblance of rational to it (Holmoe, continuity).

Fox was a terrible hire from the get-go. He was a loser at Georgia. There was absolutely no rational reason to hire him. He has been a stain on the University. It infuriates me that this incompetent loser gets paid anything from us. We should fire him for cause - gross incompetence.