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Potential Men's Basketball Coaching Candidates

March 12, 2023
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With the historically unsuccessful Mark Fox era over at Cal, let's take a look at some potential replacement candidates in this critical juncture of Cal basketball.

But before we begin, the profound level of futility of not just the Mark Fox era but also the preceding two years of comparable lack of success from Wyking Jones needs to be examined to understand just how big a hole AD Jim Knowlton and the athletic department needs to figure out a way to dig itself out of.

Following the relatively successful 3-year tenure of Cuonzo Martin, who went 62-39 overall and

Former Cal HC Cuonzo Martin

29-25 in conference before departing to Missouri with a substantial raise that more than doubled his Cal contract, prior AD Mike WIlliams made a critical error in hiring Martin assistant Wyking Jones, who had no head coaching experience. The results were even worse than the gloomiest of sceptics could have imagined, with a pair of last-place finishes and an overall record of 16-47 overall and just 5-31 in conference.

Veteran coach Mark Fox, who had had a modest level of success took over and fared little better in his 4-year tenure at Cal, going just 38-67 overall and 17-61 in conference.

Fortunately in this day of portal transfers and NIL, if a program like Cal that has something

Former Cal HC Mark Fox

beyond futility to offer under the right leadership and framework, including a robust NIL program, the right coach and a few key transfer additions can dramatically change the fortunes of a program without having to suffer through a painfully slow rebuild project.

There are some non-negotiable traits this go-round that are crucial to picking the right person to lead what is not a particularly easy turnaround of a Cal program that’s been down six years now: A strong recruiter, a dynamic personality, high character, problem solver vs. a complainer, an inclusive approach (former players, donors, press, fans input considered), a proven head coach and teacher, a builder/change agent type and energetic.

With that in mind, here are some candidates that Cal can, will or possibly should consider:

Potential primary candidates:

Joe Pasternak UCSB head coach, age 41

Pasternack currently holds a record of 132–52 (.713) and 70–30 (.700) in Big West conference play in six seasons in Santa Barbara. The Gauchos tied for 1st in conference this season with a 15-5 record and 27-7 overall, also winning the Big West conference tourney. The Gauchos earned a 14th seed in the NCAA tournament, facing No. 3 seed Baylor in the first round of the South Region on Friday He has experience as an assistant at Cal and Arizona, where he was their lead recruiter, which could be viewed as a strong positive with the elite players he helped bring in

UCSB HC Joe Pasternack

or potentially a negative if he was personally involved in any of their recruiting violations when he was on staff under Sean Miller. He also helped engineer a turnaround at his first head coaching job at New Orleans so he also has experience digging out of holes. UCSB had also gone 25-36 in the two seasons prior to Pasternack’s arrival. He has strong west coast ties and is known as a strong recruiter.

Darian DeVries Drake head coach, age 47

DeVries currently holds a record of 122–47 (.722) and 63–29 (.685) in Missouri Valley conference play in 5 seasons at Drake.  Drake is currently 27-7 and finished 2nd in conference with a 15-5 record. Drake earned the No. 12 seed in the Midwest Region and will face No. 5 Miami in Albany, NY. DeVries was twice voted conference Coach of the Year and

Drake HC Darian DeVries

has a 1-1 record in NCAA tourney play. Prior to his arrival, Drake went just 23-40 before he engineered a quick turnaround. Combined with his time as an assistant at Creighton, he has a reputation as a strong recruiter and as a dynamic young coach who comes from a good coaching tree, though he does not appear to have particularly strong west coast ties.

Leon Rice, Boise State head coach, age 59

Rice currently holds a record of 267–153 (.636) and 141–88 (.616) in conference play at BSU. They went 13-5 in Mountain

Boise State HC Leon Rice

West play this season,  and 23-8 overall. Rice was twice named conference Coach of the Year and won two regular season conference and one conference tournament championship in his 14 seasons at BSU. He has significant coaching experience also serving as an assistant at Oregon and Gonzaga, though his age might be a bit less attractive.

Brian Dutcher, San Diego State head coach, age 63

Dutcher currently holds a record of 144–46 (.757) overall and 81–25 (.764) in conference play as head coach at SDSU. SDSU

Boise State HC Brian Dutcher

went 15-3 this season, winning the Mountain West conference title and Mountain West conference tourney. SDSU earned a No. 5 seed in the NCAA Tournament, facing 12th-seeded College of Charleston. Dutcher was a longtime assistant head coach for 9 years at Michigan and 18 years at SDSU under highly-successful head coach Brian Fisher. He’s won 3 conference championships and 2 conference championship tournaments in his 5 seasons with the Aztecs. Dutcher has strong west coast ties and a good recruiting reputation though his age may be seen by some as a drawback.

Mark Pope, BYU head coach, age 50

Pope currently holds a record at BYU of  85–40 (.680) overall and 39–21 (.650) in conference in his 4 seasons at BYU. They went 7-9 in conference this season and 17-15 overall, tying for fifth in the West Coast Conference. The Cougars went to the NCAA tourney in 2020-21 after finishing 20-7

BYU HC Mark Pope

and 10-3, 2nd in conference and to the NIT quarterfinals the next season. Dutcher also was an assistant at Wake Forest and Georgia as well as a player for 6 years in the NBA with Denver, Milwaukee and Indiana. He played for Washington and was the captain of Kentucky’s national championship team in 1996.

Next let’s take a look at several potential targets who some might see as a higher risk/higher reward option for various reasons.

Ryan Odom, Utah State head coach, age 48

Odom holds a record at Utah State of 41–23 (.641)overall and 20–15 (.571) in conference play at Utah State in his two seasons there, currently 23-7 and 12-6 in Mountain West Conference play,

Montana State HC Ryan Odom
​​​​​

finishing 2nd behind San Diego State and tied with Boise State. Prior to Utah State, Odom turned around an awful UMBC (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) who had gone 11-51 in the 2 seasons prior to his arrival to a first-season 21-13 record and 97-60 in 5 seasons. He was also an assistant at Virginia Tech, South Florida, Furman, UNC-Ashville and Charlotte.

Danny Sprinkle, Montana State, age 45

Sprinkle holds a record of 81–42 (.659) 49–23 (.681) at Montana State in Big Sky play, going 25–9 overall and 15–3 in conference this season, finishing 2nd in the regular season and earning a second straight NCAA tourney appearance with a Big Sky conference tournament championship this season. The Bobcats will face No. Kansas State on Friday in the opening round of the tournament in Greensboro, North Carolina. Sprinkle was named the Big Sky Coach of the Year this season. He took over a program that went just 28-46 in the two seasons before he arrived so he’s no stranger to big turnarounds. He's recruited on the west coast as an assistant at Cal State Northridge and Fullerton State and played collegiately at Montana State in the 90s.

Todd Simon, Southern Utah head coach, age 42

Simon holds a record at Southern Utah of 117-105  overall and 65-54 in conference play at Southern Utah in his 2 seasons there. They finished 20-11 overall currently and 12-6 in WAC Conference play. His teams have finished 64-27 in the last 3 seasons. Interestingly, Simon was part of the founding staff of Findlay Prep in Las Vegas and coached former Cal star Jorge Gutierrez in high school. He was also an assistant head coach and interim head coach at UNLV.

Stan Johnson, Loyola Marymount head coach, age 43

Johnson holds a record at LMU of 43–39 (.524) overall and 19–24 (.442) in WCC conference play at

LMU HC Stan Johnson

LMU in his 3 seasons there. They finished this season at 19-12 overall and 9-7 in conference play this season, finishing 4th. Before LMU, Johnson was an assistant at Marquette, ASU, Drake and Utah. He took over a Lions program that went 31-33 prior to his arrival.

Shantay Legans, Portland head coach, age 41

Legans holds a record at Portand of 32–33 (.492) overall and 12–18 (.400) in WCC conference play in his 2 seasons there. They finished this season 13-18 overall and 5-11 in conference play, finishing 8th. He took over a program that had gone just 15-38 the 2 seasons before his arrival. Legans went 39-14 in his final two seasons at Eastern

Portland HC Shantay Leggans

Washington before taking the Portland job. Legans played point guard at Cal from 1999 to 2002 before transferring to Fresno State.

Tim Miles, San Jose State head coach, age 56

Miles holds a record of 27–35 (.435) overall and 11–25 (.306) at San Jose State in Mountain West play in his 2 seasons there. They finished this season 20-12 overall and 10-8 in MWC play after struggling his first season, taking over a Spartans program that

San Jose State HC Tim Miles

went just 20-93 in the 4 prior seasons. Prior to SJS, Miles went 116–114 (.504) in 7 seasons at Nebraska and 71-88 at Colorado State.

Grant McCasland, North Texas head coach, age 46

MacCasland holds a record of 129–65 (.663) overall at North Texas and 71–36 (.664) in Conference USA play in his 6 seasons with the Mean Green. They finished the regular season 26-7 overall and 16-4 in C-USA, finishing second. He took over a North Texas program that has gone just 20-42 prior to his arrival, engineering a nice turnaround. His coaching experience at Baylor gave him bigger recruiting exposure and MacCasland also played at Baylor in the 90s.

Rodney Terry, Texas interim head coach, age 54

Terry holds a record of 17-7 overall at Texas and 12-6 in Big-12 conference play since taking over as interim coach after previous head coach Chris Beard was suspended then fired by the

Texas interim HC Rodney Terry

Longhorns. After knocking off No. 1 seed Kansas in the conference tourney, the Longhorns earned the No. 2 seed in the Midwest Region against No. 15 seed Colgate in Des Moines, Iowa on Thursday. Terry got his head coaching start at Fresno State in 2011, taking a few years before turning around the program and winning 20+ games his last three seasons with the Bulldogs. He then took over at UTEP, going 37–48 (.435) overall and 19–33 (.365) in C-USA play in three seasons before moving over to Texas.

Mark Madsen, Utah Valley head coach, age 47

Madsen holds a record of 65–49 (.570) overall at Utah Valley and 38–25 (.528) in WAC conference play since taking over 4 years ago. Utah Valley went 23–7 overall and 14–3 in conference play, winning the WAC conference championship.

Utah Valley HC Mark Madsen.

The former Stanford power forward had a 9-year NBA career with the Timberwolves and Lakers and spent the preceding years as an assistant, most recently with the Lakers for 4 seasons before taking over at Utah Valley.

 

Amir Abdur-Rahim, Kennesaw State, age 43

Abdur-Rahim holds a record of 45–73 (.381) overall and 24–41 (.369) in ASUN conference, though after three tough seasons to start his coaching career taking over a program that had gone just 16-46 in the two prior seasons, the younger brother of former Cal star forward Shareef Abdur-Rahim had a breakthrough season this year, going 26–8 overall and 15–3 in conference, winning the conference this season and earning them a No. 14 seed in the Midwest bracket and will take on No. 3 seed Xavier Friday. Prior to his first head coaching job, Abdur-Rahim was an assistant at Georgia, Texas A&M and College of Charleston.

The next category of coaches are likely not available due to various reasons, including jobs that currently could be considered better opportunities, higher salaries that perhaps couldn’t be matched, buyouts that would be impossible to cover and other various factors.

Dennis Gates, Missouri head coach, age 43

Gates holds a record of 24–8 (.750) overall and 11–7 (.611) in SEC play in his first season after taking over for former Cal head coach Cuonzo Martin after the Tigers stagnated in his final

Missouri HC Dennis Gates

seasons there. The Tigers earned a 7th seed in the 2023 NCAA tourney where they’ll face 10th-seeded Utah State in the first round, playing as part of the South regional in Sacramento.  Gates got his start as a head coach at Cleveland State, going 50–40 (.556) overall and 38–21 (.644) in Horizon League play after taking over a program that had gone just 40-89 in the four seasons prior to his arrival. However Gates has a prohibitive buyout that would make it very difficult to afford him even if he wanted to come to Cal. Gates played for the Bears from 1998 to 2002 and was an assistant at Cal when he got his start in coaching as well as at Northern Illinois, Nevada and Florida State before taking over at Cleveland State.

Jamie Dixon, TCU head coach, age 53

Dixon holds a record of 138–95 (.592) overall and 51–73 (.411) in Big 12 play and 21-12 overall and 9-9 in Big 12 play this season, earning 6th seed in the 2023 NCAA tournament, facing the winner of the First Four matchup between Arizona State and Nevada. The winner of that matchup will be the 11th seed. Dixon guided the Horned Frogs to the NCAA tourney last season as well, reaching the round of 32. Dixon took over a TCU team that had gone 30-36 in the two seasons prior to taking over after posting an impressive 328–123 (.727) overall and 143–81 (.638) ACC record at Pitt before making the move to TCU. Dixon however was extended to 2028, making his buyout prohibitive.

Todd Golden, Florida head coach, age 37

Golden holds a record of 16–16 at Florida overall and 9–9 in SEC play since taking over the Gators program this season. He parlayed a record of 57–36 (.613) overall at USF and 23–22 (.511) in conference play to the Florida job. But with 5 years and a 15 million buyout, Golden is not a likely addition.

Chris Beard, former Texas head coach, age 50

Golden posted a record at his most recent stop at Texas of 29–13 (.690) overall and 10–8 (.556) in Big 12 conference play before being dismissed for accusations of physical violence with his fiancee that were later retracted by her. Prior to his brief stint at Texas, Beard went 112–55 (.671) overall and 49–40 (.551) in Big 12 conference play, going to the NCAA finals, the Great 8 and round of 32 in three of his four seasons there. Talk is heating up about Ole Miss making a strong pitch for him and even though the allegations were withdrawn against him, he could be a tricky hire at Cal.

Related:

Cal Makes Change In Men's Basketball Leadership - Fox Gone

Discussion from...

Potential Men's Basketball Coaching Candidates

61,536 Views | 361 Replies | Last: 1 yr ago by Pittstop
waterbear2013
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In reply to MoragaBear • 2:38p, 3/16/23
MoragaBear said:
BearGoggles said:
waterbear2013 said:
HearstMining said:
Of course, several of the coaching biographies above reference the turnarounds that the coaches have achieved. It's horrifying to note that the pre-turnaround records of most of these teams were at least twice as good as Cal's recent record. This highlights how deep Cal's program has fallen and how could the administration tolerate so many years of bad results? I'm not telling you folks anything you don't know, but seeing the results at other schools really drives the point home. Six years of being BDWs is crazy.
Something something about "when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you need to do is stop digging." Whoever Cal hires, must have a very heavy incentives based contract with clear stated expectations. Cal cannot commit another 3-4 years to a coach that doesn't significantly move the needle in the right direction.
I can't imagine any qualified coach would accept less than a 4-5 year contract to step into the mess that is Cal basketball. And in terms of incentives vs salary, to get a candidate like Johnson or Pasternak, you need to pay market (at least). But market for that type of candidate should be lower than a more established coach.

Cal went budget with Wyking and that was a disaster.

