Fox Addresses Media as Bears Prepare to Open Practice

Thursday morning, Cal basketball head coach Mark Fox briefed the media on the team’s offseason progress, fielding questions about the challenges they faced, where the team is at with strength and conditioning, thoughts on new additions and more.

“We're excited about having the opportunity play our game and to have a season in the midst of great disruption,” said Fox. “The fact that we are here today is I think a real positive sign and I know the season will be vastly different this year than any one we've seen before. And the last seven months have been vastly different than any of us imagined but we're thankful to be here today.

“We have not had our entire team together for seven months because of cohort sizes and different things that have come up. Saturday will be the first time in seven months that we've had the entire team together. Obviously, we’ve had severe limitations on what we've been able to do on the court or outside. And contact has been very limited. And so we're going to progress slowly because we know that that it's going to be a process to get back and we have to do it safely.”

Considering all the time off and limitations on the staff and players as far as conditioning and practicing, where does Fox think they are at this point?

“I do think we have a decent level of conditioning,” noted Fox. “I don't think we're anywhere near game shape. I'm not sure we're quite in practice shape, but I do think we're in a in a position physically where hopefully we can begin to progress and handle the cardiovascular challenge of playing our game and the physicality that's also going to be reintroduced to their bodies.

“Obviously we we have to be massed and we have a sanitation process that could be considered cumbersome, but it's the right thing to do. So I think we feel like we can pretty much play the game as it's supposed to be played. We just haven't done that for so long that you just can't go from zero to 100. We're gonna have to slowly reintroduce contact and the ability to respond to contact, to take in the air and still land safely. I mean, there's a lot of things that they haven't done for several months. And so we need to be smart about how we reintroduce the game to them.”

Aside from the transfer of backup forward Jacobi Gordon in May, the Bears were able to hang on to the rest of their roster in an offseason of uncertainty and turmoil.

“We have everybody here,” said Fox “No one has opted out.

“Not everyone came back at the same time. One of the significant challenges that we had was the the restrictions on international travel. We have a freshmen from Toronto, we have a sophomore from Toronto and they were both under different rules to return. So navigating that was just another part of the matrix that we had to figure out, but everyone's back. I think the last one that returned was in September. So everyone's been here for a few weeks. Everyone's been cleared through the health and safety protocols, and everyone's been really back training for nearly a month. And so we're thankful to have everyone finally back together.

Fox noted that key transfer guard Jared Hyder’s eligibility for this season has yet to be determined -a factor that could have a major impact on the Bears’ fortunes this season.

“I wish I knew as we start practice,” said Fox. “I wish I knew because certainly his eligibility impacts how we would plan to play. He's awaiting word from the NCAA. I have no idea when we'll get that information. So like everything in the past several months we'll have Plan A and Plan B and try and execute in both at the same time.

Fox noted that the extraordinary time away from the courts and their usual level of strength and conditioning workouts has taken a toll on his unit.

“I think it's a little more challenging to be honest with you,” said Fox. “There was some erosion, and some deterioration physically in some of these guys' bodies and some erosion their skills, because they just weren't able to play our game, which you need to play all the time to keep it polished.

“So when they came back, we were anticipating that they would be behind where we thought they would be. I think physically they were further behind than what we had anticipated. So really it's been about recovery and getting back in a position where we could really train.”

Fox noted that the inability to handle the program’s recruiting efforts with the detailed level and scouting and time spent with recruits introduced some levels of risk and complications they had to carefully navigate.

“I think the pandemic had a massive effect on recruiting because we lost the ability in the spring to go out and visit underclassmen when we lost the entire July evaluation period and the chance to see kids live,” said Fox. “We lost a September contact period and the ability to go into a kid's home and sit down with them face to face. We've tried to do virtually all of this off of film, which is dangerous.

“We signed a couple of kids in the spring -Makale Foreman and Ryan Betley- who we'd never seen play, never seen in person. So I think that the impacts on recruiting have been significant. What I think we've tried to avoid is making a four year mistake and being very selective in who we recruit, because it's been a little bit of a challenge and sometimes when you're ahead and you're established, and you're not in a rebuilding situation, you can be a little bit ahead in your recruiting. Obviously, as we continue to rebuild, we're not quite there yet.”

Fox’s impressions so far at this early juncture regarding Cal’s perimeter game have been encouraging, as improving their ability to score from deep and present more scoring options was one of their key desires in the quest to continue to rebuild the program.

“It's a lot more enjoyable to watch our shooting drills because these kids can make three point shots and we wanted to improve our three point shooting through our recruiting last spring. We wanted to improve our three point shooting through thousands of makes in the spring and the summer. And we were not able obviously to get those reps in the gym. But we do have some guys who've come in with experience and the ability to shoot the ball.

