I will credit Knowlton for not cutting any of Cal's 30 sports - the largest athletics program in the country for a public school (and behind only that of Stanford who recently reversed their decision to cut 11 sports). For comparison, UCLA only has only 24 sports (and none of the two big roster, non-NCAA governed male sports in Rugby and Men's Rowing that also require an equal number of female spots due to Title IX); since this week is the NCAA Men's Swimming and Diving Championship, I will credit a big reason for Cal becoming a national powerhouse to UCLA cutting their men's swim program in 1994. Various Cal non-revenue programs have had varying degrees of successes in trying to fundraise enough money to be financially self-sustaining.
The only way to fiscally save all the sports is to make the money on football. (If the Internet is to be believed), the top basketball programs (Louisville, Duke, Kentucky) *only* makes $20 M in basketball revenue. For comparison, Cal Football already is making around $80+ M in revenue and that number could easily go up to $100+ M with a major bowl appearance.
Sure, you would like to optimize every revenue source, but you also would need to spend money to make money. Clearly, no major Cal donor is forcing Mark Fox out yet, or more importantly, pledging the funds for Cal to competitively hire an exciting new coach.
I'm content to give Fox another year, but my fear is more that he might get an extension for only a marginal improvement of getting Cal to the NIT.
I think this is essentially right. In terms of Athletic Department funding, Cal has (correctly, probably) decided that it is a Football School, in that Football success will drive revenue to make up for the cost drag of sponsoring so many other NCAA teams.
MBB, while it might bring in revenue, is more trying not to _lose_ money than it is to make money. You want success, sure, but more for secondary effects -- prestige, fan/alumni engagement, etc. that eventually loop back into driving revenue long-term. Year-to-year, while making money would be nice, the primary directive is to not get too far into the red.
That's sort of the play for many of the other sports as well, such as rugby and water polo, which are trying to parlay on-field success into funding endowments that let those sports thrive while being basically self-sufficient from a revenue perspective.
IIRC, Ohio State sponsors the most NCAA sports for a public university, not Cal. IIRC, Ohio State sponsors 35 sports, while Cal sponsors 30 sports. Sponsoring 30 sports must be a financial drag on Cal's Athletic Department. Attempting to cut any of those 30 sports, as the Athletics Task Force attempted to do in 2010, would be a PR disaster. That was a shitshow we do not want to repeat and I'm sure that Knowlton is aware of. If Knowlton isn't aware of that debacle, he should be.
Sponsoring 30 sports is an outgrowth of Cal's strategy to meet Title IX requirements by adhering to Prong 3 (Accommodating Interests). Once an institution decides to adhere to Prong 1 (Proportionality), it cannot go back to either Prong 2 or Prong 3. In fact, as I understand it, if an institution chooses to abandon either Prong 2 or Prong 3, it MUST meet Title IX requirement through Prong 1 and stay there.
Many, if not most, FBS programs have elected to adhere to Prong 1. Consequently, most institutions sponsor somewhere between 18 and 21 sports programs, depending on the proportions of males and females enrolled. The FBS football bluebloods sponsor more athletic programs than just about any other FBS institutions. Cal is clearly an outlier: Cal is not an FBS blueblood and it sponsors *30* NCAA sports. Club sports don’t count; they don't have any roster spots that are "counters" which figure in Title IX enforcement or compliance.
To be an FBS program, an institution must sponsor at least 15 sports programs including football, men's basketball, women's basketball, and women's volleyball. The Pac-12 requires its institutions to sponsor two other sports (I can't recall which ones), but I digress.
There is no easy path forward for an institution like Cal. As an outgrowth of the 2010 debacle, Cal has chosen to pursue the endowment of sponsored sports to enhance revenue through endowment income. Hence, the importance of Bear Backers, football revenue, and begging alums for directed giving.
Men’s basketball is a revenue sport because it has the greatest potential to generate revenue after football, even if the revenue generated is small. BTW, something like 9 in 10 FBS programs run an annual deficit. It’s an established pattern brought on by a multitude of factors that can be summed up as follows – sports and celebrity mania.
Yeah, Ohio State apparently got 37 sports (1 more than Stanford). The dream has always been for Cal to be the flagship college program of the state like the case for Ohio State, Texas, Michigan, etc.