Of course, the key is always the buyout.
The salary increase would be substantial for many of these coaches, including Pasternack. You need to leverage that to have favorable buyout terms for the university and ask them to bet on themselves in exchange for a significant raise and bigger budget in all areas.
I think we all agree. Not that anyone wants to enter negotiations thinking about the new coach failing to meet expectations, but Cal needs to be willing to pull the plug on a buyout "sooner rather than later" if the next coach is another dud. True, to attract the next coach Cal will need to pay market rate, I just want to see the contract not exceed market rate in guarantees, but go above and beyond market for incentives. As Moraga says, we want a coach willing to bet on themselves.
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calumnus
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In reply to MoragaBear • 3:10p, 3/16/23
MoragaBear said:
BearGoggles said:
waterbear2013 said:
HearstMining said:
Of course, several of the coaching biographies above reference the turnarounds that the coaches have achieved. It's horrifying to note that the pre-turnaround records of most of these teams were at least twice as good as Cal's recent record. This highlights how deep Cal's program has fallen and how could the administration tolerate so many years of bad results? I'm not telling you folks anything you don't know, but seeing the results at other schools really drives the point home. Six years of being BDWs is crazy.
Something something about "when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you need to do is stop digging." Whoever Cal hires, must have a very heavy incentives based contract with clear stated expectations. Cal cannot commit another 3-4 years to a coach that doesn't significantly move the needle in the right direction.
I can't imagine any qualified coach would accept less than a 4-5 year contract to step into the mess that is Cal basketball. And in terms of incentives vs salary, to get a candidate like Johnson or Pasternak, you need to pay market (at least). But market for that type of candidate should be lower than a more established coach.

Cal went budget with Wyking and that was a disaster.

Of course, the key is always the buyout.
The salary increase would be substantial for many of these coaches, including Pasternack. You need to leverage that to have favorable buyout terms for the university and ask them to bet on themselves in exchange for a significant raise and bigger budget in all areas.


Exactly. Any hire is a risk and a gamble. Past performance is no guarantee of future returns. Some coaches have more of a track record and warrant bigger/more guaranteed contracts. In principle, I have no problem promoting an assistant (DeCuire after Monty, Gates from Florida State or even Wyking after Martin) if they seem ready have the qualities that could make them a good head coach. However, the contract should be very favorable to Cal and very incentive laden with a low buyout. There is no excuse for the contract Wyking Jones was given.

The problem is Knowlton not only does not know what makes a good coach, he has incorrect views of what makes a good coach in the 21st century, especially at Cal, and would pick bad coaches. At least a head coach with a track record gives some quantifiable indication.
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Cal_79
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In reply to Gkhoury2325 • 3:10p, 3/16/23
Gkhoury2325 said:
Agreed Big C, Pasternak seems to be the obvious choice. The coach from Cal Baptist is no for me, not that I have a say. Johnson from LMU is a maybe, but Pasternak understands the lay of the land at Cal with donors, alumni, and I believe will bring a solid coaching staff into Cal. He could ask for a bigger recruiting budget, more money for quality/better assistants, charter flights for the team, recruit the AAU scene, internationally, and attach the transfer portal. He could work on having eventually a premier practice facility for many team on campus that could be utilized. Cal Could be in the tournament next year if he brings his PG with him from UCSB, keep recruit Brown, and grab a few wing players that could shoot. A big is a must too. I believe he could do that. My vote is Pasternak. Now if Tony Bennet want to come to Cal that would be different…. One could dream.

Not sure Tony's voice can hold up over a full season.
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Bobodeluxe
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3:31p, 3/16/23
Pay a king's ransom up front to get someone you believe in. This is UC Berkeley's last chance to have a D1 hoops team.
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BearSD
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In reply to Gkhoury2325 • 4:55p, 3/16/23
Gkhoury2325 said:
Now if Tony Bennet want to come to Cal that would be different…. One could dream.
His season is over now, so he can be contacted without worrying about distracting his team..

;-)
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Gkhoury2325
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In reply to BearSD • 5:02p, 3/16/23
BearSD said:
Gkhoury2325 said:
Now if Tony Bennet want to come to Cal that would be different…. One could dream.
His season is over now, so he can be contacted without worrying about distracting his

;-)
LOL! Knowlton would probably get the finger and told to buzz off if he contacted Bennet after this loss. Knowlton is out of his league and is not a big game Hunter. Too bad for Cal.
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BearlyCareAnymore
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In reply to MoragaBear • 5:40p, 3/16/23
MoragaBear said:
BearGoggles said:
waterbear2013 said:
HearstMining said:
Of course, several of the coaching biographies above reference the turnarounds that the coaches have achieved. It's horrifying to note that the pre-turnaround records of most of these teams were at least twice as good as Cal's recent record. This highlights how deep Cal's program has fallen and how could the administration tolerate so many years of bad results? I'm not telling you folks anything you don't know, but seeing the results at other schools really drives the point home. Six years of being BDWs is crazy.
Something something about "when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you need to do is stop digging." Whoever Cal hires, must have a very heavy incentives based contract with clear stated expectations. Cal cannot commit another 3-4 years to a coach that doesn't significantly move the needle in the right direction.
I can't imagine any qualified coach would accept less than a 4-5 year contract to step into the mess that is Cal basketball. And in terms of incentives vs salary, to get a candidate like Johnson or Pasternak, you need to pay market (at least). But market for that type of candidate should be lower than a more established coach.

Cal went budget with Wyking and that was a disaster.

Of course, the key is always the buyout.
The salary increase would be substantial for many of these coaches, including Pasternack. You need to leverage that to have favorable buyout terms for the university and ask them to bet on themselves in exchange for a significant raise and bigger budget in all areas.
I'm sorry, but this is not reality. You aren't asking this coach to bet on themselves. You are asking them to bet on Knowlton, on Christ, and on the Cal administration. Look, my faith in this program is so low, I'm willing to hand it to some D-III assistant for $400K and tell him to keep the lights on and cash the conference check. But if you are looking for success, not making a commitment to a candidate is not the way to go. You say we need to ask them to bet on themselves. What do you say when they respond, "Okay, I'm going to bet on myself. I'm going to bet that I can succeed where I am so that next year I don't need to take your crap offer."?

This job has effectively ended the head coaching career of the last two coaches. Now, neither of those coaches were going anywhere anyway, which is probably why they took the job. And the problem with both of the contracts was not the buyout. It was that we paid them a lot more than they were ever going to get anywhere else. Neither had any prospects. Since you mentioned Pasternack, we don't need to beat UCSB's salary. We need to beat 1. Whatever UCSB is willing to pay him plus the notion that he will probably have a 20 year career there if he wants, and 2. Whatever he can get, or thinks he can get elsewhere either this year or in the next couple. Yeah, if he wants to bet on himself, he can bet on his continued success in a good situation and the ability to parlay that into an offer from a high major willing to make a normal commitment to him.

And bigger budget than UCSB is irrelevant. What matters is your budget in relation to your competitors and on that score we don't do well. Budget is about being able to be competitive.

The program is in the tank. Cal should try not doing an incompetent job at identifying coaching candidates, pick one they like, pay them something they could reasonably get on the market (plus a little more because that is how you close a deal) and give them a reasonable time commitment.

The problem with Wyking is it was a patently moronic hire. The problem with Fox is it was a patently moronic hire and then we extended him for no reason (which is another Cal thing to do). Stop making moronic hires. Stop giving moronic extensions. If you don't give them the commitment out of the gate you end up paying more in the long run.

If I'm a candidate, I'm looking at it this way. The most I can depend on staying at Cal is 2 years. It isn't whether I can win. It is whether Cal can win, and I don't know that anyone can win there. So I'm either counting on my first two years of salary or the buyout and that is it. So then I got to compare that with what I'm sure I'm going to get where I am and what I could get elsewhere. And, if they don't give me enough time to turn this turd around, do I then go out and try to get a job with a 10-50 win loss record and find that I have burned every opportunity. Because, if I'm going to bet on myself, I need 4-5 years. Otherwise, I'm betting on you to have patience. I'm betting on you to give me the support I need. I'm betting on a whole lot of things out of my control.

Anyone willing to bet on themselves would be a fool to take that deal. They'd bet on a better deal in their future. Which leaves you back where you started, getting only guys like Fox who are taking one more paycheck into retirement or guys like Jones who had made no move toward becoming a head coach and had absolutely zero prospect that was going to happen until Cal dropped the opportunity in his lap.

You go mid major precisely because it doesn't cost a lot. You give the commitment because that is what it should take to turn the program around. Cal needs to bet on itself here. Bet that they can identify the right candidate and then give that candidate adequate time and support to develop the program from nothing. Or at least bet that you won't pick a candidate so bad that he will be an obvious loser in 2-3 years I wouldn't bet on Cal being able to find the right guy, but hopefully they have more confidence in themselves. If Cal doesn't have confidence that Knowlton is the guy to do that, they shouldn't have hired him and then given him a million year extension.

Seriously, if Cal doesn't think that Knowlton can hire a coach that can last 4-5 years under incredibly low expectations, why is he the AD? I mean, that is an incredibly low bar for the next coach to pass. I know WE don't think Knowlton can do that, but we aren't the ones who hired him. At some point, you have to assume your people are competent.
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Cabin14
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In reply to oskidunker • 5:45p, 3/16/23
Really hope so. Last year, most of the good gigs were filled by the end of the 1st weekend of the Dance. The portal, which has arguably become an even bigger recruiting weapon than High School, is already open. Gotta move quickly and get after it.
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oskidunker
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In reply to Cabin14 • 6:06p, 3/16/23
Cabin14 said:
Really hope so. Last year, most of the good gigs were filled by the end of the 1st weekend of the Dance. The portal, which has arguably become an even bigger recruiting weapon than High School, is already open. Gotta move quickly and get after it.
I hope we're waiting for a coach who-is in the tournament. Otherwise someone else would be named already.
Go Bears!
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MoragaBear
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In reply to BearlyCareAnymore • 6:39p, 3/16/23
Staff
BearlyCareAnymore said:
MoragaBear said:
BearGoggles said:
waterbear2013 said:
HearstMining said:
Of course, several of the coaching biographies above reference the turnarounds that the coaches have achieved. It's horrifying to note that the pre-turnaround records of most of these teams were at least twice as good as Cal's recent record. This highlights how deep Cal's program has fallen and how could the administration tolerate so many years of bad results? I'm not telling you folks anything you don't know, but seeing the results at other schools really drives the point home. Six years of being BDWs is crazy.
Something something about "when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you need to do is stop digging." Whoever Cal hires, must have a very heavy incentives based contract with clear stated expectations. Cal cannot commit another 3-4 years to a coach that doesn't significantly move the needle in the right direction.
I can't imagine any qualified coach would accept less than a 4-5 year contract to step into the mess that is Cal basketball. And in terms of incentives vs salary, to get a candidate like Johnson or Pasternak, you need to pay market (at least). But market for that type of candidate should be lower than a more established coach.

Cal went budget with Wyking and that was a disaster.

Of course, the key is always the buyout.
The salary increase would be substantial for many of these coaches, including Pasternack. You need to leverage that to have favorable buyout terms for the university and ask them to bet on themselves in exchange for a significant raise and bigger budget in all areas.
I'm sorry, but this is not reality. You aren't asking this coach to bet on themselves. You are asking them to bet on Knowlton, on Christ, and on the Cal administration. Look, my faith in this program is so low, I'm willing to hand it to some D-III assistant for $400K and tell him to keep the lights on and cash the conference check. But if you are looking for success, not making a commitment to a candidate is not the way to go. You say we need to ask them to bet on themselves. What do you say when they respond, "Okay, I'm going to bet on myself. I'm going to bet that I can succeed where I am so that next year I don't need to take your crap offer."?

This job has effectively ended the head coaching career of the last two coaches. Now, neither of those coaches were going anywhere anyway, which is probably why they took the job. And the problem with both of the contracts was not the buyout. It was that we paid them a lot more than they were ever going to get anywhere else. Neither had any prospects. Since you mentioned Pasternack, we don't need to beat UCSB's salary. We need to beat 1. Whatever UCSB is willing to pay him plus the notion that he will probably have a 20 year career there if he wants, and 2. Whatever he can get, or thinks he can get elsewhere either this year or in the next couple. Yeah, if he wants to bet on himself, he can bet on his continued success in a good situation and the ability to parlay that into an offer from a high major willing to make a normal commitment to him.

And bigger budget than UCSB is irrelevant. What matters is your budget in relation to your competitors and on that score we don't do well. Budget is about being able to be competitive.

The program is in the tank. Cal should try not doing an incompetent job at identifying coaching candidates, pick one they like, pay them something they could reasonably get on the market (plus a little more because that is how you close a deal) and give them a reasonable time commitment.

The problem with Wyking is it was a patently moronic hire. The problem with Fox is it was a patently moronic hire and then we extended him for no reason (which is another Cal thing to do). Stop making moronic hires. Stop giving moronic extensions. If you don't give them the commitment out of the gate you end up paying more in the long run.

If I'm a candidate, I'm looking at it this way. The most I can depend on staying at Cal is 2 years. It isn't whether I can win. It is whether Cal can win, and I don't know that anyone can win there. So I'm either counting on my first two years of salary or the buyout and that is it. So then I got to compare that with what I'm sure I'm going to get where I am and what I could get elsewhere. And, if they don't give me enough time to turn this turd around, do I then go out and try to get a job with a 10-50 win loss record and find that I have burned every opportunity. Because, if I'm going to bet on myself, I need 4-5 years. Otherwise, I'm betting on you to have patience. I'm betting on you to give me the support I need. I'm betting on a whole lot of things out of my control.

Anyone willing to bet on themselves would be a fool to take that deal. They'd bet on a better deal in their future. Which leaves you back where you started, getting only guys like Fox who are taking one more paycheck into retirement or guys like Jones who had made no move toward becoming a head coach and had absolutely zero prospect that was going to happen until Cal dropped the opportunity in his lap.

You go mid major precisely because it doesn't cost a lot. You give the commitment because that is what it should take to turn the program around. Cal needs to bet on itself here. Bet that they can identify the right candidate and then give that candidate adequate time and support to develop the program from nothing. Or at least bet that you won't pick a candidate so bad that he will be an obvious loser in 2-3 years I wouldn't bet on Cal being able to find the right guy, but hopefully they have more confidence in themselves. If Cal doesn't have confidence that Knowlton is the guy to do that, they shouldn't have hired him and then given him a million year extension.

Seriously, if Cal doesn't think that Knowlton can hire a coach that can last 4-5 years under incredibly low expectations, why is he the AD? I mean, that is an incredibly low bar for the next coach to pass. I know WE don't think Knowlton can do that, but we aren't the ones who hired him. At some point, you have to assume your people are competent.

You're evidently not aware of substantial changes to the equation for the program's future. I mean VERY significant.

With that in mind, they should be able to pull off exactly what I suggested unless Knowlton figures out how to screw that up despite a lot of very important people who are fed up and holding his feet to the fire.
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75bear
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In reply to MoragaBear • 9:19p, 3/16/23
This sounds like good news.
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parentswerebears
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9:38p, 3/16/23
My bar is this: Shocky only monsters when there is hope. The return of a monster thread to mens basketball makes me have hope in Cal's future.
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10:14p, 3/16/23
UPDATE…

Todd Simon is leaving Southern Utah for Bowling Green.