“Makale’s really, I think transitioned well. He has the ability to shoot and he's got a lot of experience and he's a good ball screen player. I think he's strong physically. So I've been really encouraged by his start.

“Ryan Bentley is a terrific shooter with a degree from the Wharton School of Business. He's a smart guy. Not all smart people are smart players, but he's both, and his ability to shoot and his experience has been really welcomed and he's fit in rather seamlessly, as well.

“Jared Hyder, who we actually played against, I think his natural IQ for the game really was apparent in our very early walkthroughs. I think he’s got the versatility to play a couple of different placesSo I've been really pleased with Jared also. So those three guys have been welcome additions and certainly their ability to put the ball in the basket is hopefully something that we can take advantage of. 

As for the progress of the sophomores returning for their second year in the program, Fox was measured in his analysis.

“I think we had to expect them all to be better players,” said Fox. “They lost the most important off season of their caree. The jump that a player makes between his freshman and sophomore year is arguably the most important off-season that a kid can have, and that was taken away from them. So I think we have to be somewhat patient and understanding that they missed out on 8 or 10,000 makes over the summer that they normally would have had.

“They obviously have the year of experience under their belt. I think that each one of them has made progress some in different ways. I think Lars (Thiemann) and Dimitrios (Klonaras), physically were probably because they were in Europe and able to play more than, than the kids who stayed here. I think they physically came back and in pretty good shape.

“Kuany has had a really good off season and, and I think he's grown an inch. At least he looks like it. Joel's really had a very good last six weeks since he's gotten back. And so I hope that they'll all be better. DJ’s continuing to round into shape but the conditioning is needed for all of them. And the drill work on their fundamentals in the off-season is something that they didn't have. So I expect them to be better. We'll have to be patient as they make that progress, because I think all of them, we're going to probably face some frustration, cause it's just not gonna be as easy as if they'd have had the normal off-season.

The Bears added a pair of freshmen in the 2020 recruiting class in Bishop O’Dowd wing Monty Bowser and guard Jalen Celestine.

“We had small cohorts because of the health restrictions,” said Fox. So Monty Bowser has yet to be in a gym with Matt Bradley and they need to develop a chemistry to play together. I will say that the advantage Jalen and Monty have this year that nobody had a year ago is that they now have guys with experience in how we operate, how we want to live, how we expect to function off the court, how hard we expect to work.

“They have great examples that they can turn to every day, because we have some returning players this year, where last year everyone was new. So that's been an advantage for them but it's such a different year. And Jalen was one of the last guys to get here so he's still getting up to speed and it's going to take him some time. Monty was one of the first kids to be on campus so he's probably at this point a little ahead of a lot of guys because he's been able to be here longer. But it’s important that the older players and the older guys continue to provide good leadership. Hopefully the transition to them acclimating to Division 1 basketball will be a little bit smoother.”

There were times when it looked like a 2021 season was in serious jeopardy but the university did everything they could to be ready should they be able to play.

“Cal has done a tremendous job with the army of people that it takes to execute this thing safely,” said Fox. “Ryan Cobb and everybody have really done a tremendous job.  Jim Knowlton has been a can-do guy this entire time, which is what a good leader does. I think he had probably nine or 10 plans in place and it was figuring out which one we have to use and we did the same thing with our team. We have several plans in place and we just decided whatever we had, which one we had to execute, we would, but the protocol has screening online before you even enter campus.

“You have to fill out a questionnaire just to be allowed to start the protocol on campus. Once you get to campus, a temperature check. Then the daily testing is much like a doctor's office. It's a sterile. It's a swab deep into your nose and it's not comfortable. You think you would get used to it, but I'm not sure you ever get used to it. Then we wait a couple hours and we get the results and keep our fingers crossed that they all come up negative.

In a season of uncertaintly, particularly after the Pac-12 tournament was cut short after just one game -Cal’s upset victory over Stanford that likely would’ve bounced them from NCAA tournament consideration- what level of confidence does Fox and the league have about pulling off a tournament in 2021?

“I think they're confident that they'll have a tournament,” said Fox. “I think that they would really like to have a tournament. I think that the makeup opportunities that we would like to build into the schedule would occur before that. So the hope and the strong confidence is that there will be a Pac-12 tournament. Obviously we have some advantages agreement with Quadrile. That's been tremendous. It allows us, um, you know, um, I think the one curve ball is that it's not going to be on a campus. And so we'd have to, we have to make some arrangements for, uh, for the testing to occur, um, you know, obviously in Vegas, but I think everyone's pretty confident that we should have a tournament.”

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