History has a big part in why the Cal Athletics department is what it is. Many of Cal's programs predated Football, the NCAA, and long before all the Title IX requirements. Men's Rowing and Rugby intentionally chose at some point in the past to not be governed by the NCAA...which is probably detrimental to its prevalence in college since they are only club sports at most places.
Anyhow, my point was just that survival of all the programs through COVID is not a given. Knowlton choosing to play it too safe with the MBB coaching choice may be saving the bottomline and the non-revenue programs for now.
Something worth noting is that Martin Year 3 revenue includes the Mizzou payment on Martin's Buy out, and Fox's year 1-2 data includes Cal paying the Jones' contract where the buy out is spread over the lifetime of the initially agreed upon Jones contract.
Well, I hear Sandy Barbour is available. Seriously, though, very well written piece. I might add that it is critical at this time that men's basketball should not be in a position to be losing money either. The athletic dept should always have searched out an up-and-comer, not a retread like Fox. Fox has actually turned out to be a little better than what I thought, though.
Agreed...Fox has basically done exactly how I expected, given his 9 year body of work at UGA...didn’t envision the pandemic of course, but everything else, including the player graduation data, etc., is right on brand.
That said, a couple of impact transfers, though not expected, would probably help a lot...
If JK needs to feel the pulse of the fans to ascertain whether or not extending Fox is a good idea, well then JK isn't the right person for the job. 99% of the people w/ a pulse on this planet know Fox needs to be fired. They don't need to look around for a second opinion. JK is an idiot and Fox is a petulant child / bully.
I am not a Fox fan, but I have yet to see him act out of line. He represents himself, the team, and the school well. When has he displayed Hurley-esque qualities of being childish or bullying?
Multiple times. He is the only coach that I have observed in the PAC12 that frequently stands on the court during play. In fact, I've never seen a coach ~ in any conference ~ do that! Caught on TV, he flailed his arms all about and smacked one of his assistances (the short one with a bald head) flush in the face, he didn't even look around to see if the coach was OK much less apologize. Fox has had multiple technicals called on him & he was kicked out of a game. In general, BB coaches are way too dramatic for my liking ~ but it appears to be an accepted norm.
I do not feel he represents Cal well at all. He isn't in the same league as Neu, Smith, or Wilcox not to mention our water polo / swim coaches and the new softball coach. And he isn't on the same planet as Jack Clark. I was fortunate enough to play for Jack and Fox ain't Jack Clark.
If he walked into my living room to recruit my kid, I would know in a matter of seconds it was a hard "no".
"He is the only coach that I have observed in the PAC12 that frequently stands on the court during play."
ALL Coaches do this, to varying degrees. To me, Fox is middle of the pack on this.
Fox was kicked out of the Zona game. Some coaches do this to see if it motivates their players to kick into another gear, especially in a losing cause to see how the team responds. I'm not saying Fox had ulterior motives, but again Fox is no better or worse than other coaches who receive technicals.
I look at Hurley, Haase, even Altman, and I hate their sideline demeanor. To me, Fox is just fine on the sidelines and in postgame pressers.
And NO ONE can measure up to Jack Clark. That's unfair to everyone.
The biggest revenue generators look to be media rights and ticket sales. The biggest cost is coaching salary. The budget largely depends on the conference while ticket sales are the variable that would generate profit. And you've shown that even a best case ticket sales scenario isn't particularly lucrative.
This suggests to me that the conference's media deal is an underlying anchor dragging conference teams down and we'll just free ride until that gets renegotiated or we find revenue elsewhere. Successful teams seem to just run at a deficit or generate lots of outside cash from donors and such. It's tough to be simultaneously good at both football and basketball on a fixed budget. Guess we're a football school right now.
We're pretty good at finding good coaches for non-revenue sports so I don't think it's a competence issue. It's a money issue and the athletic department doesn't want to admit that we can't afford good coaching in sports where good coaching costs a lot, especially when competing on two fronts. (I don't think non-revenue sports are a drain or that cutting them would even make us significantly more competitive unless their costs skyrocket.)
I can't find UCLA's budget as an obvious comparison (they're often good at both sports and many others) but here's an article where they're jealous of Cal's funding.