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In reply to MoragaBear • 10:17p, 3/16/23
MoragaBear said:
BearlyCareAnymore said:
MoragaBear said:
BearGoggles said:
waterbear2013 said:
HearstMining said:
Of course, several of the coaching biographies above reference the turnarounds that the coaches have achieved. It's horrifying to note that the pre-turnaround records of most of these teams were at least twice as good as Cal's recent record. This highlights how deep Cal's program has fallen and how could the administration tolerate so many years of bad results? I'm not telling you folks anything you don't know, but seeing the results at other schools really drives the point home. Six years of being BDWs is crazy.
Something something about "when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you need to do is stop digging." Whoever Cal hires, must have a very heavy incentives based contract with clear stated expectations. Cal cannot commit another 3-4 years to a coach that doesn't significantly move the needle in the right direction.
I can't imagine any qualified coach would accept less than a 4-5 year contract to step into the mess that is Cal basketball. And in terms of incentives vs salary, to get a candidate like Johnson or Pasternak, you need to pay market (at least). But market for that type of candidate should be lower than a more established coach.

Cal went budget with Wyking and that was a disaster.

Of course, the key is always the buyout.
The salary increase would be substantial for many of these coaches, including Pasternack. You need to leverage that to have favorable buyout terms for the university and ask them to bet on themselves in exchange for a significant raise and bigger budget in all areas.
I'm sorry, but this is not reality. You aren't asking this coach to bet on themselves. You are asking them to bet on Knowlton, on Christ, and on the Cal administration. Look, my faith in this program is so low, I'm willing to hand it to some D-III assistant for $400K and tell him to keep the lights on and cash the conference check. But if you are looking for success, not making a commitment to a candidate is not the way to go. You say we need to ask them to bet on themselves. What do you say when they respond, "Okay, I'm going to bet on myself. I'm going to bet that I can succeed where I am so that next year I don't need to take your crap offer."?

This job has effectively ended the head coaching career of the last two coaches. Now, neither of those coaches were going anywhere anyway, which is probably why they took the job. And the problem with both of the contracts was not the buyout. It was that we paid them a lot more than they were ever going to get anywhere else. Neither had any prospects. Since you mentioned Pasternack, we don't need to beat UCSB's salary. We need to beat 1. Whatever UCSB is willing to pay him plus the notion that he will probably have a 20 year career there if he wants, and 2. Whatever he can get, or thinks he can get elsewhere either this year or in the next couple. Yeah, if he wants to bet on himself, he can bet on his continued success in a good situation and the ability to parlay that into an offer from a high major willing to make a normal commitment to him.

And bigger budget than UCSB is irrelevant. What matters is your budget in relation to your competitors and on that score we don't do well. Budget is about being able to be competitive.

The program is in the tank. Cal should try not doing an incompetent job at identifying coaching candidates, pick one they like, pay them something they could reasonably get on the market (plus a little more because that is how you close a deal) and give them a reasonable time commitment.

The problem with Wyking is it was a patently moronic hire. The problem with Fox is it was a patently moronic hire and then we extended him for no reason (which is another Cal thing to do). Stop making moronic hires. Stop giving moronic extensions. If you don't give them the commitment out of the gate you end up paying more in the long run.

If I'm a candidate, I'm looking at it this way. The most I can depend on staying at Cal is 2 years. It isn't whether I can win. It is whether Cal can win, and I don't know that anyone can win there. So I'm either counting on my first two years of salary or the buyout and that is it. So then I got to compare that with what I'm sure I'm going to get where I am and what I could get elsewhere. And, if they don't give me enough time to turn this turd around, do I then go out and try to get a job with a 10-50 win loss record and find that I have burned every opportunity. Because, if I'm going to bet on myself, I need 4-5 years. Otherwise, I'm betting on you to have patience. I'm betting on you to give me the support I need. I'm betting on a whole lot of things out of my control.

Anyone willing to bet on themselves would be a fool to take that deal. They'd bet on a better deal in their future. Which leaves you back where you started, getting only guys like Fox who are taking one more paycheck into retirement or guys like Jones who had made no move toward becoming a head coach and had absolutely zero prospect that was going to happen until Cal dropped the opportunity in his lap.

You go mid major precisely because it doesn't cost a lot. You give the commitment because that is what it should take to turn the program around. Cal needs to bet on itself here. Bet that they can identify the right candidate and then give that candidate adequate time and support to develop the program from nothing. Or at least bet that you won't pick a candidate so bad that he will be an obvious loser in 2-3 years I wouldn't bet on Cal being able to find the right guy, but hopefully they have more confidence in themselves. If Cal doesn't have confidence that Knowlton is the guy to do that, they shouldn't have hired him and then given him a million year extension.

Seriously, if Cal doesn't think that Knowlton can hire a coach that can last 4-5 years under incredibly low expectations, why is he the AD? I mean, that is an incredibly low bar for the next coach to pass. I know WE don't think Knowlton can do that, but we aren't the ones who hired him. At some point, you have to assume your people are competent.

You're evidently not aware of substantial changes to the equation for the program's future. I mean VERY significant.

With that in mind, they should be able to pull off exactly what I suggested unless Knowlton figures out how to screw that up despite a lot of very important people who are fed up and holding his feet to the fire.


Slightly off topic but are the "substantial changes" applicable to football as well or is this basketball specific? I wonder if the donors with influence are more on the basketball side or the football side.
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MoragaBear
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In reply to Econ141 • 10:23p, 3/16/23
Staff
Econ141 said:
MoragaBear said:
BearlyCareAnymore said:
MoragaBear said:
BearGoggles said:
waterbear2013 said:
HearstMining said:
Of course, several of the coaching biographies above reference the turnarounds that the coaches have achieved. It's horrifying to note that the pre-turnaround records of most of these teams were at least twice as good as Cal's recent record. This highlights how deep Cal's program has fallen and how could the administration tolerate so many years of bad results? I'm not telling you folks anything you don't know, but seeing the results at other schools really drives the point home. Six years of being BDWs is crazy.
Something something about "when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you need to do is stop digging." Whoever Cal hires, must have a very heavy incentives based contract with clear stated expectations. Cal cannot commit another 3-4 years to a coach that doesn't significantly move the needle in the right direction.
I can't imagine any qualified coach would accept less than a 4-5 year contract to step into the mess that is Cal basketball. And in terms of incentives vs salary, to get a candidate like Johnson or Pasternak, you need to pay market (at least). But market for that type of candidate should be lower than a more established coach.

Cal went budget with Wyking and that was a disaster.

Of course, the key is always the buyout.
The salary increase would be substantial for many of these coaches, including Pasternack. You need to leverage that to have favorable buyout terms for the university and ask them to bet on themselves in exchange for a significant raise and bigger budget in all areas.
I'm sorry, but this is not reality. You aren't asking this coach to bet on themselves. You are asking them to bet on Knowlton, on Christ, and on the Cal administration. Look, my faith in this program is so low, I'm willing to hand it to some D-III assistant for $400K and tell him to keep the lights on and cash the conference check. But if you are looking for success, not making a commitment to a candidate is not the way to go. You say we need to ask them to bet on themselves. What do you say when they respond, "Okay, I'm going to bet on myself. I'm going to bet that I can succeed where I am so that next year I don't need to take your crap offer."?

This job has effectively ended the head coaching career of the last two coaches. Now, neither of those coaches were going anywhere anyway, which is probably why they took the job. And the problem with both of the contracts was not the buyout. It was that we paid them a lot more than they were ever going to get anywhere else. Neither had any prospects. Since you mentioned Pasternack, we don't need to beat UCSB's salary. We need to beat 1. Whatever UCSB is willing to pay him plus the notion that he will probably have a 20 year career there if he wants, and 2. Whatever he can get, or thinks he can get elsewhere either this year or in the next couple. Yeah, if he wants to bet on himself, he can bet on his continued success in a good situation and the ability to parlay that into an offer from a high major willing to make a normal commitment to him.

And bigger budget than UCSB is irrelevant. What matters is your budget in relation to your competitors and on that score we don't do well. Budget is about being able to be competitive.

The program is in the tank. Cal should try not doing an incompetent job at identifying coaching candidates, pick one they like, pay them something they could reasonably get on the market (plus a little more because that is how you close a deal) and give them a reasonable time commitment.

The problem with Wyking is it was a patently moronic hire. The problem with Fox is it was a patently moronic hire and then we extended him for no reason (which is another Cal thing to do). Stop making moronic hires. Stop giving moronic extensions. If you don't give them the commitment out of the gate you end up paying more in the long run.

If I'm a candidate, I'm looking at it this way. The most I can depend on staying at Cal is 2 years. It isn't whether I can win. It is whether Cal can win, and I don't know that anyone can win there. So I'm either counting on my first two years of salary or the buyout and that is it. So then I got to compare that with what I'm sure I'm going to get where I am and what I could get elsewhere. And, if they don't give me enough time to turn this turd around, do I then go out and try to get a job with a 10-50 win loss record and find that I have burned every opportunity. Because, if I'm going to bet on myself, I need 4-5 years. Otherwise, I'm betting on you to have patience. I'm betting on you to give me the support I need. I'm betting on a whole lot of things out of my control.

Anyone willing to bet on themselves would be a fool to take that deal. They'd bet on a better deal in their future. Which leaves you back where you started, getting only guys like Fox who are taking one more paycheck into retirement or guys like Jones who had made no move toward becoming a head coach and had absolutely zero prospect that was going to happen until Cal dropped the opportunity in his lap.

You go mid major precisely because it doesn't cost a lot. You give the commitment because that is what it should take to turn the program around. Cal needs to bet on itself here. Bet that they can identify the right candidate and then give that candidate adequate time and support to develop the program from nothing. Or at least bet that you won't pick a candidate so bad that he will be an obvious loser in 2-3 years I wouldn't bet on Cal being able to find the right guy, but hopefully they have more confidence in themselves. If Cal doesn't have confidence that Knowlton is the guy to do that, they shouldn't have hired him and then given him a million year extension.

Seriously, if Cal doesn't think that Knowlton can hire a coach that can last 4-5 years under incredibly low expectations, why is he the AD? I mean, that is an incredibly low bar for the next coach to pass. I know WE don't think Knowlton can do that, but we aren't the ones who hired him. At some point, you have to assume your people are competent.

You're evidently not aware of substantial changes to the equation for the program's future. I mean VERY significant.

With that in mind, they should be able to pull off exactly what I suggested unless Knowlton figures out how to screw that up despite a lot of very important people who are fed up and holding his feet to the fire.


Slightly off topic but are the "substantial changes" applicable to football as well or is this basketball specific? I wonder if the donors with influence are more on the basketball side or the football side.
This comment was specifically related to basketball but things are much-improved with football, too, including a much healthier NIL fund
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Cabin14
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In reply to MoragaBear • 10:45p, 3/16/23
That NIL fund is going to be so key, and given the passionate alums/fan base, there is no reason for the Bears to lag in that area. It will be vital to the future.
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In reply to MoragaBear • 11:06p, 3/16/23
MoragaBear said:
This comment was specifically related to basketball but things are much-improved with football, too, including a much healthier NIL fund
A bit off topic, but do any of these improvements pertain to women's basketball as well?
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11:11p, 3/16/23

Prediction: We will offer the new coach a five-year contract, starting at about what Fox makes right now. This isn't hard.
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In reply to Big C • 11:41p, 3/16/23
Big C said:

Prediction: We will offer the new coach a five-year contract, starting at about what Fox makes right now. This isn't hard.
Offering the right coach shouldn't be hard either. But it could be.
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BearlyCareAnymore
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In reply to MoragaBear • 9:20a, 3/17/23
MoragaBear said:
BearlyCareAnymore said:
MoragaBear said:
BearGoggles said:
waterbear2013 said:
HearstMining said:
Of course, several of the coaching biographies above reference the turnarounds that the coaches have achieved. It's horrifying to note that the pre-turnaround records of most of these teams were at least twice as good as Cal's recent record. This highlights how deep Cal's program has fallen and how could the administration tolerate so many years of bad results? I'm not telling you folks anything you don't know, but seeing the results at other schools really drives the point home. Six years of being BDWs is crazy.
Something something about "when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you need to do is stop digging." Whoever Cal hires, must have a very heavy incentives based contract with clear stated expectations. Cal cannot commit another 3-4 years to a coach that doesn't significantly move the needle in the right direction.
I can't imagine any qualified coach would accept less than a 4-5 year contract to step into the mess that is Cal basketball. And in terms of incentives vs salary, to get a candidate like Johnson or Pasternak, you need to pay market (at least). But market for that type of candidate should be lower than a more established coach.

Cal went budget with Wyking and that was a disaster.

Of course, the key is always the buyout.
The salary increase would be substantial for many of these coaches, including Pasternack. You need to leverage that to have favorable buyout terms for the university and ask them to bet on themselves in exchange for a significant raise and bigger budget in all areas.
I'm sorry, but this is not reality. You aren't asking this coach to bet on themselves. You are asking them to bet on Knowlton, on Christ, and on the Cal administration. Look, my faith in this program is so low, I'm willing to hand it to some D-III assistant for $400K and tell him to keep the lights on and cash the conference check. But if you are looking for success, not making a commitment to a candidate is not the way to go. You say we need to ask them to bet on themselves. What do you say when they respond, "Okay, I'm going to bet on myself. I'm going to bet that I can succeed where I am so that next year I don't need to take your crap offer."?

This job has effectively ended the head coaching career of the last two coaches. Now, neither of those coaches were going anywhere anyway, which is probably why they took the job. And the problem with both of the contracts was not the buyout. It was that we paid them a lot more than they were ever going to get anywhere else. Neither had any prospects. Since you mentioned Pasternack, we don't need to beat UCSB's salary. We need to beat 1. Whatever UCSB is willing to pay him plus the notion that he will probably have a 20 year career there if he wants, and 2. Whatever he can get, or thinks he can get elsewhere either this year or in the next couple. Yeah, if he wants to bet on himself, he can bet on his continued success in a good situation and the ability to parlay that into an offer from a high major willing to make a normal commitment to him.

And bigger budget than UCSB is irrelevant. What matters is your budget in relation to your competitors and on that score we don't do well. Budget is about being able to be competitive.

The program is in the tank. Cal should try not doing an incompetent job at identifying coaching candidates, pick one they like, pay them something they could reasonably get on the market (plus a little more because that is how you close a deal) and give them a reasonable time commitment.

The problem with Wyking is it was a patently moronic hire. The problem with Fox is it was a patently moronic hire and then we extended him for no reason (which is another Cal thing to do). Stop making moronic hires. Stop giving moronic extensions. If you don't give them the commitment out of the gate you end up paying more in the long run.

If I'm a candidate, I'm looking at it this way. The most I can depend on staying at Cal is 2 years. It isn't whether I can win. It is whether Cal can win, and I don't know that anyone can win there. So I'm either counting on my first two years of salary or the buyout and that is it. So then I got to compare that with what I'm sure I'm going to get where I am and what I could get elsewhere. And, if they don't give me enough time to turn this turd around, do I then go out and try to get a job with a 10-50 win loss record and find that I have burned every opportunity. Because, if I'm going to bet on myself, I need 4-5 years. Otherwise, I'm betting on you to have patience. I'm betting on you to give me the support I need. I'm betting on a whole lot of things out of my control.

Anyone willing to bet on themselves would be a fool to take that deal. They'd bet on a better deal in their future. Which leaves you back where you started, getting only guys like Fox who are taking one more paycheck into retirement or guys like Jones who had made no move toward becoming a head coach and had absolutely zero prospect that was going to happen until Cal dropped the opportunity in his lap.

