Missouri is ranked #1 in offensive Efficiency in the SEC, #9 nationally, according to Ken Pom. That puts him in in some heady company, with veteran future Hall of Fame coaches. He is proving to be an elite Xs and Os coach.

Young, smart, positive, hard working, charismatic, African American Cal alum, was on many national lists for promotion. The disinformation was that "he blew the interview" but just go listen to any Dennis Gates interview or press conference and you know that is ridiculous.

Knowlton hired out of work, unpleasant, retread Mark Fox instead. Two months later Gates took the Cleveland State job and completely turned them around.

Even after three years of progressively worse results and the annual exit of our best players, instead of hiring Gates, Knowlton extended Fox and brought him back for a now record breaking worst year in Cal history. Meanwhile, Missouri hires Gates and he has them at 23 wins (and counting) showing he is a MUCH better coach than the coach that had Cal ranked, undefeated at home and a 4 seed. If Cuonzo could do that at Cal, imagine what Dennis Gates could do? Think about how he would have energized our donors and fan base?

Knowlton did huge damage to Cal basketball in hiring Fox, and hopefully we eventually recover from that, but the damage he did in missing the opportunity to hire Dennis Gates, we will almost certainly never recover that.

eastcoastcal said:

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Definitely a very huge miss. Really, I am curious to know in retrospect, what the rationale JK had for keeping fox was. Did we not have the funds for buyout? As far as I am aware, there was someone who mentioned (might've been on the premium board, don't remember) that there were donors who offered up the $ for a buyout last year. If this is the case, what was the reason for keeping Fox? A presumed improvement? But given the low recruiting level, that seemed unlikely, even before this disaster of a season.

Really, it just seems that we have beleaguered the point and extended our long walk in the dark by another year by doing so. Here's to hoping our next coach resurrects things!

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Well he extended him for "COVID" and apparently really believed the excuse that the record Fox set for losses to conference opponents followed by the departure of our best player (Bradley) was not Fox's (or by extension, his) fault. Then when repeated last year, again followed by the departure of our best player (Kelly), he had already extended Fox, but maybe believed Fox's BS that the departures of Bradley and Kelly were "addition by subtraction" and he "finally had a team that was fully cooperative" which, as a career Aemy officer, Knowlton probably thought made sense. The bottom line is Knowlton has no clue.

I advocated for Gates before the fox nightmare but got shut down completely by a number of "experts" on this board because
a: apparently him (gates)going to cal was a non-factor
b: lack of P-5 experience

I hope we don't take the same lazy thinking forward.
I'd like to go back and see some of those threads and see if any of these guys will fess up.