UCLA is banking hard on on the field success, but their football team has underachieved, the Rose Bowl is almost always 40% empty (and they have to hand over a lot of those profits to the Rose Bowl as well), and basketball cannot make up the revenue deficit that an average football team produces.
I don't like at all what Knowlton has done to basketball, but prioritizing football is the financially prudent decision.
With basketball, Knowlton can either keep gambling on untested coaches (more excitement, but risky) or just use a low-drama placeholder (Fox). If we were routinely finishing in the middle of the Pac then, fine, I understand the low drama approach. But we're in the dregs. What's another Wyking-quality hire going to do now, make us worse? Basketball can turn around quickly due to small team size so why not keep trying?
Right. It's really hard to be "Wyking bad". If there wasn't a thing call "Wyking bad", we'd be talking about something called "Fox bad". Honestly, I assumed whoever replaced Wyking was in the catbird seat. The bar was set so low and there were pieces if you could retain them. Yet, somehow we've only found a way to maintain post-Wyking. Also, money wasn't why we didn't hire Gates. Having an eye for talent was and assessing risk was. Turns out, hiring a mediocre coach and showing you don't really care much about about winning doesn't activate a base nor does it even result in mediocre basketball: It may actually deliver something worse than that.
Legans also doing decently in his first year in Portland.
Agree, Fox's problem isn't just that he's mediocre. He's also bland. There's zero excitement around the team.
With the new transfer rules, I don't think firing coaches sends the same "will my coach even be there for 4 years?" signals to recruits since they can also bail anytime. And coaches can retool quickly through the portal in addition to recruits. A poor recruiter like Fox really is the wrong guy for the moment.
Is Legans a strong candidate w/o the Cal association though? He bailed on us in a fairly spectacular fashion, so I don't think the Cal stuff really should factor at all. It's a bit like targeting Hasse.
Maybe not, but turning around a team in a deep WCC in our backyard isn't anything to sneeze at. Despite his unhappiness at the time, he still identifies as a Golden Bear and says he has fond memories. I think time and experience has given him perspective and I doubt Cal fans will hold his abrupt departure against him if he can win us games. He was my era and I would be ok with reconciliation.
Haase was only with us for a year. During that year his dad died suddenly, Campanelli got fired for being abusive, and he got benched. Can't say I blame him for wanting a change or even hating us forever.
Legans would be more like targeting Herm Edwards (not the best example given his time in ASU but you know what I'm saying).
Exactly. He’s not really a Cal guy after his departure and plenty of Old Blues won’t sign off on him anyhow.
Plus, Legans isn’t exactly lighting the world on fire at Portland…he’s middle of the road, with predominantly the same players he had at Eastern Washington, minus the Groves bros. A few transfers followed him to UP.
FYI - That is slightly out of date. HI now plays on campus because the Aloha Bowl facility is not safe. I live in HI. Believe me that nothing on the mainland matches the poor administration of everything in HI. We would be even more corrupt if we weren't so incompetent. Also, FL plays home games on campus but one game every year is neutral site in Jacksonville (new NFL facility where old Gator Bowl used to be). I used to live in JAX. I don't think there is any regular trip to see a game that is a worse drive than that 75 miles from Gainesville once a year (cue Big Trouble - "I'm a Gator fan and I'm callin'.)
Yes, the big albatross is the Pac-12 media deal. If we were hitting even 80% of what the B1G was earning from their media deal, we'd have more than enough money to pay for buyouts and decent coaches. The 12 year contract really screwed us and will screw us for another 4-5 years.
It may be that his seat is warming up. He has been subject to many, many entreaties from fans including readers on this site. He seems to answer his emails giving carefully worded responses. Like with Wilcox, I like him and hope he leads us to success - on the court and the football field and in the financial metrics. But admittedly with all the baggage that comes with the Cal bureaucracy and active efforts to sideline sports by some members of the Cal campus community and even the city of Berkeley - it is a tough, if not thankless job.