You go mid major precisely because it doesn't cost a lot. You give the commitment because that is what it should take to turn the program around. Cal needs to bet on itself here. Bet that they can identify the right candidate and then give that candidate adequate time and support to develop the program from nothing. Or at least bet that you won't pick a candidate so bad that he will be an obvious loser in 2-3 years I wouldn't bet on Cal being able to find the right guy, but hopefully they have more confidence in themselves. If Cal doesn't have confidence that Knowlton is the guy to do that, they shouldn't have hired him and then given him a million year extension.

Seriously, if Cal doesn't think that Knowlton can hire a coach that can last 4-5 years under incredibly low expectations, why is he the AD? I mean, that is an incredibly low bar for the next coach to pass. I know WE don't think Knowlton can do that, but we aren't the ones who hired him. At some point, you have to assume your people are competent.

You're evidently not aware of substantial changes to the equation for the program's future. I mean VERY significant.

With that in mind, they should be able to pull off exactly what I suggested unless Knowlton figures out how to screw that up despite a lot of very important people who are fed up and holding his feet to the fire.
I am not doing this to win an argument or embarrass you. I do respect you Moraga. But there needs to be an intervention here with the remnants of this fanbase and with media like BearInsider.

4 years ago, when a lot of people like me went apoplectic over the idiocy that was the Fox hire, BearInsider wrote an article about it. Here are some quotes. I think this first one is most relevant:


Quote:
The news of Wyking Jones departure and Mark Fox's hire are not the beginning and end of this story. Expect to hear some very good news with regard to donations and facilities upgrades in the near future. Cal's basketball brand has been diminished in the past two seasons and needs to be rebuilt. That starts with experienced. competent leadership and continues with substantial donations that benefit not only basketball but the athletic department as a whole

So, I wasn't aware of all the great news that was coming then that BI knew about. And I'm not aware of all the great changes coming now. I'm just wondering if these are the same great changes since the ones from 4 years ago haven't come yet.

I was told then directly from BI staff, again, because I didn't know what BI knows:


Quote:
Not trying to change your mind in the least but we talked to six coaches/senior media analysts today and off the record, they all said glowing things about Fox.

More quotes from the BI article based on information I apparently didn't know:


Quote:
The obvious initial take when discussing Mark Fox is that he is in every respect an upgrade over his predecessor. An experienced hand who's well-respected by his peers, Fox will bring a depth of experience and presence that Cal has not had since Mike Montgomery retired in 2012.

there's a real possibility that Cal could hit a home run with their choice of Mark Fox.

Mark Fox's resume as it relates to scheme, teaching and player development are strong. His teams consistently played top-tier defense, and defense wins in college basketball. He's a coach with a chip on his shoulder, hungry to wipe the exit at Georgia from his resume. His X's and O's and teaching pedigree are endorsed in fulsome fashion with his recent tenure with Team USA and the praise he received from coaching luminaries in today's press release. Bear Insider has had a chance to source further references from a half dozen industry experts and the praise has been universal and unstinting. Folks who know Pac-12 basketball exceptionally well and have no affiliation with Cal or with Coach Fox have been effusive in their praise of Fox and the fit at Cal.


I was then told by fans to have faith in the process.

Here are some excerpts from my responses 4 years ago. And the point of this is to demonstrate that this is lather, rinse, repeat.


Quote:
I'm asking those who want us to have faith in the process to tell me what they think that process is? The reason I ask is every time we have a major decision, good or bad, any criticism is met with "They know what they are doing. They have a plan. Have faith in the process." Well, that argument is assuming that they DO have a plan.

I DON'T THINK THEY DO. The reason why I believe this is because all of my life there has been no indication that they do. I submit to you that there is no process to trust.

It feels like being told to have faith in the process is just a demand to not question decisions of the athletic department. And I'm sorry, Cal's athletic department lost this benefit of the doubt decades ago.

I am saying is that Cal fans judge every administration by the magic bean philosophy. New administration comes in. They say "our goal is to compete for conference championships/Rose Bowls" You've heard that once or twice, right? (Though now they seem to be downgrading that). Do they tell you how they'll do that? No. Then nothing happens. And Cal fans say "Oh, I know. They planted magic beans. It's all germinating under the surface. We just can't see it yet. One morning we will wake up and there will be a giant beanstalk." Then there is never a beanstalk. Then the next administration comes in and its "no, no, no. The last administration sucked. Turns out they never planted beans. THIS administration is planting beans. It's all germinating under the surface. We just can't see it yet. One morning there will be a giant beanstalk."

I'm saying, show me the beans.

In 8 days, Knowlton will have been on the job for a year. Nothing has happened. We are far beyond the point that he should have his own stamp on this department and some good changes would have been made that are visible to the public...If the beanstalk was coming, we'd see sprouts by now.

And now, a year in, we have the first major decision. A decision that it was very apparent the day that Knowlton was hire was very likely to have to be made. He had a year to prepare. And the decision was a very Cal decision handled in a very Cal way. So now, I'm watching Knowlton in the garden spraying all over from a can labeled "Bean-be-gone. Guaranteed to kill all beanstalks before they grow" and I'm still supposed to think the beanstalk is coming.

The administration has had a year to articulate a vision. And no, we want to compete for championships is not a vision. We want to be a mid tier program is not a vision. A vision is "this is what we want. this is how we get there. These are the specific steps we are going to take to do that." They have not articulated a vision. They have not changed any practices. They struggled to decide whether to terminate possibly the worst coach in the history of Cal revenue sports. Then they made an at best uninspiring hire. That is what I'm judging them on.

All the past administrations failures - that is what I'm judging the fans that want to wait and see on. Because they always wait and see. The reckoning never comes. The fan that stood by 25 times having faith that the beanstalk is coming and had no beanstalk come, and then for the 26th time tells me it's all happening beneath the surface, I'm sorry, no.

By the way, I'm realizing the Great Pumpkin might have been a better analogy, but it's too late to rewrite. Suffice it to say, I ain't gonna be Sally. All the Linuses can freeze in the pumpkin patch with their security blankets.


That was 4 years ago! One year into the Knowlton/Christ regime. I would love to say "and nothing has changed", but I can't. Any measure of results shows the athletic department to be drastically worse than 4 years ago. The basketball program is in worse shape, which no one thought was possible. Other sports have tanked. We ignored a coach abusing players. And now, I'm supposed to believe that the same administration that has had FIVE years to make major changes, NOW THEY HAVE STARTED PLANTING THOSE DAMNED BEANS? AGAIN WITH THE BEANS HAVE BEEN PLANTED? And this isn't even a new administration that can blame the last one. It is the last one. I don't care what they are telling you Moraga. It strains credibility.

The Great Pumpkin is actually the perfect analogy because I love Linus. Linus is a believer. He's not trying to con anyone. He's optimistic and good and just wants something so bad. I know, Moraga, that you are going to say to yourself "he just doesn't know what is happening. Cal has found the most sincere pumpkin patch and the Great Pumpkin is coming this time. He'll see". BI is Linus, Moraga, and as I said, I love Linus. The problem in that story is Sally. Sally should know better. Sally should keep loving Linus. Sally should walk him to the pumpkin patch, pat him on the head, and go trick or treating. What is most dismaying about that thread 4 years ago is seeing some knowledgeable Cal fans, who knew the right answer when Fox was hired, be convince by the BI article when they should have known better.

And I have to tell you, Moraga, Cal is not the Great Pumpkin. They are the Ethiopian Prince. They are lying to you. They are lying to us. They have been lying to us for decades. There has never been accountability for anyone who matters. They throw the coaches up as a sacrifice to the fan base and keep on movin. You only know what Cal tells you and Cal has a history of lying. Maybe you are right. Maybe this time is different. But I've been told this time is different too many times. Here's hoping Cal proves me wrong this time.

I say all this most of all, Moraga, because the chances are about 99% that in 4 years, we'll be back here with someone telling me that I'm apparently not aware of the great things that are happening and I will point to this thread stating I wasn't aware of the great things coming and this thread will point to the thread 4 years prior stating I wasn't aware of the great things coming, and maybe it will start to sink in for some people that the great things aren't coming.
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BearlyCareAnymore
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In reply to MoragaBear • 9:30a, 3/17/23
MoragaBear said:
BearlyCareAnymore said:
MoragaBear said:
BearGoggles said:
waterbear2013 said:
HearstMining said:
Of course, several of the coaching biographies above reference the turnarounds that the coaches have achieved. It's horrifying to note that the pre-turnaround records of most of these teams were at least twice as good as Cal's recent record. This highlights how deep Cal's program has fallen and how could the administration tolerate so many years of bad results? I'm not telling you folks anything you don't know, but seeing the results at other schools really drives the point home. Six years of being BDWs is crazy.
Something something about "when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you need to do is stop digging." Whoever Cal hires, must have a very heavy incentives based contract with clear stated expectations. Cal cannot commit another 3-4 years to a coach that doesn't significantly move the needle in the right direction.
I can't imagine any qualified coach would accept less than a 4-5 year contract to step into the mess that is Cal basketball. And in terms of incentives vs salary, to get a candidate like Johnson or Pasternak, you need to pay market (at least). But market for that type of candidate should be lower than a more established coach.

Cal went budget with Wyking and that was a disaster.

Of course, the key is always the buyout.
The salary increase would be substantial for many of these coaches, including Pasternack. You need to leverage that to have favorable buyout terms for the university and ask them to bet on themselves in exchange for a significant raise and bigger budget in all areas.
I'm sorry, but this is not reality. You aren't asking this coach to bet on themselves. You are asking them to bet on Knowlton, on Christ, and on the Cal administration. Look, my faith in this program is so low, I'm willing to hand it to some D-III assistant for $400K and tell him to keep the lights on and cash the conference check. But if you are looking for success, not making a commitment to a candidate is not the way to go. You say we need to ask them to bet on themselves. What do you say when they respond, "Okay, I'm going to bet on myself. I'm going to bet that I can succeed where I am so that next year I don't need to take your crap offer."?

This job has effectively ended the head coaching career of the last two coaches. Now, neither of those coaches were going anywhere anyway, which is probably why they took the job. And the problem with both of the contracts was not the buyout. It was that we paid them a lot more than they were ever going to get anywhere else. Neither had any prospects. Since you mentioned Pasternack, we don't need to beat UCSB's salary. We need to beat 1. Whatever UCSB is willing to pay him plus the notion that he will probably have a 20 year career there if he wants, and 2. Whatever he can get, or thinks he can get elsewhere either this year or in the next couple. Yeah, if he wants to bet on himself, he can bet on his continued success in a good situation and the ability to parlay that into an offer from a high major willing to make a normal commitment to him.

And bigger budget than UCSB is irrelevant. What matters is your budget in relation to your competitors and on that score we don't do well. Budget is about being able to be competitive.

The program is in the tank. Cal should try not doing an incompetent job at identifying coaching candidates, pick one they like, pay them something they could reasonably get on the market (plus a little more because that is how you close a deal) and give them a reasonable time commitment.

The problem with Wyking is it was a patently moronic hire. The problem with Fox is it was a patently moronic hire and then we extended him for no reason (which is another Cal thing to do). Stop making moronic hires. Stop giving moronic extensions. If you don't give them the commitment out of the gate you end up paying more in the long run.

If I'm a candidate, I'm looking at it this way. The most I can depend on staying at Cal is 2 years. It isn't whether I can win. It is whether Cal can win, and I don't know that anyone can win there. So I'm either counting on my first two years of salary or the buyout and that is it. So then I got to compare that with what I'm sure I'm going to get where I am and what I could get elsewhere. And, if they don't give me enough time to turn this turd around, do I then go out and try to get a job with a 10-50 win loss record and find that I have burned every opportunity. Because, if I'm going to bet on myself, I need 4-5 years. Otherwise, I'm betting on you to have patience. I'm betting on you to give me the support I need. I'm betting on a whole lot of things out of my control.

Anyone willing to bet on themselves would be a fool to take that deal. They'd bet on a better deal in their future. Which leaves you back where you started, getting only guys like Fox who are taking one more paycheck into retirement or guys like Jones who had made no move toward becoming a head coach and had absolutely zero prospect that was going to happen until Cal dropped the opportunity in his lap.

You go mid major precisely because it doesn't cost a lot. You give the commitment because that is what it should take to turn the program around. Cal needs to bet on itself here. Bet that they can identify the right candidate and then give that candidate adequate time and support to develop the program from nothing. Or at least bet that you won't pick a candidate so bad that he will be an obvious loser in 2-3 years I wouldn't bet on Cal being able to find the right guy, but hopefully they have more confidence in themselves. If Cal doesn't have confidence that Knowlton is the guy to do that, they shouldn't have hired him and then given him a million year extension.

Seriously, if Cal doesn't think that Knowlton can hire a coach that can last 4-5 years under incredibly low expectations, why is he the AD? I mean, that is an incredibly low bar for the next coach to pass. I know WE don't think Knowlton can do that, but we aren't the ones who hired him. At some point, you have to assume your people are competent.

You're evidently not aware of substantial changes to the equation for the program's future. I mean VERY significant.

With that in mind, they should be able to pull off exactly what I suggested unless Knowlton figures out how to screw that up despite a lot of very important people who are fed up and holding his feet to the fire.
And by the way, if they were really changing the equation for the program's future in a significant way that mattered, the idea of offering a below market contract to the next coach wouldn't be on the table. That is every indication that the underlying mindset has not changed.
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In reply to BearlyCareAnymore • 10:53a, 3/17/23
BearlyCareAnymore said:
MoragaBear said:
BearlyCareAnymore said:
MoragaBear said:
BearGoggles said:
waterbear2013 said:
HearstMining said:
Of course, several of the coaching biographies above reference the turnarounds that the coaches have achieved. It's horrifying to note that the pre-turnaround records of most of these teams were at least twice as good as Cal's recent record. This highlights how deep Cal's program has fallen and how could the administration tolerate so many years of bad results? I'm not telling you folks anything you don't know, but seeing the results at other schools really drives the point home. Six years of being BDWs is crazy.
Something something about "when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you need to do is stop digging." Whoever Cal hires, must have a very heavy incentives based contract with clear stated expectations. Cal cannot commit another 3-4 years to a coach that doesn't significantly move the needle in the right direction.
I can't imagine any qualified coach would accept less than a 4-5 year contract to step into the mess that is Cal basketball. And in terms of incentives vs salary, to get a candidate like Johnson or Pasternak, you need to pay market (at least). But market for that type of candidate should be lower than a more established coach.

Cal went budget with Wyking and that was a disaster.

Of course, the key is always the buyout.
The salary increase would be substantial for many of these coaches, including Pasternack. You need to leverage that to have favorable buyout terms for the university and ask them to bet on themselves in exchange for a significant raise and bigger budget in all areas.
I'm sorry, but this is not reality. You aren't asking this coach to bet on themselves. You are asking them to bet on Knowlton, on Christ, and on the Cal administration. Look, my faith in this program is so low, I'm willing to hand it to some D-III assistant for $400K and tell him to keep the lights on and cash the conference check. But if you are looking for success, not making a commitment to a candidate is not the way to go. You say we need to ask them to bet on themselves. What do you say when they respond, "Okay, I'm going to bet on myself. I'm going to bet that I can succeed where I am so that next year I don't need to take your crap offer."?

