Jim Knowlton Announces Retirement

Rank these items and people, 1-7, as reasons Cal basketball has failed to have a winning season since 2016-17 and might not see one this decade. I know some of these only entered the scene in the last two years, which is why I'm asking for both the past and the projected future.
Jim Knowlton; Wyking Jones; weak donor base; Mark Fox; NIL system of paying players; the decision to move to the ACC vs some other conference; Markeisha Everett and the Athletics marketing team (that one's for Shocky1); Mark Madsen.
I have my own ranking but I'll hold off because I'm curious to see what people put at the top of the list.

calumnus said:

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The damage he has done is immense and cannot be undone. Hopefully we will survive his legacy. I am just glad I soon won't ever have to look at his face again, hear his voice or read anything he writes (or AI writes for him).

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It can be undone It will be undone. This is the year we turn everything around, starting with football.

barsad said:

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Rank these items and people, 1-7, as reasons Cal basketball has failed to have a winning season since 2016-17 and might not see one this decade. I know some of these only entered the scene in the last two years, which is why I'm asking for both the past and the projected future.
Jim Knowlton; Wyking Jones; weak donor base; Mark Fox; NIL system of paying players; the decision to move to the ACC vs some other conference; Markeisha Everett and the Athletics marketing team (that one's for Shocky1); Mark Madsen.
I have my own ranking but I'll hold off because I'm curious to see what people put at the top of the list.

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Barsad, this is a tough task. You're asking for us to model Cal's situation as a hierarchy of problems when it's really an interlocking network. There are all sorts of interdependencies and one issue, which in isolation is relatively small, can suddenly have a huge amplifying effect on another issue. But here's my crack at it:

#1: Jim Knowlton by far the biggest problem

After that, prioritizing all the other issues doesn't matter because a good Athletic Director would have dealt with them, but before addressing them, a good AD would have shown Carol Christ how a (her) vision for successful athletics required robust football and basketball programs in order to finance all the rest. Now to the other items:

• Wyking Jones - a good AD would have recognized his incompetence and fired him after a single season
• Mark Fox - never would have been hired. Other options (Kyle Smith, Todd Golden, blah blah) too numerous to mention.
• Weak donor base - AD's quick WJ firing and hiring of competent replacement, as well as better engagement with donors, could have turned this around.
• NIL - a tough nut, but a good AD wouldn't (correction: would)have donor base to draw upon.
• ACC move - a good AD would have been more proactive when all the realignment stuff hit the fan and prodded/guided Carol on key decisions. Cal's football and basketball programs could have made a much better case for getting into the B1G and/or coordinating with Stanford for more favorable ACC terms

Maybe a "good" Athletic Director wouldn't have been enough, maybe it required a "great" AD and Cal hasn't had one of those in my 70 years on the planet. But hiring a guy who'd spent his entire career as a cog in the machine, waiting for orders from his superiors that he could push down to his subordinates was the wrong way to go.

barsad said:

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Rank these items and people, 1-7, as reasons Cal basketball has failed to have a winning season since 2016-17 and might not see one this decade. I know some of these only entered the scene in the last two years, which is why I'm asking for both the past and the projected future.
Jim Knowlton; Wyking Jones; weak donor base; Mark Fox; NIL system of paying players; the decision to move to the ACC vs some other conference; Markeisha Everett and the Athletics marketing team (that one's for Shocky1); Mark Madsen.
I have my own ranking but I'll hold off because I'm curious to see what people put at the top of the list.

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You are missing the key issue.

Replacing Martin with Jones is the turning point. Not because Jones was bad, though he was. Because there is no way any sane person/organization makes that hire with an expectation of success. There is only one sane reason to make that hire. You have looked at the finances of the situation and you realize that paying a real coach and hoping for success is a bad return on investment for basketball. I pointed this out several times in the years that followed. Looking at the public financial statements, given that most of the money basketball was making was coming from conference/tv payouts and looking at the difference in ticket revenue and donations in successful years vs. horrid years, the financially prudent thing to do on paper was to hire a cheap coach and become the Washington Generals. Paying the salary you needed to pay for a coach that could succeed and giving them the resources needed to succeed was simply not going to pay for itself in increased ticket sales and donations. I made the point at the time Jones was hired that it meant one of two things. 1. the above; or 2. This Wyking Jones guy was just clearly so brilliant you couldn't let him get out the door. It became very clear very quickly that #2 was not it.

