Mike Williams never had the tools to be AD at Cal and unfortunately he's demonstrating Why by mishandling the two most important decisions the athletic department makes: the hiring of the head football coach and men's basketball coach. He lucked out that Wilcox was available after wasting 5 weeks. Now, he is bungling the basketball coaching hire while not providing the support the former needed to conduct a top program. He is really an embarrassment.

Why not wait until he makes a hire first?

Maybe he'll go to another school and that school goes on to play for the Rose Bowl..

UCBerkGrad;842823951 said:

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Why not wait until he makes a hire first?

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Because that would require maturity.

I don't understand. Most seem to think the football hire is good. Thus, he has done his job well. How do you know if the BB coach is botched until you see who it is an his performance?????

bearchamp;842823957 said:

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I don't understand. Most seem to think the football hire is good. Thus, he has done his job well. How do you know if the BB coach is botched until you see who it is an his performance?????

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Oranges and apples. If Pasternack is a leading candidate, we have a problem with Williams.

TexWoodyGiants;842823961 said:

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Oranges and apples. If Pasternack is a leading candidate, we have a problem with Williams.

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What you mean "we", . . . .

Ultimately it will be the new Chancellor and the major donors who decide William's fate. Good luck to us all.

grandmastapoop;842823954 said:

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Because that would require maturity.

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You said it! This is just more typical Cal fan hysteria.

The way Williams handled the Wilcox hiring was perfect. By all reports, he know Wilcox wanted the job and would wait for it. He also knew that if anyone else hired Dykes, we'd save a lot of money. So he waited until it was clear no one would take him off our hands and extended the offer, knowing Wilcox was still very interested.

The intelligent thing would be to wait to see how this all plays out before ranting like so many did during the football coaching search. But that's just asking too much for some people, I guess.

bearlyamazing;842824060 said:

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You said it! This is just more typical Cal fan hysteria.

The way Williams handled the Wilcox hiring was perfect. By all reports, he know Wilcox wanted the job and would wait for it. He also knew that if anyone else hired Dykes, we'd save a lot of money. So he waited until it was clear no one would take him off our hands and extended the offer, knowing Wilcox was still very interested.

The intelligent thing would be to wait to see how this all plays out before ranting like so many did during the football coaching search. But that's just asking too much for some people, I guess.

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I was not a Williams fan, but Wilcox was dealt with well. So yeah, you have to see how this plays out.

Don't underestimate Williams. I have met him a few times and must say he is far from incompetent.

AD Williams is going to prove his hiring genius. Just be patient.

bearlyamazing;842824060 said:

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You said it! This is just more typical Cal fan hysteria.

The way Williams handled the Wilcox hiring was perfect. By all reports, he know Wilcox wanted the job and would wait for it. He also knew that if anyone else hired Dykes, we'd save a lot of money. So he waited until it was clear no one would take him off our hands and extended the offer, knowing Wilcox was still very interested.

The intelligent thing would be to wait to see how this all plays out before ranting like so many did during the football coaching search. But that's just asking too much for some people, I guess.

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Yes, they identified Wilcox as their guy in November. The idea he would be available and not hired by Oregon or some other school is purely DUMB LUCK! It took them 5 weeks to figure out they couldn't fire Sonny with cause. Waiting 5 weeks to change football coaches during December, while other schools are recruiting and hiring coaches is a ridiculous strategy which is why no other school operates like this! And is reflected by Musselman calling Cal's hiring process a "Circus."

UCBerkGrad;842823951 said:

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Why not wait until he makes a hire first?

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Because he has repeatedly shown he is incompetent. With that logic, why not wait 10 years so he has a real body of work to see if he knows what he's doing.

And people blame millennials for outrage culture...

barabbas;842824150 said:

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Because he has repeatedly shown he is incompetent. With that logic, why not wait 10 years so he has a real body of work to see if he knows what he's doing.

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Just curious, who would you like to see as the next head coach?

barabbas;842823948 said:

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Mike Williams never had the tools to be AD at Cal and unfortunately he's demonstrating Why by mishandling the two most important decisions the athletic department makes: the hiring of the head football coach and men's basketball coach. He lucked out that Wilcox was available after wasting 5 weeks. Now, he is bungling the basketball coaching hire while not providing the support the former needed to conduct a top program. He is really an embarrassment.

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yes, why don't we get Sandy Barbour to explain the I/A business model to the new Chancellor?

While we wait for the new Cal basketball coach to be hired, all the complaining about AD Williams seems like wasted energy. With the list of names suggested so far [U]all lacking consensus[/U] here on Bearinsider -- and other sites -- (e.g. Turner, Bennett, Musselman, Theo, Shaw, Dennis Gates, Pasternack, Les, Wyking Jones, etc.) don't you think AD Williams wants to get it right on his first Men's basketball hire. Of course he does. Perhaps he has eyes on a current NCAA/NIT team's coach/assistant coach still playing or there is some other factor delaying the hiring?

The jury is still out on Wilcox, in fact we probably won't know whether it was a good hire for some time. I'm not trying to be negative. I'm just being realistic. We didn't finish the recruiting season particularly strong. There are a lot of offers out this spring and people seem to like the way he is handling recruiting, however he still hasn't secured a single 2018 commit. The only commitments were secured by the previous regime. Once again, not to be negative but there is a lot of work to be done. We're already significantly behind some of our competition. It's one thing for recruits to say they like and are impressed with the new coaching staff. It's another to actually commit. I wish the basketball search was going a little bit more quickly because I'm afraid we're going to lose the current class. I'm willing to be patient because it is such an important decision. His legacy will hinge on the football hire and to a lesser extent on the basketball hire. He could end up a hero or a goat, or something in between.

mikecohen;842824046 said:

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What you mean "we", . . . .