He's very safe. Crist really doesn't care about sports, so long as there is no bad drama and they don't backfire on us financially. That's the mandate and Knwlton is well suited for that. And the health of the non-revenue sports is quite good. He'll face more criticism from fans the longer Fox's tenure drags, but I'm not sure that it will count for a lot. Eventually Fox's contract will expire and they'll hire another half-measure, spin it like they hired Coach K, and the cycle will continue for another five years.
Please do not give him credit for that. Williams hired Neu, "We are extremely excited to welcome Mike Neu back to Berkeley as the head coach of our baseball program,” then-Director of Athletics Mike Williams said. “During his first tenure here, Mike displayed a keen understanding of what it takes to recruit and develop student-athletes for success both on the field and in the Berkeley community as a whole. That experience, combined with the time he has spent as head coach at Pacific, convinced us that he is the perfect fit to lead Cal baseball.”
Great piece. Thanks for the research. It confirms what I have been thinking. I said at the time we hired Wyking and again when we hired Fox, that the athletic department was essentially defaulting on the program. This may make some short-term financial sense, but I really wonder at what cost over the longer term. We now have a generation that has missed out on Cal hoops and largely sees the program as an un-cared-for bottom feeder not worthy of paying an even casual interest. I can only speak for myself, but going to Cal games with my family at an early age, played no small part for my choosing to attend the university, why I worked at university and why I have donated to the university for most of my adult life. It seems short sighted to not to improve performance at least enough not to alienate casual fans, alumni and students. Unlike football, the amount of money it takes to raise the basketball program a notch or two is not going to sink the rest of the ship. There's no doubt that football is the straw that stirs the financial drink, but our chances of having top-level success--much less sustained success--is really unlikely. The same can not be said for basketball, where we actually could have a premium program if we invested and were smart about it.
Cogent. In business, neglect is euphemistically sometimes called "deferred maintenance". (Also Mordo - "The bill comes due.") Knowlton has said he is working on a dedicated practice facility. I have heard many times that is a big deal to recruits. Not only is it a measure of interest in basketball at the school, but it relates to their daily enjoyment of practice (which can sometimes feel like a grind...) I don't know what other infrastructure (physical and otherwise) issues are being addressed. If Knowlton can quietly (read "I don't think he communicates the way I would like") improve the basketball environment at CAL in the next couple of years then it could pay dividends for Fox's replacement. Since the current state of neglect reflects what I feel is the administration's real disinterest in MBB (and similarly in women's though that has a different set of issues overall) I am not eagerly anticipating a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (I don't think I have to pay copyright on just including part of a title...).
I'm not arguing with you even though I'm about to write this, but a lot was made (fairly) about the quality of Cal's football facilities before the Memorial project. But it was at the moment that project was finished that the program nosedived. Of course much contributed to that downturn and the team still needs a practice facility, but it was mostly coaching and not so much the extra stuff. That's all to say I don't know the full value of a new practice facility and how that might contribute to our success. But it's also a nifty excuse to have in your pocket too if you might want to distract with something that is not likely to be resolved in the short term.
Actually, I agree with all that. If anyone wants to distract then it can be a scapegoat. I think there are plenty of other things going on. IF some other non-coaching issues exist (probably a given everywhere) and IF some of them can be addressed (I'm not holding my breath but I'm a CAL fan so I have to look for the silver lining or die) then the improvements could be a boon to "Fox's replacement". I don't advocate sitting on one's hands instead of fixing a particular problem (like a bad coach, say) , and I don't know that anything will actually be improved, but MAYBE a better situation could help recruit a better coach which could lead to synergistic cycles of improvement. For the record, I am here neither to praise Fox nor bury him. He is an honorable man (I think...). I want better and am just saying that maybe we can raise our sites even higher at the end of this contract (I wish sooner)... or maybe not... being a CAL fan I also expect disappointment (which should not be disappointing if it was expected, right?).
Hmmm.... not sure I understand this post. We are talking basketball here...? Besides the mental impact on recruits, there is the scheduling/availability issue. Having dedicated facilities makes it much easier to schedule/drop in without having to worry about other teams or support staff. For guys who want to spend hours just working on their shot/dribble/whatever it makes a difference. I assume the weight room, napping cubes, food, etc. won't be duplicated, but I don't claim to actually know what is being discussed/planned...