This job has effectively ended the head coaching career of the last two coaches. Now, neither of those coaches were going anywhere anyway, which is probably why they took the job. And the problem with both of the contracts was not the buyout. It was that we paid them a lot more than they were ever going to get anywhere else. Neither had any prospects. Since you mentioned Pasternack, we don't need to beat UCSB's salary. We need to beat 1. Whatever UCSB is willing to pay him plus the notion that he will probably have a 20 year career there if he wants, and 2. Whatever he can get, or thinks he can get elsewhere either this year or in the next couple. Yeah, if he wants to bet on himself, he can bet on his continued success in a good situation and the ability to parlay that into an offer from a high major willing to make a normal commitment to him.

And bigger budget than UCSB is irrelevant. What matters is your budget in relation to your competitors and on that score we don't do well. Budget is about being able to be competitive.

The program is in the tank. Cal should try not doing an incompetent job at identifying coaching candidates, pick one they like, pay them something they could reasonably get on the market (plus a little more because that is how you close a deal) and give them a reasonable time commitment.

The problem with Wyking is it was a patently moronic hire. The problem with Fox is it was a patently moronic hire and then we extended him for no reason (which is another Cal thing to do). Stop making moronic hires. Stop giving moronic extensions. If you don't give them the commitment out of the gate you end up paying more in the long run.

If I'm a candidate, I'm looking at it this way. The most I can depend on staying at Cal is 2 years. It isn't whether I can win. It is whether Cal can win, and I don't know that anyone can win there. So I'm either counting on my first two years of salary or the buyout and that is it. So then I got to compare that with what I'm sure I'm going to get where I am and what I could get elsewhere. And, if they don't give me enough time to turn this turd around, do I then go out and try to get a job with a 10-50 win loss record and find that I have burned every opportunity. Because, if I'm going to bet on myself, I need 4-5 years. Otherwise, I'm betting on you to have patience. I'm betting on you to give me the support I need. I'm betting on a whole lot of things out of my control.

Anyone willing to bet on themselves would be a fool to take that deal. They'd bet on a better deal in their future. Which leaves you back where you started, getting only guys like Fox who are taking one more paycheck into retirement or guys like Jones who had made no move toward becoming a head coach and had absolutely zero prospect that was going to happen until Cal dropped the opportunity in his lap.

You go mid major precisely because it doesn't cost a lot. You give the commitment because that is what it should take to turn the program around. Cal needs to bet on itself here. Bet that they can identify the right candidate and then give that candidate adequate time and support to develop the program from nothing. Or at least bet that you won't pick a candidate so bad that he will be an obvious loser in 2-3 years I wouldn't bet on Cal being able to find the right guy, but hopefully they have more confidence in themselves. If Cal doesn't have confidence that Knowlton is the guy to do that, they shouldn't have hired him and then given him a million year extension.

Seriously, if Cal doesn't think that Knowlton can hire a coach that can last 4-5 years under incredibly low expectations, why is he the AD? I mean, that is an incredibly low bar for the next coach to pass. I know WE don't think Knowlton can do that, but we aren't the ones who hired him. At some point, you have to assume your people are competent.

You're evidently not aware of substantial changes to the equation for the program's future. I mean VERY significant.

With that in mind, they should be able to pull off exactly what I suggested unless Knowlton figures out how to screw that up despite a lot of very important people who are fed up and holding his feet to the fire.
I am not doing this to win an argument or embarrass you. I do respect you Moraga. But there needs to be an intervention here with the remnants of this fanbase and with media like BearInsider.

4 years ago, when a lot of people like me went apoplectic over the idiocy that was the Fox hire, BearInsider wrote an article about it. Here are some quotes. I think this first one is most relevant:


Quote:
The news of Wyking Jones departure and Mark Fox's hire are not the beginning and end of this story. Expect to hear some very good news with regard to donations and facilities upgrades in the near future. Cal's basketball brand has been diminished in the past two seasons and needs to be rebuilt. That starts with experienced. competent leadership and continues with substantial donations that benefit not only basketball but the athletic department as a whole

So, I wasn't aware of all the great news that was coming then that BI knew about. And I'm not aware of all the great changes coming now. I'm just wondering if these are the same great changes since the ones from 4 years ago haven't come yet.

I was told then directly from BI staff, again, because I didn't know what BI knows:


Quote:
Not trying to change your mind in the least but we talked to six coaches/senior media analysts today and off the record, they all said glowing things about Fox.

More quotes from the BI article based on information I apparently didn't know:


Quote:
The obvious initial take when discussing Mark Fox is that he is in every respect an upgrade over his predecessor. An experienced hand who's well-respected by his peers, Fox will bring a depth of experience and presence that Cal has not had since Mike Montgomery retired in 2012.

there's a real possibility that Cal could hit a home run with their choice of Mark Fox.

Mark Fox's resume as it relates to scheme, teaching and player development are strong. His teams consistently played top-tier defense, and defense wins in college basketball. He's a coach with a chip on his shoulder, hungry to wipe the exit at Georgia from his resume. His X's and O's and teaching pedigree are endorsed in fulsome fashion with his recent tenure with Team USA and the praise he received from coaching luminaries in today's press release. Bear Insider has had a chance to source further references from a half dozen industry experts and the praise has been universal and unstinting. Folks who know Pac-12 basketball exceptionally well and have no affiliation with Cal or with Coach Fox have been effusive in their praise of Fox and the fit at Cal.


I was then told by fans to have faith in the process.

Here are some excerpts from my responses 4 years ago. And the point of this is to demonstrate that this is lather, rinse, repeat.


Quote:
I'm asking those who want us to have faith in the process to tell me what they think that process is? The reason I ask is every time we have a major decision, good or bad, any criticism is met with "They know what they are doing. They have a plan. Have faith in the process." Well, that argument is assuming that they DO have a plan.

I DON'T THINK THEY DO. The reason why I believe this is because all of my life there has been no indication that they do. I submit to you that there is no process to trust.

It feels like being told to have faith in the process is just a demand to not question decisions of the athletic department. And I'm sorry, Cal's athletic department lost this benefit of the doubt decades ago.

I am saying is that Cal fans judge every administration by the magic bean philosophy. New administration comes in. They say "our goal is to compete for conference championships/Rose Bowls" You've heard that once or twice, right? (Though now they seem to be downgrading that). Do they tell you how they'll do that? No. Then nothing happens. And Cal fans say "Oh, I know. They planted magic beans. It's all germinating under the surface. We just can't see it yet. One morning we will wake up and there will be a giant beanstalk." Then there is never a beanstalk. Then the next administration comes in and its "no, no, no. The last administration sucked. Turns out they never planted beans. THIS administration is planting beans. It's all germinating under the surface. We just can't see it yet. One morning there will be a giant beanstalk."

I'm saying, show me the beans.

In 8 days, Knowlton will have been on the job for a year. Nothing has happened. We are far beyond the point that he should have his own stamp on this department and some good changes would have been made that are visible to the public...If the beanstalk was coming, we'd see sprouts by now.

And now, a year in, we have the first major decision. A decision that it was very apparent the day that Knowlton was hire was very likely to have to be made. He had a year to prepare. And the decision was a very Cal decision handled in a very Cal way. So now, I'm watching Knowlton in the garden spraying all over from a can labeled "Bean-be-gone. Guaranteed to kill all beanstalks before they grow" and I'm still supposed to think the beanstalk is coming.

The administration has had a year to articulate a vision. And no, we want to compete for championships is not a vision. We want to be a mid tier program is not a vision. A vision is "this is what we want. this is how we get there. These are the specific steps we are going to take to do that." They have not articulated a vision. They have not changed any practices. They struggled to decide whether to terminate possibly the worst coach in the history of Cal revenue sports. Then they made an at best uninspiring hire. That is what I'm judging them on.

All the past administrations failures - that is what I'm judging the fans that want to wait and see on. Because they always wait and see. The reckoning never comes. The fan that stood by 25 times having faith that the beanstalk is coming and had no beanstalk come, and then for the 26th time tells me it's all happening beneath the surface, I'm sorry, no.

By the way, I'm realizing the Great Pumpkin might have been a better analogy, but it's too late to rewrite. Suffice it to say, I ain't gonna be Sally. All the Linuses can freeze in the pumpkin patch with their security blankets.


That was 4 years ago! One year into the Knowlton/Christ regime. I would love to say "and nothing has changed", but I can't. Any measure of results shows the athletic department to be drastically worse than 4 years ago. The basketball program is in worse shape, which no one thought was possible. Other sports have tanked. We ignored a coach abusing players. And now, I'm supposed to believe that the same administration that has had FIVE years to make major changes, NOW THEY HAVE STARTED PLANTING THOSE DAMNED BEANS? AGAIN WITH THE BEANS HAVE BEEN PLANTED? And this isn't even a new administration that can blame the last one. It is the last one. I don't care what they are telling you Moraga. It strains credibility.

The Great Pumpkin is actually the perfect analogy because I love Linus. Linus is a believer. He's not trying to con anyone. He's optimistic and good and just wants something so bad. I know, Moraga, that you are going to say to yourself "he just doesn't know what is happening. Cal has found the most sincere pumpkin patch and the Great Pumpkin is coming this time. He'll see". BI is Linus, Moraga, and as I said, I love Linus. The problem in that story is Sally. Sally should know better. Sally should keep loving Linus. Sally should walk him to the pumpkin patch, pat him on the head, and go trick or treating. What is most dismaying about that thread 4 years ago is seeing some knowledgeable Cal fans, who knew the right answer when Fox was hired, be convince by the BI article when they should have known better.

And I have to tell you, Moraga, Cal is not the Great Pumpkin. They are the Ethiopian Prince. They are lying to you. They are lying to us. They have been lying to us for decades. There has never been accountability for anyone who matters. They throw the coaches up as a sacrifice to the fan base and keep on movin. You only know what Cal tells you and Cal has a history of lying. Maybe you are right. Maybe this time is different. But I've been told this time is different too many times. Here's hoping Cal proves me wrong this time.

I say all this most of all, Moraga, because the chances are about 99% that in 4 years, we'll be back here with someone telling me that I'm apparently not aware of the great things that are happening and I will point to this thread stating I wasn't aware of the great things coming and this thread will point to the thread 4 years prior stating I wasn't aware of the great things coming, and maybe it will start to sink in for some people that the great things aren't coming.
Great post and so true on so many levels. Thank you for saying this!
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MoragaBear
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In reply to BearlyCareAnymore • 11:19a, 3/17/23
Staff
BearlyCareAnymore said:
MoragaBear said:
BearlyCareAnymore said:
MoragaBear said:
BearGoggles said:
waterbear2013 said:
HearstMining said:
Of course, several of the coaching biographies above reference the turnarounds that the coaches have achieved. It's horrifying to note that the pre-turnaround records of most of these teams were at least twice as good as Cal's recent record. This highlights how deep Cal's program has fallen and how could the administration tolerate so many years of bad results? I'm not telling you folks anything you don't know, but seeing the results at other schools really drives the point home. Six years of being BDWs is crazy.
Something something about "when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you need to do is stop digging." Whoever Cal hires, must have a very heavy incentives based contract with clear stated expectations. Cal cannot commit another 3-4 years to a coach that doesn't significantly move the needle in the right direction.
I can't imagine any qualified coach would accept less than a 4-5 year contract to step into the mess that is Cal basketball. And in terms of incentives vs salary, to get a candidate like Johnson or Pasternak, you need to pay market (at least). But market for that type of candidate should be lower than a more established coach.

Cal went budget with Wyking and that was a disaster.

Of course, the key is always the buyout.
The salary increase would be substantial for many of these coaches, including Pasternack. You need to leverage that to have favorable buyout terms for the university and ask them to bet on themselves in exchange for a significant raise and bigger budget in all areas.
I'm sorry, but this is not reality. You aren't asking this coach to bet on themselves. You are asking them to bet on Knowlton, on Christ, and on the Cal administration. Look, my faith in this program is so low, I'm willing to hand it to some D-III assistant for $400K and tell him to keep the lights on and cash the conference check. But if you are looking for success, not making a commitment to a candidate is not the way to go. You say we need to ask them to bet on themselves. What do you say when they respond, "Okay, I'm going to bet on myself. I'm going to bet that I can succeed where I am so that next year I don't need to take your crap offer."?

This job has effectively ended the head coaching career of the last two coaches. Now, neither of those coaches were going anywhere anyway, which is probably why they took the job. And the problem with both of the contracts was not the buyout. It was that we paid them a lot more than they were ever going to get anywhere else. Neither had any prospects. Since you mentioned Pasternack, we don't need to beat UCSB's salary. We need to beat 1. Whatever UCSB is willing to pay him plus the notion that he will probably have a 20 year career there if he wants, and 2. Whatever he can get, or thinks he can get elsewhere either this year or in the next couple. Yeah, if he wants to bet on himself, he can bet on his continued success in a good situation and the ability to parlay that into an offer from a high major willing to make a normal commitment to him.

And bigger budget than UCSB is irrelevant. What matters is your budget in relation to your competitors and on that score we don't do well. Budget is about being able to be competitive.

The program is in the tank. Cal should try not doing an incompetent job at identifying coaching candidates, pick one they like, pay them something they could reasonably get on the market (plus a little more because that is how you close a deal) and give them a reasonable time commitment.

The problem with Wyking is it was a patently moronic hire. The problem with Fox is it was a patently moronic hire and then we extended him for no reason (which is another Cal thing to do). Stop making moronic hires. Stop giving moronic extensions. If you don't give them the commitment out of the gate you end up paying more in the long run.

If I'm a candidate, I'm looking at it this way. The most I can depend on staying at Cal is 2 years. It isn't whether I can win. It is whether Cal can win, and I don't know that anyone can win there. So I'm either counting on my first two years of salary or the buyout and that is it. So then I got to compare that with what I'm sure I'm going to get where I am and what I could get elsewhere. And, if they don't give me enough time to turn this turd around, do I then go out and try to get a job with a 10-50 win loss record and find that I have burned every opportunity. Because, if I'm going to bet on myself, I need 4-5 years. Otherwise, I'm betting on you to have patience. I'm betting on you to give me the support I need. I'm betting on a whole lot of things out of my control.

Anyone willing to bet on themselves would be a fool to take that deal. They'd bet on a better deal in their future. Which leaves you back where you started, getting only guys like Fox who are taking one more paycheck into retirement or guys like Jones who had made no move toward becoming a head coach and had absolutely zero prospect that was going to happen until Cal dropped the opportunity in his lap.

You go mid major precisely because it doesn't cost a lot. You give the commitment because that is what it should take to turn the program around. Cal needs to bet on itself here. Bet that they can identify the right candidate and then give that candidate adequate time and support to develop the program from nothing. Or at least bet that you won't pick a candidate so bad that he will be an obvious loser in 2-3 years I wouldn't bet on Cal being able to find the right guy, but hopefully they have more confidence in themselves. If Cal doesn't have confidence that Knowlton is the guy to do that, they shouldn't have hired him and then given him a million year extension.