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Sorry about that, my bad!

Bill Murray. He has sports executives experience- owned a baseball team. His teams are on a winning streak and the game day experience will be off the charts

GB54;842824644 said:

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Bill Murray. He has sports executives experience- owned a baseball team. His teams are on a winning streak and the game day experience will be off the charts

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And he kinda looks like Oski.

Plus having school kids chase gophers at half time and beat them with golf clubs will put butts in Memorial. Screw the pet photos.

Williams has not done anything wrong. Yet. Give him a chance.

GB54;842824648 said:

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Plus having school kids chase gophers at half time and beat them with golf clubs will put butts in Memorial. Screw the pet photos.

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Come on, haven't you bought your puppy any Nylabones?

"Put the pot on the stove, set the heat low and let it cook." -- AD MWilliams

oskidunker;842824651 said:

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Williams has not done anything wrong. Yet. Give him a chance.

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Williams hasn't done anything wrong? I, and many other Cal fans and alumni, would disagree with this. Here are just a couple failings that I can think of immediately: 1) Williams took way too much time in firing Dykes, causing Cal to lose a month of precious time putting together a staff and recruiting; 2) Williams did not actively fight for Cal's football schedule and preventing two games in 5-6 days. Both of these were hugely public.

Here's another failing: while several other bball programs either fired their head coach or had reasonable suspicions their head coach was leaving, those programs acted quickly and decisively to backfill the roles. Cal's slower movement compared to other schools, plus allowing a media circus to put Cal in a negative light and not addressing it at all (AD's role is part PR), shows that Williams has room for improvement and growth as an AD.

Williams may have been a wonderful leader in the financial world, but he certainly hasn't shown he's a capable AD. Yet.

travelingbears;842824715 said:

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Williams hasn't done anything wrong? I, and many other Cal fans and alumni, would disagree with this. Here are just a couple failings that I can think of immediately: 1) Williams took way too much time in firing Dykes, causing Cal to lose a month of precious time putting together a staff and recruiting; 2) Williams did not actively fight for Cal's football schedule and preventing two games in 5-6 days. Both of these were hugely public.

Here's another failing: while several other bball programs either fired their head coach or had reasonable suspicions their head coach was leaving, those programs acted quickly and decisively to backfill the roles. Cal's slower movement compared to other schools, plus allowing a media circus to put Cal in a negative light and not addressing it at all (AD's role is part PR), shows that Williams has room for improvement and growth as an AD.

Williams may have been a wonderful leader in the financial world, but he certainly hasn't shown he's a capable AD. Yet.

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As others have pointed out, Wilcox expressed interest early and was willing to wait (or at least wasn't shopping to other folks). that allowed Williams, in an era when the campus has a 100 million dollar deficit, to see if Sonny was going to get "taken off his hands" and no buy out required. that didn't happen. Sonny got canned. Wilcox, in turn, likely because he had started to prep runways, has hired what on paper and in reports seems like a great staff.

My issue is that we are going cheap on this hire and I fail to see why. Adding even a delta of another million or 2 to the salary budget would seem very doable on the back end - especially given that we are hearing a return to Thursday/Sat games as the norm and so less difficulty in getting butts into seats.

Williams' fate will be determined by the FBall and BBall hires.

Our expectations are so low at this point that he will continue to be the AD[U][/U] if either :
- Cal Football goes to regular bowl games in 2018-2020
- Cal wins one game in the NCAA tournament between 2018 and 2020

Bump.

Bump again. This is simply has to go down as one of the weirdest hires by any P5 program in the country. Folks if Martin thought jones was great do we not think he would be in Mizzu right now? This is stupid with a capital S.

socaltownie;842824868 said:

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Folks if Martin thought jones was great do we not think he would be in Mizzu right now? This is stupid with a capital S.

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If Coach Martin were a great judge of what is great would we have been one and done in the NIT?

Also no confirmation of the Jones hire in half an hour.

socaltownie;842824868 said:

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Bump again. This is simply has to go down as one of the weirdest hires by any P5 program in the country. Folks if Martin thought jones was great do we not think he would be in Mizzu right now? This is stupid with a capital S.

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Maybe the stupid thing is assuming that Jones, a California native, wanted to go with Martin to Missouri? Maybe Martin invited him, but Jones declined. Or maybe Martin wanted an assistant with midwest recruiting ties (or Porter, with two all american high school hoops players )? Or maybe Jones didn't want to work with Cuonzo?

I'm not saying Jones is a slam dunk hire, but I draw no conclusions regarding him not going with Martin. If Jones holds the recruiting class together, that is a big short term positive.

We need to fire Mike Williams RIGHT NOW. San Jose State University and San Francisco State University will have better basketball teams than Cal next year. Williams is WAY out over his skis. He is not fit for this job.

stu;842824888 said:

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If Coach Martin were a great judge of what is great would we have been one and done in the NIT?

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+1

If Wyking thinks that free throws are important, offense is important, and calling a timeout when the other team is going on a huge run, then he's already a vast improvement over CM. Plus, we got him for a song. Let's see what happens.