I probably need to slow down before writing a post. - Man, I've been there! I vaguely recall the football team took over another facility (women's soccer?) for practice anyway in addition to the stadium ... which also shows a lack of room for all the sports (see below)... and cue something related to field hockey and Title IX. I used to live in Unit 2 dorms, and I remember Underhill as being this solid concrete death trap with a nasty slant... and now there's competitive sports on it...? I played intramural B level soccer there and thought it was cool that something was available but feared for my health every game.
basketball wise Legans should objectively be front runner for this job. The WCC is better than the Big Sky and yet helped bring Portland from the dead into a serviceable team, irrespective of what players he brought in. Portland is not a winning place...at all. Across prior coach Terry Porter in his 4 seasons, UP won 7 conference games. This season UP won 7 conference games. This is the first time UP has won more than 15 games since 2016-2017. Let me reiterate that the WCC is better than the Big Sky so this isn't some slouch. Not to mention the energy he has and the buy in around the program. Goes to bat for his players, especially as someone who has seen him coach in person at Santa Clara he will go to hell and back for the players.
As for the suggestions to Nick we appreciate the new and creative ideas. We have a schedule that we work with, and if Nick wants to happen to adopt your idea, he will do so in a manner that fits his desire whether that is in two days or two months. You don't dictate when the content comes out.
On the list, maybe, but not the front runner. Let’s see how he does this year…you’d like to see a little more success at the mid-major level than a Big Sky bid & a .500 season, and with a different cycle of players? Can he recruit the right players to win at Cal...he has zero P5 coaching/recruiting experience…that’s a big ask. Getting the Pilots to .500 is admirable - my cousin was an Asst. Coach there & it’s a tough place to win.
No secret I and many others are still creased at him for totally quitting on his Cal team - showed an incredible lack of leadership with the timing (literally right before school started - totally left a loaded Bears team hanging). If he got the gig, would definitely give him a shot, as I did with Fox…but would definitely prefer a different candidate. The list of realistic potential candidates is admittedly short, however, and he’d definitely be on it. Seems to know how to navigate the transfer portal tho, which is essential nowadays.
I do think you’re underselling him on what he’s done at Portland. It’s basically the St Peters of the WCC. You get no help from fans or the athletic department, so to turn a steaming pile of garbage into something respectable says a lot. Certainly says more than anything we have to show for.
I don't mean to diminish Shantay's accomplishments, but I would want to see him take that program further (a WCC championship is probably out of reach for any team not named Gonzaga, but a tourney appearance maybe) before concluding he should be a frontrunner. Hiring him today feels like we would be underselling ourselves. Campinelli took James Madison to 5 tourneys before taking the Cal job, Braun took Eastern Michigan to 3 tourneys and beat a typically talented Duke team in one of those before he was hired. Mike Montgomery was Mike Montgomery and had been to a final four. And Cuonzo had taken a Tennessee team to the Sweet 16. He may be on his way, but sans Wyking, his resume is simply not comparable to what we are accustomed . . . yet.
I think the way the WCC is setup he's going to need to make consistent NIT runs. Gonzaga is Gonzaga and the only team well equipped to take them down consistently is St.Mary's. UP will not beat St.Mary's on a basis consistent enough to get towards the tournament. So to judge his advancements he needs to being Portland into a consistent NIT program. We don't have room to play hardball so we may have to dig for him whether we like it or not.
Portland did quite well last year beating the teams they were supposed to beat...if Fox had done that, the Bears have 3-4 more P12 wins, plus the UCSD disaster.
As for Portland, I absolutely acknowledge that the WCC is a legitimately challenging conference, but at the end of the day, 5 of UP's 7 conference wins came v. UOP, LMU and Pepperdine, all of whom were awful. Like the Bears, they had 1 quality win, at USF...
Would like to see more, and based on your analysis, I figure we can expect to...he's got a decent nucleus coming back, and Robertson could be in WCC POY conversation.
Respectfully, I don’t think I am…but when Legans gets Portland to the Tournament, let alone the Sweet 16, I’ll maybe quit underselling him.
Getting a middling mid-major like Portland to .500 in conference is nice, but hardly an elite coaching job. And Holloway had crucial P5 AC/recruiting experience prior to St P…is Shantay a dynamic recruiter that’s going to attract 4* talent to Cal? Doubtful. Can he accurately sell an institution he himself bailed on? He’s not a graduate, so does he really see the value of a Cal education? He didn’t as a SR.