Seriously, if Cal doesn't think that Knowlton can hire a coach that can last 4-5 years under incredibly low expectations, why is he the AD? I mean, that is an incredibly low bar for the next coach to pass. I know WE don't think Knowlton can do that, but we aren't the ones who hired him. At some point, you have to assume your people are competent.

You're evidently not aware of substantial changes to the equation for the program's future. I mean VERY significant.

With that in mind, they should be able to pull off exactly what I suggested unless Knowlton figures out how to screw that up despite a lot of very important people who are fed up and holding his feet to the fire.
And by the way, if they were really changing the equation for the program's future in a significant way that mattered, the idea of offering a below market contract to the next coach wouldn't be on the table. That is every indication that the underlying mindset has not changed.
I didn't say that. I said:

"The salary increase would be substantial for many of these coaches, including Pasternack. You need to leverage that to have favorable buyout terms for the university and ask them to bet on themselves in exchange for a significant raise and bigger budget in all areas."

Nobody's talking about trying to offer a below market contract unless you think not offering crazy buyouts like Fox and Wilcox got is offering a below market contract. Not including buyout terms that would majorly tie our hands to a coach without much leverage would be the exact opposite of "the mindset not changing."
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In reply to BearlyCareAnymore • 11:22a, 3/17/23
BearlyCareAnymore said:
MoragaBear said:
BearlyCareAnymore said:
MoragaBear said:
BearGoggles said:
waterbear2013 said:
HearstMining said:
Of course, several of the coaching biographies above reference the turnarounds that the coaches have achieved. It's horrifying to note that the pre-turnaround records of most of these teams were at least twice as good as Cal's recent record. This highlights how deep Cal's program has fallen and how could the administration tolerate so many years of bad results? I'm not telling you folks anything you don't know, but seeing the results at other schools really drives the point home. Six years of being BDWs is crazy.
Something something about "when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you need to do is stop digging." Whoever Cal hires, must have a very heavy incentives based contract with clear stated expectations. Cal cannot commit another 3-4 years to a coach that doesn't significantly move the needle in the right direction.
I can't imagine any qualified coach would accept less than a 4-5 year contract to step into the mess that is Cal basketball. And in terms of incentives vs salary, to get a candidate like Johnson or Pasternak, you need to pay market (at least). But market for that type of candidate should be lower than a more established coach.

Cal went budget with Wyking and that was a disaster.

Of course, the key is always the buyout.
The salary increase would be substantial for many of these coaches, including Pasternack. You need to leverage that to have favorable buyout terms for the university and ask them to bet on themselves in exchange for a significant raise and bigger budget in all areas.
I'm sorry, but this is not reality. You aren't asking this coach to bet on themselves. You are asking them to bet on Knowlton, on Christ, and on the Cal administration. Look, my faith in this program is so low, I'm willing to hand it to some D-III assistant for $400K and tell him to keep the lights on and cash the conference check. But if you are looking for success, not making a commitment to a candidate is not the way to go. You say we need to ask them to bet on themselves. What do you say when they respond, "Okay, I'm going to bet on myself. I'm going to bet that I can succeed where I am so that next year I don't need to take your crap offer."?

This job has effectively ended the head coaching career of the last two coaches. Now, neither of those coaches were going anywhere anyway, which is probably why they took the job. And the problem with both of the contracts was not the buyout. It was that we paid them a lot more than they were ever going to get anywhere else. Neither had any prospects. Since you mentioned Pasternack, we don't need to beat UCSB's salary. We need to beat 1. Whatever UCSB is willing to pay him plus the notion that he will probably have a 20 year career there if he wants, and 2. Whatever he can get, or thinks he can get elsewhere either this year or in the next couple. Yeah, if he wants to bet on himself, he can bet on his continued success in a good situation and the ability to parlay that into an offer from a high major willing to make a normal commitment to him.

And bigger budget than UCSB is irrelevant. What matters is your budget in relation to your competitors and on that score we don't do well. Budget is about being able to be competitive.

The program is in the tank. Cal should try not doing an incompetent job at identifying coaching candidates, pick one they like, pay them something they could reasonably get on the market (plus a little more because that is how you close a deal) and give them a reasonable time commitment.

The problem with Wyking is it was a patently moronic hire. The problem with Fox is it was a patently moronic hire and then we extended him for no reason (which is another Cal thing to do). Stop making moronic hires. Stop giving moronic extensions. If you don't give them the commitment out of the gate you end up paying more in the long run.

If I'm a candidate, I'm looking at it this way. The most I can depend on staying at Cal is 2 years. It isn't whether I can win. It is whether Cal can win, and I don't know that anyone can win there. So I'm either counting on my first two years of salary or the buyout and that is it. So then I got to compare that with what I'm sure I'm going to get where I am and what I could get elsewhere. And, if they don't give me enough time to turn this turd around, do I then go out and try to get a job with a 10-50 win loss record and find that I have burned every opportunity. Because, if I'm going to bet on myself, I need 4-5 years. Otherwise, I'm betting on you to have patience. I'm betting on you to give me the support I need. I'm betting on a whole lot of things out of my control.

Anyone willing to bet on themselves would be a fool to take that deal. They'd bet on a better deal in their future. Which leaves you back where you started, getting only guys like Fox who are taking one more paycheck into retirement or guys like Jones who had made no move toward becoming a head coach and had absolutely zero prospect that was going to happen until Cal dropped the opportunity in his lap.

You go mid major precisely because it doesn't cost a lot. You give the commitment because that is what it should take to turn the program around. Cal needs to bet on itself here. Bet that they can identify the right candidate and then give that candidate adequate time and support to develop the program from nothing. Or at least bet that you won't pick a candidate so bad that he will be an obvious loser in 2-3 years I wouldn't bet on Cal being able to find the right guy, but hopefully they have more confidence in themselves. If Cal doesn't have confidence that Knowlton is the guy to do that, they shouldn't have hired him and then given him a million year extension.

Seriously, if Cal doesn't think that Knowlton can hire a coach that can last 4-5 years under incredibly low expectations, why is he the AD? I mean, that is an incredibly low bar for the next coach to pass. I know WE don't think Knowlton can do that, but we aren't the ones who hired him. At some point, you have to assume your people are competent.

You're evidently not aware of substantial changes to the equation for the program's future. I mean VERY significant.

With that in mind, they should be able to pull off exactly what I suggested unless Knowlton figures out how to screw that up despite a lot of very important people who are fed up and holding his feet to the fire.
I am not doing this to win an argument or embarrass you. I do respect you Moraga. But there needs to be an intervention here with the remnants of this fanbase and with media like BearInsider.

4 years ago, when a lot of people like me went apoplectic over the idiocy that was the Fox hire, BearInsider wrote an article about it. Here are some quotes. I think this first one is most relevant:


Quote:
The news of Wyking Jones departure and Mark Fox's hire are not the beginning and end of this story. Expect to hear some very good news with regard to donations and facilities upgrades in the near future. Cal's basketball brand has been diminished in the past two seasons and needs to be rebuilt. That starts with experienced. competent leadership and continues with substantial donations that benefit not only basketball but the athletic department as a whole

So, I wasn't aware of all the great news that was coming then that BI knew about. And I'm not aware of all the great changes coming now. I'm just wondering if these are the same great changes since the ones from 4 years ago haven't come yet.

I was told then directly from BI staff, again, because I didn't know what BI knows:


Quote:
Not trying to change your mind in the least but we talked to six coaches/senior media analysts today and off the record, they all said glowing things about Fox.

More quotes from the BI article based on information I apparently didn't know:


Quote:
The obvious initial take when discussing Mark Fox is that he is in every respect an upgrade over his predecessor. An experienced hand who's well-respected by his peers, Fox will bring a depth of experience and presence that Cal has not had since Mike Montgomery retired in 2012.

there's a real possibility that Cal could hit a home run with their choice of Mark Fox.

Mark Fox's resume as it relates to scheme, teaching and player development are strong. His teams consistently played top-tier defense, and defense wins in college basketball. He's a coach with a chip on his shoulder, hungry to wipe the exit at Georgia from his resume. His X's and O's and teaching pedigree are endorsed in fulsome fashion with his recent tenure with Team USA and the praise he received from coaching luminaries in today's press release. Bear Insider has had a chance to source further references from a half dozen industry experts and the praise has been universal and unstinting. Folks who know Pac-12 basketball exceptionally well and have no affiliation with Cal or with Coach Fox have been effusive in their praise of Fox and the fit at Cal.


I was then told by fans to have faith in the process.

Here are some excerpts from my responses 4 years ago. And the point of this is to demonstrate that this is lather, rinse, repeat.


Quote:
I'm asking those who want us to have faith in the process to tell me what they think that process is? The reason I ask is every time we have a major decision, good or bad, any criticism is met with "They know what they are doing. They have a plan. Have faith in the process." Well, that argument is assuming that they DO have a plan.

I DON'T THINK THEY DO. The reason why I believe this is because all of my life there has been no indication that they do. I submit to you that there is no process to trust.

It feels like being told to have faith in the process is just a demand to not question decisions of the athletic department. And I'm sorry, Cal's athletic department lost this benefit of the doubt decades ago.

I am saying is that Cal fans judge every administration by the magic bean philosophy. New administration comes in. They say "our goal is to compete for conference championships/Rose Bowls" You've heard that once or twice, right? (Though now they seem to be downgrading that). Do they tell you how they'll do that? No. Then nothing happens. And Cal fans say "Oh, I know. They planted magic beans. It's all germinating under the surface. We just can't see it yet. One morning we will wake up and there will be a giant beanstalk." Then there is never a beanstalk. Then the next administration comes in and its "no, no, no. The last administration sucked. Turns out they never planted beans. THIS administration is planting beans. It's all germinating under the surface. We just can't see it yet. One morning there will be a giant beanstalk."

I'm saying, show me the beans.

In 8 days, Knowlton will have been on the job for a year. Nothing has happened. We are far beyond the point that he should have his own stamp on this department and some good changes would have been made that are visible to the public...If the beanstalk was coming, we'd see sprouts by now.

And now, a year in, we have the first major decision. A decision that it was very apparent the day that Knowlton was hire was very likely to have to be made. He had a year to prepare. And the decision was a very Cal decision handled in a very Cal way. So now, I'm watching Knowlton in the garden spraying all over from a can labeled "Bean-be-gone. Guaranteed to kill all beanstalks before they grow" and I'm still supposed to think the beanstalk is coming.

The administration has had a year to articulate a vision. And no, we want to compete for championships is not a vision. We want to be a mid tier program is not a vision. A vision is "this is what we want. this is how we get there. These are the specific steps we are going to take to do that." They have not articulated a vision. They have not changed any practices. They struggled to decide whether to terminate possibly the worst coach in the history of Cal revenue sports. Then they made an at best uninspiring hire. That is what I'm judging them on.

All the past administrations failures - that is what I'm judging the fans that want to wait and see on. Because they always wait and see. The reckoning never comes. The fan that stood by 25 times having faith that the beanstalk is coming and had no beanstalk come, and then for the 26th time tells me it's all happening beneath the surface, I'm sorry, no.

By the way, I'm realizing the Great Pumpkin might have been a better analogy, but it's too late to rewrite. Suffice it to say, I ain't gonna be Sally. All the Linuses can freeze in the pumpkin patch with their security blankets.


That was 4 years ago! One year into the Knowlton/Christ regime. I would love to say "and nothing has changed", but I can't. Any measure of results shows the athletic department to be drastically worse than 4 years ago. The basketball program is in worse shape, which no one thought was possible. Other sports have tanked. We ignored a coach abusing players. And now, I'm supposed to believe that the same administration that has had FIVE years to make major changes, NOW THEY HAVE STARTED PLANTING THOSE DAMNED BEANS? AGAIN WITH THE BEANS HAVE BEEN PLANTED? And this isn't even a new administration that can blame the last one. It is the last one. I don't care what they are telling you Moraga. It strains credibility.

The Great Pumpkin is actually the perfect analogy because I love Linus. Linus is a believer. He's not trying to con anyone. He's optimistic and good and just wants something so bad. I know, Moraga, that you are going to say to yourself "he just doesn't know what is happening. Cal has found the most sincere pumpkin patch and the Great Pumpkin is coming this time. He'll see". BI is Linus, Moraga, and as I said, I love Linus. The problem in that story is Sally. Sally should know better. Sally should keep loving Linus. Sally should walk him to the pumpkin patch, pat him on the head, and go trick or treating. What is most dismaying about that thread 4 years ago is seeing some knowledgeable Cal fans, who knew the right answer when Fox was hired, be convince by the BI article when they should have known better.

And I have to tell you, Moraga, Cal is not the Great Pumpkin. They are the Ethiopian Prince. They are lying to you. They are lying to us. They have been lying to us for decades. There has never been accountability for anyone who matters. They throw the coaches up as a sacrifice to the fan base and keep on movin. You only know what Cal tells you and Cal has a history of lying. Maybe you are right. Maybe this time is different. But I've been told this time is different too many times. Here's hoping Cal proves me wrong this time.

I say all this most of all, Moraga, because the chances are about 99% that in 4 years, we'll be back here with someone telling me that I'm apparently not aware of the great things that are happening and I will point to this thread stating I wasn't aware of the great things coming and this thread will point to the thread 4 years prior stating I wasn't aware of the great things coming, and maybe it will start to sink in for some people that the great things aren't coming.
Good post and I fully agree. The difference this time around is that it appears it is the donors that are taking the bull by the horns. Hopefully, it will make a difference. Maybe it'll end up being another Great Pumpkin story, but you've gotta try something, right?
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MoragaBear
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In reply to BearlyCareAnymore • 11:29a, 3/17/23
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BearlyCareAnymore said:
MoragaBear said:
BearlyCareAnymore said:
MoragaBear said:
BearGoggles said:
waterbear2013 said:
HearstMining said:
Of course, several of the coaching biographies above reference the turnarounds that the coaches have achieved. It's horrifying to note that the pre-turnaround records of most of these teams were at least twice as good as Cal's recent record. This highlights how deep Cal's program has fallen and how could the administration tolerate so many years of bad results? I'm not telling you folks anything you don't know, but seeing the results at other schools really drives the point home. Six years of being BDWs is crazy.
Something something about "when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you need to do is stop digging." Whoever Cal hires, must have a very heavy incentives based contract with clear stated expectations. Cal cannot commit another 3-4 years to a coach that doesn't significantly move the needle in the right direction.
I can't imagine any qualified coach would accept less than a 4-5 year contract to step into the mess that is Cal basketball. And in terms of incentives vs salary, to get a candidate like Johnson or Pasternak, you need to pay market (at least). But market for that type of candidate should be lower than a more established coach.

Cal went budget with Wyking and that was a disaster.

Of course, the key is always the buyout.
The salary increase would be substantial for many of these coaches, including Pasternack. You need to leverage that to have favorable buyout terms for the university and ask them to bet on themselves in exchange for a significant raise and bigger budget in all areas.
I'm sorry, but this is not reality. You aren't asking this coach to bet on themselves. You are asking them to bet on Knowlton, on Christ, and on the Cal administration. Look, my faith in this program is so low, I'm willing to hand it to some D-III assistant for $400K and tell him to keep the lights on and cash the conference check. But if you are looking for success, not making a commitment to a candidate is not the way to go. You say we need to ask them to bet on themselves. What do you say when they respond, "Okay, I'm going to bet on myself. I'm going to bet that I can succeed where I am so that next year I don't need to take your crap offer."?