(as an aside, football was never in this situation. Winning at least arguably is a good investment in that ticket sales and donations can pay the cost of resources required to achieve success. The question is whether it is worth the risk that you spend the money and still don't win)

IMO that is the decision that was made by either Michael Williams, Chancellor Christ, or both and that is the fundamental cause of the issue. Had we hired a reasonable coach at that point in time and dedicated reasonable resources to basketball, we should have at least been able to keep going in the middle of the pack. The Jones hire was a giant message that we were essentially tanking the program. Well, I shouldn't say that. I don't think they cared if the program was good or bad. If they happened to luck into a good program while paying no money, they were fine with that. But they weren't going to pay any money.

And you also have to look at Chancellor Dirks' role in this. He fired Sandy Barbour, who wasn't my favorite but she was a reasonable quality, professional athletic director. That would have been fine if he hired a different reasonable quality professional athletic director. But he went cheap and lazy and hired a completely unqualified athletic director in Williams who was essentially just an alum. Hard to argue that wasn't telegraphing Cal's views of the importance of sports and the cheaping out on the basketball decision with hiring Jones.

The coup de grace is that they figured out that they got a lot of blow back for that decision and then decided to try again. But at that point:

1. Most of the damage was already done and now you had to dig yourself out of the hole you created
2. You hired a theoretically professional athletic director and paid the cost of doing so, but you hired a really bad one.
3. You increased the salary you were willing to pay the basketball coach and your really bad athletic director went out and overpaid for a really bad coach because he looked professional on paper.

Frankly, it seems like trashing the program and then regretting was the worst of all worlds. You could have not trashed the program. You could have trashed the program and doubled down on it and at least not chucked money down the toilet. But you chose to trash it, then chuck money down the toilet.

So I think you miss the key issues with who you ask us to rank. Jones is a pawn. He did what he was supposed to do. Fill the chair as cheaply as possible. Yes, it would have changed things if he was good, but he was never meant to be. Markeisha is a rounding error. For marketing to really matter, you have to have something worth marketing. NIL is the system. You either participate in the system or you don't. Fox was terrible, but anyone could see that coming. I'm not thrilled with Madsen nor am I optimistic he can dig this program out, but I think he is a competent coach who could succeed somewhere.

So I will rank who I want to rank:

1. Dirks - chopped the program off at the knees financially and started the mess
1. (tie) Christ - continued the chopping off at the knees financially, then changed her mind, then was in totally over her head in the world of revenue sports, and worse, didn't realize that and bring in somebody who could help, made a terrible AD hire and was buffaloed into extending that hire at too high a cost for far too long a term.
3. Michael Williams who may have just been a pawn in this, but under his watch they tanked the program by going beyond cheap
4. Knowlton very close behind only because at least they signalled that okay, we will pay SOMETHING for the program and somehow I feel that trying comes in ahead of not trying even if your trying is wholly incompetent.

5. Really not a blame thing, but a cause thing that allows all this to happen. As a community we just don't care as much about this as our peers do and that colors everything. We need to come to terms with that. I don't blame anyone for that. You like what you like. You prioritize what you prioritize. A lot of our peers do not prioritize their academic programs as much as we do, and that is crazy to me. But you can't win in basketball if it is a cute hobby to you and to others it is everything.

bearsandgiants said:

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calumnus said:

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The damage he has done is immense and cannot be undone. Hopefully we will survive his legacy. I am just glad I soon won't ever have to look at his face again, hear his voice or read anything he writes (or AI writes for him).

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It can be undone It will be undone. This is the year we turn everything around, starting with football.