Only BYU plays football and they are leaving. As you said earlier the WCC is better in basketball because of those big brand names on the West Coast. If Portland and Santa Clara continue to ascend they can be there too in 5-10 years. The Big Sky will never be ahead of the WCC due to the history and name branding.
I will credit Knowlton for not cutting any of Cal's 30 sports - the largest athletics program in the country for a public school (and behind only that of Stanford who recently reversed their decision to cut 11 sports). For comparison, UCLA only has only 24 sports (and none of the two big roster, non-NCAA governed male sports in Rugby and Men's Rowing that also require an equal number of female spots due to Title IX); since this week is the NCAA Men's Swimming and Diving Championship, I will credit a big reason for Cal becoming a national powerhouse to UCLA cutting their men's swim program in 1994. Various Cal non-revenue programs have had varying degrees of successes in trying to fundraise enough money to be financially self-sustaining.
The only way to fiscally save all the sports is to make the money on football. (If the Internet is to be believed), the top basketball programs (Louisville, Duke, Kentucky) *only* makes $20 M in basketball revenue. For comparison, Cal Football already is making around $80+ M in revenue and that number could easily go up to $100+ M with a major bowl appearance.
Sure, you would like to optimize every revenue source, but you also would need to spend money to make money. Clearly, no major Cal donor is forcing Mark Fox out yet, or more importantly, pledging the funds for Cal to competitively hire an exciting new coach.
I'm content to give Fox another year, but my fear is more that he might get an extension for only a marginal improvement of getting Cal to the NIT.
I think this is essentially right. In terms of Athletic Department funding, Cal has (correctly, probably) decided that it is a Football School, in that Football success will drive revenue to make up for the cost drag of sponsoring so many other NCAA teams.
MBB, while it might bring in revenue, is more trying not to _lose_ money than it is to make money. You want success, sure, but more for secondary effects -- prestige, fan/alumni engagement, etc. that eventually loop back into driving revenue long-term. Year-to-year, while making money would be nice, the primary directive is to not get too far into the red.
That's sort of the play for many of the other sports as well, such as rugby and water polo, which are trying to parlay on-field success into funding endowments that let those sports thrive while being basically self-sufficient from a revenue perspective.
IIRC, Ohio State sponsors the most NCAA sports for a public university, not Cal. IIRC, Ohio State sponsors 35 sports, while Cal sponsors 30 sports. Sponsoring 30 sports must be a financial drag on Cal's Athletic Department. Attempting to cut any of those 30 sports, as the Athletics Task Force attempted to do in 2010, would be a PR disaster. That was a shitshow we do not want to repeat and I'm sure that Knowlton is aware of. If Knowlton isn't aware of that debacle, he should be.
Sponsoring 30 sports is an outgrowth of Cal's strategy to meet Title IX requirements by adhering to Prong 3 (Accommodating Interests). Once an institution decides to adhere to Prong 1 (Proportionality), it cannot go back to either Prong 2 or Prong 3. In fact, as I understand it, if an institution chooses to abandon either Prong 2 or Prong 3, it MUST meet Title IX requirement through Prong 1 and stay there.
Many, if not most, FBS programs have elected to adhere to Prong 1. Consequently, most institutions sponsor somewhere between 18 and 21 sports programs, depending on the proportions of males and females enrolled. The FBS football bluebloods sponsor more athletic programs than just about any other FBS institutions. Cal is clearly an outlier: Cal is not an FBS blueblood and it sponsors *30* NCAA sports. Club sports don’t count; they don't have any roster spots that are "counters" which figure in Title IX enforcement or compliance.
To be an FBS program, an institution must sponsor at least 15 sports programs including football, men's basketball, women's basketball, and women's volleyball. The Pac-12 requires its institutions to sponsor two other sports (I can't recall which ones), but I digress.
There is no easy path forward for an institution like Cal. As an outgrowth of the 2010 debacle, Cal has chosen to pursue the endowment of sponsored sports to enhance revenue through endowment income. Hence, the importance of Bear Backers, football revenue, and begging alums for directed giving.