This job has effectively ended the head coaching career of the last two coaches. Now, neither of those coaches were going anywhere anyway, which is probably why they took the job. And the problem with both of the contracts was not the buyout. It was that we paid them a lot more than they were ever going to get anywhere else. Neither had any prospects. Since you mentioned Pasternack, we don't need to beat UCSB's salary. We need to beat 1. Whatever UCSB is willing to pay him plus the notion that he will probably have a 20 year career there if he wants, and 2. Whatever he can get, or thinks he can get elsewhere either this year or in the next couple. Yeah, if he wants to bet on himself, he can bet on his continued success in a good situation and the ability to parlay that into an offer from a high major willing to make a normal commitment to him.

And bigger budget than UCSB is irrelevant. What matters is your budget in relation to your competitors and on that score we don't do well. Budget is about being able to be competitive.

The program is in the tank. Cal should try not doing an incompetent job at identifying coaching candidates, pick one they like, pay them something they could reasonably get on the market (plus a little more because that is how you close a deal) and give them a reasonable time commitment.

The problem with Wyking is it was a patently moronic hire. The problem with Fox is it was a patently moronic hire and then we extended him for no reason (which is another Cal thing to do). Stop making moronic hires. Stop giving moronic extensions. If you don't give them the commitment out of the gate you end up paying more in the long run.

If I'm a candidate, I'm looking at it this way. The most I can depend on staying at Cal is 2 years. It isn't whether I can win. It is whether Cal can win, and I don't know that anyone can win there. So I'm either counting on my first two years of salary or the buyout and that is it. So then I got to compare that with what I'm sure I'm going to get where I am and what I could get elsewhere. And, if they don't give me enough time to turn this turd around, do I then go out and try to get a job with a 10-50 win loss record and find that I have burned every opportunity. Because, if I'm going to bet on myself, I need 4-5 years. Otherwise, I'm betting on you to have patience. I'm betting on you to give me the support I need. I'm betting on a whole lot of things out of my control.

Anyone willing to bet on themselves would be a fool to take that deal. They'd bet on a better deal in their future. Which leaves you back where you started, getting only guys like Fox who are taking one more paycheck into retirement or guys like Jones who had made no move toward becoming a head coach and had absolutely zero prospect that was going to happen until Cal dropped the opportunity in his lap.

You go mid major precisely because it doesn't cost a lot. You give the commitment because that is what it should take to turn the program around. Cal needs to bet on itself here. Bet that they can identify the right candidate and then give that candidate adequate time and support to develop the program from nothing. Or at least bet that you won't pick a candidate so bad that he will be an obvious loser in 2-3 years I wouldn't bet on Cal being able to find the right guy, but hopefully they have more confidence in themselves. If Cal doesn't have confidence that Knowlton is the guy to do that, they shouldn't have hired him and then given him a million year extension.

Seriously, if Cal doesn't think that Knowlton can hire a coach that can last 4-5 years under incredibly low expectations, why is he the AD? I mean, that is an incredibly low bar for the next coach to pass. I know WE don't think Knowlton can do that, but we aren't the ones who hired him. At some point, you have to assume your people are competent.

You're evidently not aware of substantial changes to the equation for the program's future. I mean VERY significant.

With that in mind, they should be able to pull off exactly what I suggested unless Knowlton figures out how to screw that up despite a lot of very important people who are fed up and holding his feet to the fire.
I am not doing this to win an argument or embarrass you. I do respect you Moraga. But there needs to be an intervention here with the remnants of this fanbase and with media like BearInsider.

4 years ago, when a lot of people like me went apoplectic over the idiocy that was the Fox hire, BearInsider wrote an article about it. Here are some quotes. I think this first one is most relevant:


Quote:
The news of Wyking Jones departure and Mark Fox's hire are not the beginning and end of this story. Expect to hear some very good news with regard to donations and facilities upgrades in the near future. Cal's basketball brand has been diminished in the past two seasons and needs to be rebuilt. That starts with experienced. competent leadership and continues with substantial donations that benefit not only basketball but the athletic department as a whole

So, I wasn't aware of all the great news that was coming then that BI knew about. And I'm not aware of all the great changes coming now. I'm just wondering if these are the same great changes since the ones from 4 years ago haven't come yet.

I was told then directly from BI staff, again, because I didn't know what BI knows:


Quote:
Not trying to change your mind in the least but we talked to six coaches/senior media analysts today and off the record, they all said glowing things about Fox.

More quotes from the BI article based on information I apparently didn't know:


Quote:
The obvious initial take when discussing Mark Fox is that he is in every respect an upgrade over his predecessor. An experienced hand who's well-respected by his peers, Fox will bring a depth of experience and presence that Cal has not had since Mike Montgomery retired in 2012.

there's a real possibility that Cal could hit a home run with their choice of Mark Fox.

Mark Fox's resume as it relates to scheme, teaching and player development are strong. His teams consistently played top-tier defense, and defense wins in college basketball. He's a coach with a chip on his shoulder, hungry to wipe the exit at Georgia from his resume. His X's and O's and teaching pedigree are endorsed in fulsome fashion with his recent tenure with Team USA and the praise he received from coaching luminaries in today's press release. Bear Insider has had a chance to source further references from a half dozen industry experts and the praise has been universal and unstinting. Folks who know Pac-12 basketball exceptionally well and have no affiliation with Cal or with Coach Fox have been effusive in their praise of Fox and the fit at Cal.


I was then told by fans to have faith in the process.

Here are some excerpts from my responses 4 years ago. And the point of this is to demonstrate that this is lather, rinse, repeat.


Quote:
I'm asking those who want us to have faith in the process to tell me what they think that process is? The reason I ask is every time we have a major decision, good or bad, any criticism is met with "They know what they are doing. They have a plan. Have faith in the process." Well, that argument is assuming that they DO have a plan.

I DON'T THINK THEY DO. The reason why I believe this is because all of my life there has been no indication that they do. I submit to you that there is no process to trust.

It feels like being told to have faith in the process is just a demand to not question decisions of the athletic department. And I'm sorry, Cal's athletic department lost this benefit of the doubt decades ago.

I am saying is that Cal fans judge every administration by the magic bean philosophy. New administration comes in. They say "our goal is to compete for conference championships/Rose Bowls" You've heard that once or twice, right? (Though now they seem to be downgrading that). Do they tell you how they'll do that? No. Then nothing happens. And Cal fans say "Oh, I know. They planted magic beans. It's all germinating under the surface. We just can't see it yet. One morning we will wake up and there will be a giant beanstalk." Then there is never a beanstalk. Then the next administration comes in and its "no, no, no. The last administration sucked. Turns out they never planted beans. THIS administration is planting beans. It's all germinating under the surface. We just can't see it yet. One morning there will be a giant beanstalk."

I'm saying, show me the beans.

In 8 days, Knowlton will have been on the job for a year. Nothing has happened. We are far beyond the point that he should have his own stamp on this department and some good changes would have been made that are visible to the public...If the beanstalk was coming, we'd see sprouts by now.

And now, a year in, we have the first major decision. A decision that it was very apparent the day that Knowlton was hire was very likely to have to be made. He had a year to prepare. And the decision was a very Cal decision handled in a very Cal way. So now, I'm watching Knowlton in the garden spraying all over from a can labeled "Bean-be-gone. Guaranteed to kill all beanstalks before they grow" and I'm still supposed to think the beanstalk is coming.

The administration has had a year to articulate a vision. And no, we want to compete for championships is not a vision. We want to be a mid tier program is not a vision. A vision is "this is what we want. this is how we get there. These are the specific steps we are going to take to do that." They have not articulated a vision. They have not changed any practices. They struggled to decide whether to terminate possibly the worst coach in the history of Cal revenue sports. Then they made an at best uninspiring hire. That is what I'm judging them on.

All the past administrations failures - that is what I'm judging the fans that want to wait and see on. Because they always wait and see. The reckoning never comes. The fan that stood by 25 times having faith that the beanstalk is coming and had no beanstalk come, and then for the 26th time tells me it's all happening beneath the surface, I'm sorry, no.

By the way, I'm realizing the Great Pumpkin might have been a better analogy, but it's too late to rewrite. Suffice it to say, I ain't gonna be Sally. All the Linuses can freeze in the pumpkin patch with their security blankets.


That was 4 years ago! One year into the Knowlton/Christ regime. I would love to say "and nothing has changed", but I can't. Any measure of results shows the athletic department to be drastically worse than 4 years ago. The basketball program is in worse shape, which no one thought was possible. Other sports have tanked. We ignored a coach abusing players. And now, I'm supposed to believe that the same administration that has had FIVE years to make major changes, NOW THEY HAVE STARTED PLANTING THOSE DAMNED BEANS? AGAIN WITH THE BEANS HAVE BEEN PLANTED? And this isn't even a new administration that can blame the last one. It is the last one. I don't care what they are telling you Moraga. It strains credibility.

The Great Pumpkin is actually the perfect analogy because I love Linus. Linus is a believer. He's not trying to con anyone. He's optimistic and good and just wants something so bad. I know, Moraga, that you are going to say to yourself "he just doesn't know what is happening. Cal has found the most sincere pumpkin patch and the Great Pumpkin is coming this time. He'll see". BI is Linus, Moraga, and as I said, I love Linus. The problem in that story is Sally. Sally should know better. Sally should keep loving Linus. Sally should walk him to the pumpkin patch, pat him on the head, and go trick or treating. What is most dismaying about that thread 4 years ago is seeing some knowledgeable Cal fans, who knew the right answer when Fox was hired, be convince by the BI article when they should have known better.

And I have to tell you, Moraga, Cal is not the Great Pumpkin. They are the Ethiopian Prince. They are lying to you. They are lying to us. They have been lying to us for decades. There has never been accountability for anyone who matters. They throw the coaches up as a sacrifice to the fan base and keep on movin. You only know what Cal tells you and Cal has a history of lying. Maybe you are right. Maybe this time is different. But I've been told this time is different too many times. Here's hoping Cal proves me wrong this time.

I say all this most of all, Moraga, because the chances are about 99% that in 4 years, we'll be back here with someone telling me that I'm apparently not aware of the great things that are happening and I will point to this thread stating I wasn't aware of the great things coming and this thread will point to the thread 4 years prior stating I wasn't aware of the great things coming, and maybe it will start to sink in for some people that the great things aren't coming.
You were right and we were dead wrong about Fox. I didn't write what you quoted and was on the fence about him when he was hired but I did at least think he'd be a far better X's and O's guy.

I don't blame you in the slightest for being skeptical that they'll get his right, especially with Knowlton still in charge. But there's a big difference between now and then. Knowlton hadn't hired Wyking Jones, Michael Williams did. He wasn't on the hot seat for that hire. Now he most certainly is for the Fox hire and extension, among other things. And significant donors and key Cal basketball alumni weren't nearly as involved in the process with the Fox hire and extension and because of who's involved in the financial end of the equation this go-round, the significant additional investment is far more secure than it was before. That could blow up if Knowlton is cavalier about this process, though. He better not be.

I'm not asking you to believe. I think you're perfectly justified in your show me, don't tell me stance. I'm just bringing you information I believe to be very reliable, though Knowlton is the wildcard. He needs to not screw this up by letting his ego get in the way of getting this right. Fortunately, there are a lot of stakeholders highly involved and the hope is that they can work together to get this done properly because the resources are there.

We'll know soon enough either way.
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In reply to BearlyCareAnymore • 11:40a, 3/17/23
From the old BI exchanges you quoted:

... we talked to six coaches/senior media analysts today and off the record, they all said glowing things about Fox ... An experienced hand who's well-respected by his peers ...

No mention of any player who has to play for the guy or of any AD/GM who has to answer for the results.

Media analysts? Please.

... He's a coach with a chip on his shoulder ...

They got that one right.


From today's edition of Knowlton's Notes:

I have been soliciting input from a variety of our stakeholders to help us pinpoint exactly what we are looking for in the next leader of our men's basketball program, and I am confident we will find a new coach with the qualities to bring our team back where it belongs consistently contending for postseason appearances while excelling in the classroom and engaging with our community.

At least he states what I consider reasonable goals. I'd say the result depends on the expertise of those particular stakeholders and the willingness of our AD to follow their recommendations.

Coach Smith's program continues to make strides, and we continue to support the program on its upward trajectory.

IMHO that trajectory is positive but very slow and WBB fans are grumbling. I don't know if MBB fans are willing to wait that long.
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11:45a, 3/17/23
I understand what BarelyCare is saying. Really, he's probably right, unless what we're seeing for Cal basketball is what supposedly happened with Furd football after the Harris-Teevens disasters, where John Arrillaga basically went to the athletic director, said "This is not acceptable What do you need to fix it?" and began writing checks.

It that's what's happening here, we're not going to know that, absent Doug Goldman or someone if his ilk, standing up and saying, "Here's the amount I'm giving, and it's contingent on Knowlton getting off his ass and hiring one of these coaches that I think actually have the potential to win at Cal."

Realistically, that sort of public demonstration is not likely to happen. At this point, we can only judge what's going on behind the scenes by what happens publicly, and that's the selection of the new coach, and maybe the contract terms. If the coach is Miles, Sendek or another retread not among the names already discussed, and the contract doesn't give him four or five years to turn this around, then I will just assume Knowlton is sacrificing the basketball program, and I won't expend any effort following it going forward. As for the buyout, given where we're starting from, we probably don't have all that much leverage there. I'm not an expert on them, but I guess what is reasonable is something where the percentage of the remaining salary that we have to pay goes down as we get closer to the end of the contract. Something where the buyout is small at the beginning gives Cal the maximum flexibility, but there's no way any decent candidate is going to agree to that, given the rebuilding job they're facing.
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HearstMining
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11:51a, 3/17/23
I know one way to clear a little of the mystery up but it won't happen. I'd like to know which former Cal basketball people (players and coaches) Knowlton is talking to, what they are telling him (without specifying exactly who said what), and who they are recommending. A good reporter should be able to ferret out some of this info. I'd also like to know the hiring process; who was on the interview team. Then, at the very least we'd understand this and once a choice had been made, whether Knowlton had followed any of their advice. The Head Coach is a public employee, so the hiring process should be public knowledge.

Honestly, I think interviews are wildly overrated as a hiring tool. Studies have shown that most of us are not particularly good judges of whether we're hiring the best candidate. Hiring managers routinely ignore clues on resumes in preference to how they "feel" about a candidate (which invariably means "Is the candidate like me?") I'm sure we all know one very good example of this.
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Jeff82
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11:55a, 3/17/23
Except that: 1) making the process so public invites getting into a bidding war with other potential employers, and 2) if Knowlton is as big a jerk as we all suspect, publicizing who is advising him may lead him to arrogantly ignore their advice, just for spite.