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The years of abuse of the women swimmers cannot be undone, the lost decade of Wilcox and the over $100 million we will have spent on him and his friends cannot be recovered, getting left behind when the PAC-12 broke up cannot be undone, not hiring Dennis Gates or Kyle Smith when we had the chance cannot be undone…. Even if we eventually get into the B1G, we will have a deficit of roughly $50 million a year vs UCLA for that time period that we will never get back even if we eventually get into the B1G too. The bleeding may eventually stop, but the damage cannot be undone. If we were to assess "damages" it would be $hundreds of millions even if we eventually get into the B1G, and if we don't….

You see football turning around this year? What is the scenario you are hoping for? Wilcox wins 8 and we extend him, then he wins 10 next year? Wilcox wins 8 and we fire him? Is that turning it around? What is the scenario where football turns around this year? Does "turning it around this year" have to mean Wilcox turns into a great, championship caliber football coach?

BearlyCareAnymore said:

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barsad said:

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Rank these items and people, 1-7, as reasons Cal basketball has failed to have a winning season since 2016-17 and might not see one this decade. I know some of these only entered the scene in the last two years, which is why I'm asking for both the past and the projected future.
Jim Knowlton; Wyking Jones; weak donor base; Mark Fox; NIL system of paying players; the decision to move to the ACC vs some other conference; Markeisha Everett and the Athletics marketing team (that one's for Shocky1); Mark Madsen.
I have my own ranking but I'll hold off because I'm curious to see what people put at the top of the list.

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Looking at the public financial statements, given that most of the money basketball was making was coming from conference/tv payouts and looking at the difference in ticket revenue and donations in successful years vs. horrid years, the financially prudent thing to do on paper was to hire a cheap coach and become the Washington Generals. Paying the salary you needed to pay for a coach that could succeed and giving them the resources needed to succeed was simply not going to pay for itself in increased ticket sales and donations. I made the point at the time Jones was hired that it meant one of two things. 1. the above; or 2. This Wyking Jones guy was just clearly so brilliant you couldn't let him get out the door. It became very clear very quickly that #2 was not it.

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I agree with everything you said except this. There are more rising mid major coaches or young assistants of top programs than there are power conference job openings. We could've hired one of them for the same price and had at least a sliver of a chance at being competitive. At the very least, they certainly could do no worse. The Wyking hire was DOA. Waking was a known *******, not respected by the team, and his coaching experience was basically being Pitino's bag man.

concernedparent said:

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BearlyCareAnymore said:

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barsad said:

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Rank these items and people, 1-7, as reasons Cal basketball has failed to have a winning season since 2016-17 and might not see one this decade. I know some of these only entered the scene in the last two years, which is why I'm asking for both the past and the projected future.
Jim Knowlton; Wyking Jones; weak donor base; Mark Fox; NIL system of paying players; the decision to move to the ACC vs some other conference; Markeisha Everett and the Athletics marketing team (that one's for Shocky1); Mark Madsen.
I have my own ranking but I'll hold off because I'm curious to see what people put at the top of the list.

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Looking at the public financial statements, given that most of the money basketball was making was coming from conference/tv payouts and looking at the difference in ticket revenue and donations in successful years vs. horrid years, the financially prudent thing to do on paper was to hire a cheap coach and become the Washington Generals. Paying the salary you needed to pay for a coach that could succeed and giving them the resources needed to succeed was simply not going to pay for itself in increased ticket sales and donations. I made the point at the time Jones was hired that it meant one of two things. 1. the above; or 2. This Wyking Jones guy was just clearly so brilliant you couldn't let him get out the door. It became very clear very quickly that #2 was not it.

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I agree with everything you said except this. There are more rising mid major coaches or young assistants of top programs than there are power conference job openings. We could've hired one of them for the same price and had at least a sliver of a chance at being competitive. At the very least, they certainly could do no worse. The Wyking hire was DOA. Waking was a known *******, not respected by the team, and his coaching experience was basically being Pitino's bag man.

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Not in disagreement. Not saying they couldn't have. Saying they didn't care to. I said it was cheap AND lazy. He was there already. He was dirt cheap. If anything, hiring a coach who was cheap with a chance to become successful was counterproductive because if he became successful you'd have to give him a raise.