Men’s basketball is a revenue sport because it has the greatest potential to generate revenue after football, even if the revenue generated is small. BTW, something like 9 in 10 FBS programs run an annual deficit. It’s an established pattern brought on by a multitude of factors that can be summed up as follows – sports and celebrity mania.
Yeah, Ohio State apparently got 37 sports (1 more than Stanford). The dream has always been for Cal to be the flagship college program of the state like the case for Ohio State, Texas, Michigan, etc.
History has a big part in why the Cal Athletics department is what it is. Many of Cal's programs predated Football, the NCAA, and long before all the Title IX requirements. Men's Rowing and Rugby intentionally chose at some point in the past to not be governed by the NCAA...which is probably detrimental to its prevalence in college since they are only club sports at most places.
Anyhow, my point was just that survival of all the programs through COVID is not a given. Knowlton choosing to play it too safe with the MBB coaching choice may be saving the bottomline and the non-revenue programs for now.
Cal rugby pays for itself w/ donations and an endowment.
Massive improvement to get to teh NIT!
Something worth noting is that Martin Year 3 revenue includes the Mizzou payment on Martin's Buy out, and Fox's year 1-2 data includes Cal paying the Jones' contract where the buy out is spread over the lifetime of the initially agreed upon Jones contract.
It's infuriating to think that we are still paying Wyking Jones. His initial contract should end next month.
Well, I hear Sandy Barbour is available. Seriously, though, very well written piece. I might add that it is critical at this time that men's basketball should not be in a position to be losing money either. The athletic dept should always have searched out an up-and-comer, not a retread like Fox. Fox has actually turned out to be a little better than what I thought, though.
Jeebus. How low were your expectations… hahaha
Agreed...Fox has basically done exactly how I expected, given his 9 year body of work at UGA...didn’t envision the pandemic of course, but everything else, including the player graduation data, etc., is right on brand.
That said, a couple of impact transfers, though not expected, would probably help a lot...
Knowlton said he's working on it, so you know it will happen.
I meant Knowlton said Fox is working on getting impact recruits. I have no doubt Fox is trying, but I have no doubt it will also fail to produce any.
If JK needs to feel the pulse of the fans to ascertain whether or not extending Fox is a good idea, well then JK isn't the right person for the job. 99% of the people w/ a pulse on this planet know Fox needs to be fired. They don't need to look around for a second opinion. JK is an idiot and Fox is a petulant child / bully.
I am not a Fox fan, but I have yet to see him act out of line. He represents himself, the team, and the school well. When has he displayed Hurley-esque qualities of being childish or bullying?
Multiple times. He is the only coach that I have observed in the PAC12 that frequently stands on the court during play. In fact, I've never seen a coach ~ in any conference ~ do that! Caught on TV, he flailed his arms all about and smacked one of his assistances (the short one with a bald head) flush in the face, he didn't even look around to see if the coach was OK much less apologize. Fox has had multiple technicals called on him & he was kicked out of a game. In general, BB coaches are way too dramatic for my liking ~ but it appears to be an accepted norm.
I do not feel he represents Cal well at all. He isn't in the same league as Neu, Smith, or Wilcox not to mention our water polo / swim coaches and the new softball coach. And he isn't on the same planet as Jack Clark. I was fortunate enough to play for Jack and Fox ain't Jack Clark.
If he walked into my living room to recruit my kid, I would know in a matter of seconds it was a hard "no".
Drop mic.
"He is the only coach that I have observed in the PAC12 that frequently stands on the court during play."
ALL Coaches do this, to varying degrees. To me, Fox is middle of the pack on this.
Fox was kicked out of the Zona game. Some coaches do this to see if it motivates their players to kick into another gear, especially in a losing cause to see how the team responds. I'm not saying Fox had ulterior motives, but again Fox is no better or worse than other coaches who receive technicals.
I look at Hurley, Haase, even Altman, and I hate their sideline demeanor. To me, Fox is just fine on the sidelines and in postgame pressers.
And NO ONE can measure up to Jack Clark. That's unfair to everyone.
Jk never had the experience to head up a P5 program; his resume clearly said he was not the 'right person for the job'
I finally made it! I'm in the 1%!