I don't care about seeing the sausage being made, I just want something tasty as a result.
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CalLifer
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12:00p, 3/17/23


AAR seems to impressing people. Hopefully we are considering him.
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BearGoggles
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In reply to BearlyCareAnymore • 12:01p, 3/17/23
BearlyCareAnymore said:
MoragaBear said:
BearlyCareAnymore said:
MoragaBear said:
BearGoggles said:
waterbear2013 said:
HearstMining said:
Of course, several of the coaching biographies above reference the turnarounds that the coaches have achieved. It's horrifying to note that the pre-turnaround records of most of these teams were at least twice as good as Cal's recent record. This highlights how deep Cal's program has fallen and how could the administration tolerate so many years of bad results? I'm not telling you folks anything you don't know, but seeing the results at other schools really drives the point home. Six years of being BDWs is crazy.
Something something about "when you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you need to do is stop digging." Whoever Cal hires, must have a very heavy incentives based contract with clear stated expectations. Cal cannot commit another 3-4 years to a coach that doesn't significantly move the needle in the right direction.
I can't imagine any qualified coach would accept less than a 4-5 year contract to step into the mess that is Cal basketball. And in terms of incentives vs salary, to get a candidate like Johnson or Pasternak, you need to pay market (at least). But market for that type of candidate should be lower than a more established coach.

Cal went budget with Wyking and that was a disaster.

Of course, the key is always the buyout.
The salary increase would be substantial for many of these coaches, including Pasternack. You need to leverage that to have favorable buyout terms for the university and ask them to bet on themselves in exchange for a significant raise and bigger budget in all areas.
I'm sorry, but this is not reality. You aren't asking this coach to bet on themselves. You are asking them to bet on Knowlton, on Christ, and on the Cal administration. Look, my faith in this program is so low, I'm willing to hand it to some D-III assistant for $400K and tell him to keep the lights on and cash the conference check. But if you are looking for success, not making a commitment to a candidate is not the way to go. You say we need to ask them to bet on themselves. What do you say when they respond, "Okay, I'm going to bet on myself. I'm going to bet that I can succeed where I am so that next year I don't need to take your crap offer."?

This job has effectively ended the head coaching career of the last two coaches. Now, neither of those coaches were going anywhere anyway, which is probably why they took the job. And the problem with both of the contracts was not the buyout. It was that we paid them a lot more than they were ever going to get anywhere else. Neither had any prospects. Since you mentioned Pasternack, we don't need to beat UCSB's salary. We need to beat 1. Whatever UCSB is willing to pay him plus the notion that he will probably have a 20 year career there if he wants, and 2. Whatever he can get, or thinks he can get elsewhere either this year or in the next couple. Yeah, if he wants to bet on himself, he can bet on his continued success in a good situation and the ability to parlay that into an offer from a high major willing to make a normal commitment to him.

And bigger budget than UCSB is irrelevant. What matters is your budget in relation to your competitors and on that score we don't do well. Budget is about being able to be competitive.

The program is in the tank. Cal should try not doing an incompetent job at identifying coaching candidates, pick one they like, pay them something they could reasonably get on the market (plus a little more because that is how you close a deal) and give them a reasonable time commitment.

The problem with Wyking is it was a patently moronic hire. The problem with Fox is it was a patently moronic hire and then we extended him for no reason (which is another Cal thing to do). Stop making moronic hires. Stop giving moronic extensions. If you don't give them the commitment out of the gate you end up paying more in the long run.

If I'm a candidate, I'm looking at it this way. The most I can depend on staying at Cal is 2 years. It isn't whether I can win. It is whether Cal can win, and I don't know that anyone can win there. So I'm either counting on my first two years of salary or the buyout and that is it. So then I got to compare that with what I'm sure I'm going to get where I am and what I could get elsewhere. And, if they don't give me enough time to turn this turd around, do I then go out and try to get a job with a 10-50 win loss record and find that I have burned every opportunity. Because, if I'm going to bet on myself, I need 4-5 years. Otherwise, I'm betting on you to have patience. I'm betting on you to give me the support I need. I'm betting on a whole lot of things out of my control.

Anyone willing to bet on themselves would be a fool to take that deal. They'd bet on a better deal in their future. Which leaves you back where you started, getting only guys like Fox who are taking one more paycheck into retirement or guys like Jones who had made no move toward becoming a head coach and had absolutely zero prospect that was going to happen until Cal dropped the opportunity in his lap.

You go mid major precisely because it doesn't cost a lot. You give the commitment because that is what it should take to turn the program around. Cal needs to bet on itself here. Bet that they can identify the right candidate and then give that candidate adequate time and support to develop the program from nothing. Or at least bet that you won't pick a candidate so bad that he will be an obvious loser in 2-3 years I wouldn't bet on Cal being able to find the right guy, but hopefully they have more confidence in themselves. If Cal doesn't have confidence that Knowlton is the guy to do that, they shouldn't have hired him and then given him a million year extension.

Seriously, if Cal doesn't think that Knowlton can hire a coach that can last 4-5 years under incredibly low expectations, why is he the AD? I mean, that is an incredibly low bar for the next coach to pass. I know WE don't think Knowlton can do that, but we aren't the ones who hired him. At some point, you have to assume your people are competent.

You're evidently not aware of substantial changes to the equation for the program's future. I mean VERY significant.

With that in mind, they should be able to pull off exactly what I suggested unless Knowlton figures out how to screw that up despite a lot of very important people who are fed up and holding his feet to the fire.
I am not doing this to win an argument or embarrass you. I do respect you Moraga. But there needs to be an intervention here with the remnants of this fanbase and with media like BearInsider.

4 years ago, when a lot of people like me went apoplectic over the idiocy that was the Fox hire, BearInsider wrote an article about it. Here are some quotes. I think this first one is most relevant:


Quote:
The news of Wyking Jones departure and Mark Fox's hire are not the beginning and end of this story. Expect to hear some very good news with regard to donations and facilities upgrades in the near future. Cal's basketball brand has been diminished in the past two seasons and needs to be rebuilt. That starts with experienced. competent leadership and continues with substantial donations that benefit not only basketball but the athletic department as a whole

So, I wasn't aware of all the great news that was coming then that BI knew about. And I'm not aware of all the great changes coming now. I'm just wondering if these are the same great changes since the ones from 4 years ago haven't come yet.

I was told then directly from BI staff, again, because I didn't know what BI knows:


Quote:
Not trying to change your mind in the least but we talked to six coaches/senior media analysts today and off the record, they all said glowing things about Fox.

More quotes from the BI article based on information I apparently didn't know:


Quote:
The obvious initial take when discussing Mark Fox is that he is in every respect an upgrade over his predecessor. An experienced hand who's well-respected by his peers, Fox will bring a depth of experience and presence that Cal has not had since Mike Montgomery retired in 2012.

there's a real possibility that Cal could hit a home run with their choice of Mark Fox.

Mark Fox's resume as it relates to scheme, teaching and player development are strong. His teams consistently played top-tier defense, and defense wins in college basketball. He's a coach with a chip on his shoulder, hungry to wipe the exit at Georgia from his resume. His X's and O's and teaching pedigree are endorsed in fulsome fashion with his recent tenure with Team USA and the praise he received from coaching luminaries in today's press release. Bear Insider has had a chance to source further references from a half dozen industry experts and the praise has been universal and unstinting. Folks who know Pac-12 basketball exceptionally well and have no affiliation with Cal or with Coach Fox have been effusive in their praise of Fox and the fit at Cal.


I was then told by fans to have faith in the process.

Here are some excerpts from my responses 4 years ago. And the point of this is to demonstrate that this is lather, rinse, repeat.


Quote:
I'm asking those who want us to have faith in the process to tell me what they think that process is? The reason I ask is every time we have a major decision, good or bad, any criticism is met with "They know what they are doing. They have a plan. Have faith in the process." Well, that argument is assuming that they DO have a plan.

I DON'T THINK THEY DO. The reason why I believe this is because all of my life there has been no indication that they do. I submit to you that there is no process to trust.

It feels like being told to have faith in the process is just a demand to not question decisions of the athletic department. And I'm sorry, Cal's athletic department lost this benefit of the doubt decades ago.

I am saying is that Cal fans judge every administration by the magic bean philosophy. New administration comes in. They say "our goal is to compete for conference championships/Rose Bowls" You've heard that once or twice, right? (Though now they seem to be downgrading that). Do they tell you how they'll do that? No. Then nothing happens. And Cal fans say "Oh, I know. They planted magic beans. It's all germinating under the surface. We just can't see it yet. One morning we will wake up and there will be a giant beanstalk." Then there is never a beanstalk. Then the next administration comes in and its "no, no, no. The last administration sucked. Turns out they never planted beans. THIS administration is planting beans. It's all germinating under the surface. We just can't see it yet. One morning there will be a giant beanstalk."

I'm saying, show me the beans.

In 8 days, Knowlton will have been on the job for a year. Nothing has happened. We are far beyond the point that he should have his own stamp on this department and some good changes would have been made that are visible to the public...If the beanstalk was coming, we'd see sprouts by now.

And now, a year in, we have the first major decision. A decision that it was very apparent the day that Knowlton was hire was very likely to have to be made. He had a year to prepare. And the decision was a very Cal decision handled in a very Cal way. So now, I'm watching Knowlton in the garden spraying all over from a can labeled "Bean-be-gone. Guaranteed to kill all beanstalks before they grow" and I'm still supposed to think the beanstalk is coming.

The administration has had a year to articulate a vision. And no, we want to compete for championships is not a vision. We want to be a mid tier program is not a vision. A vision is "this is what we want. this is how we get there. These are the specific steps we are going to take to do that." They have not articulated a vision. They have not changed any practices. They struggled to decide whether to terminate possibly the worst coach in the history of Cal revenue sports. Then they made an at best uninspiring hire. That is what I'm judging them on.

All the past administrations failures - that is what I'm judging the fans that want to wait and see on. Because they always wait and see. The reckoning never comes. The fan that stood by 25 times having faith that the beanstalk is coming and had no beanstalk come, and then for the 26th time tells me it's all happening beneath the surface, I'm sorry, no.

By the way, I'm realizing the Great Pumpkin might have been a better analogy, but it's too late to rewrite. Suffice it to say, I ain't gonna be Sally. All the Linuses can freeze in the pumpkin patch with their security blankets.


That was 4 years ago! One year into the Knowlton/Christ regime. I would love to say "and nothing has changed", but I can't. Any measure of results shows the athletic department to be drastically worse than 4 years ago. The basketball program is in worse shape, which no one thought was possible. Other sports have tanked. We ignored a coach abusing players. And now, I'm supposed to believe that the same administration that has had FIVE years to make major changes, NOW THEY HAVE STARTED PLANTING THOSE DAMNED BEANS? AGAIN WITH THE BEANS HAVE BEEN PLANTED? And this isn't even a new administration that can blame the last one. It is the last one. I don't care what they are telling you Moraga. It strains credibility.

The Great Pumpkin is actually the perfect analogy because I love Linus. Linus is a believer. He's not trying to con anyone. He's optimistic and good and just wants something so bad. I know, Moraga, that you are going to say to yourself "he just doesn't know what is happening. Cal has found the most sincere pumpkin patch and the Great Pumpkin is coming this time. He'll see". BI is Linus, Moraga, and as I said, I love Linus. The problem in that story is Sally. Sally should know better. Sally should keep loving Linus. Sally should walk him to the pumpkin patch, pat him on the head, and go trick or treating. What is most dismaying about that thread 4 years ago is seeing some knowledgeable Cal fans, who knew the right answer when Fox was hired, be convince by the BI article when they should have known better.

And I have to tell you, Moraga, Cal is not the Great Pumpkin. They are the Ethiopian Prince. They are lying to you. They are lying to us. They have been lying to us for decades. There has never been accountability for anyone who matters. They throw the coaches up as a sacrifice to the fan base and keep on movin. You only know what Cal tells you and Cal has a history of lying. Maybe you are right. Maybe this time is different. But I've been told this time is different too many times. Here's hoping Cal proves me wrong this time.

I say all this most of all, Moraga, because the chances are about 99% that in 4 years, we'll be back here with someone telling me that I'm apparently not aware of the great things that are happening and I will point to this thread stating I wasn't aware of the great things coming and this thread will point to the thread 4 years prior stating I wasn't aware of the great things coming, and maybe it will start to sink in for some people that the great things aren't coming.
Great post - hard to dispute anything in there. In particular, the lack of accountability in the Cal AD (and I would argue Cal admin in general).

Maybe you've posted this elsewhere . . . who are you preferred coaching candidates?
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ncbears
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In reply to stu • 12:10p, 3/17/23
stu said:

From today's edition of Knowlton's Notes:

I have been soliciting input from a variety of our stakeholders to help us pinpoint exactly what we are looking for in the next leader of our men's basketball program, and I am confident we will find a new coach with the qualities to bring our team back where it belongs consistently contending for postseason appearances while excelling in the classroom and engaging with our community.

At least he states what I consider reasonable goals. I'd say the result depends on the expertise of those particular stakeholders and the willingness of our AD to follow their recommendations.
Those are not reasonable goals. They are far too low.

I don't want a team that is "contending for postseason appearances" - I want a team that is consistently making postseason appearances (and not the CBI)
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BeachedBear
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In reply to ncbears • 12:12p, 3/17/23
ncbears said:
stu said:

From today's edition of Knowlton's Notes:

I have been soliciting input from a variety of our stakeholders to help us pinpoint exactly what we are looking for in the next leader of our men's basketball program, and I am confident we will find a new coach with the qualities to bring our team back where it belongs consistently contending for postseason appearances while excelling in the classroom and engaging with our community.

At least he states what I consider reasonable goals. I'd say the result depends on the expertise of those particular stakeholders and the willingness of our AD to follow their recommendations.
Those are not reasonable goals. They are far too low.

I don't want a team that is "contending for postseason appearances" - I want a team that is consistently making postseason appearances (and not the CBI)


I'm pretty sure JK was referring to the post season appearances at the team award luncheon.
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stu
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In reply to ncbears • 12:12p, 3/17/23
ncbears said:
stu said:

From today's edition of Knowlton's Notes:

I have been soliciting input from a variety of our stakeholders to help us pinpoint exactly what we are looking for in the next leader of our men's basketball program, and I am confident we will find a new coach with the qualities to bring our team back where it belongs consistently contending for postseason appearances while excelling in the classroom and engaging with our community.

At least he states what I consider reasonable goals. I'd say the result depends on the expertise of those particular stakeholders and the willingness of our AD to follow their recommendations.
Those are not reasonable goals. They are far too low.

I don't want a team that is "contending for postseason appearances" - I want a team that is consistently making postseason appearances (and not the CBI)
Good point - "contending" could mean what we did this season.
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MoragaBear
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In reply to ncbears • 12:14p, 3/17/23
Staff
ncbears said:
stu said:

From today's edition of Knowlton's Notes:

I have been soliciting input from a variety of our stakeholders to help us pinpoint exactly what we are looking for in the next leader of our men's basketball program, and I am confident we will find a new coach with the qualities to bring our team back where it belongs consistently contending for postseason appearances while excelling in the classroom and engaging with our community.

At least he states what I consider reasonable goals. I'd say the result depends on the expertise of those particular stakeholders and the willingness of our AD to follow their recommendations.
Those are not reasonable goals. They are far too low.

I don't want a team that is "contending for postseason appearances" - I want a team that is consistently making postseason appearances (and not the CBI)
Hard to not remember how making the NIT vs Fullerton State in '86 was a big deal after the awful hoops we had to endure in the late 70s and 80s. Sadly, making the NIT anytime in the last 6 seasons would have been a major step up but that's not acceptable.
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