The biggest revenue generators look to be media rights and ticket sales. The biggest cost is coaching salary. The budget largely depends on the conference while ticket sales are the variable that would generate profit. And you've shown that even a best case ticket sales scenario isn't particularly lucrative.
This suggests to me that the conference's media deal is an underlying anchor dragging conference teams down and we'll just free ride until that gets renegotiated or we find revenue elsewhere. Successful teams seem to just run at a deficit or generate lots of outside cash from donors and such. It's tough to be simultaneously good at both football and basketball on a fixed budget. Guess we're a football school right now.
We're pretty good at finding good coaches for non-revenue sports so I don't think it's a competence issue. It's a money issue and the athletic department doesn't want to admit that we can't afford good coaching in sports where good coaching costs a lot, especially when competing on two fronts. (I don't think non-revenue sports are a drain or that cutting them would even make us significantly more competitive unless their costs skyrocket.)
I can't find UCLA's budget as an obvious comparison (they're often good at both sports and many others) but here's an article where they're jealous of Cal's funding.
https://www.latimes.com/sports/ucla/story/2022-01-29/ucla-posts-record-62-5-million-in-athletic-department-debt
UCLA is banking hard on on the field success, but their football team has underachieved, the Rose Bowl is almost always 40% empty (and they have to hand over a lot of those profits to the Rose Bowl as well), and basketball cannot make up the revenue deficit that an average football team produces.
I don't like at all what Knowlton has done to basketball, but prioritizing football is the financially prudent decision.
With basketball, Knowlton can either keep gambling on untested coaches (more excitement, but risky) or just use a low-drama placeholder (Fox). If we were routinely finishing in the middle of the Pac then, fine, I understand the low drama approach. But we're in the dregs. What's another Wyking-quality hire going to do now, make us worse? Basketball can turn around quickly due to small team size so why not keep trying?
Right. It's really hard to be "Wyking bad". If there wasn't a thing call "Wyking bad", we'd be talking about something called "Fox bad". Honestly, I assumed whoever replaced Wyking was in the catbird seat. The bar was set so low and there were pieces if you could retain them. Yet, somehow we've only found a way to maintain post-Wyking. Also, money wasn't why we didn't hire Gates. Having an eye for talent was and assessing risk was. Turns out, hiring a mediocre coach and showing you don't really care much about about winning doesn't activate a base nor does it even result in mediocre basketball: It may actually deliver something worse than that.
Legans also doing decently in his first year in Portland.
Agree, Fox's problem isn't just that he's mediocre. He's also bland. There's zero excitement around the team.
With the new transfer rules, I don't think firing coaches sends the same "will my coach even be there for 4 years?" signals to recruits since they can also bail anytime. And coaches can retool quickly through the portal in addition to recruits. A poor recruiter like Fox really is the wrong guy for the moment.
Is Legans a strong candidate w/o the Cal association though? He bailed on us in a fairly spectacular fashion, so I don't think the Cal stuff really should factor at all. It's a bit like targeting Hasse.
Maybe not, but turning around a team in a deep WCC in our backyard isn't anything to sneeze at. Despite his unhappiness at the time, he still identifies as a Golden Bear and says he has fond memories. I think time and experience has given him perspective and I doubt Cal fans will hold his abrupt departure against him if he can win us games. He was my era and I would be ok with reconciliation.
Haase was only with us for a year. During that year his dad died suddenly, Campanelli got fired for being abusive, and he got benched. Can't say I blame him for wanting a change or even hating us forever.
Legans would be more like targeting Herm Edwards (not the best example given his time in ASU but you know what I'm saying).
Exactly. He’s not really a Cal guy after his departure and plenty of Old Blues won’t sign off on him anyhow.
Plus, Legans isn’t exactly lighting the world on fire at Portland…he’s middle of the road, with predominantly the same players he had at Eastern Washington, minus the Groves bros. A few transfers followed him to UP.
Pass.
All you have to do is google. It literally took 10 seconds to find an answer.
https://herosports.com/teams-playing-home-games-off-campus-aiai/
FYI - That is slightly out of date. HI now plays on campus because the Aloha Bowl facility is not safe. I live in HI. Believe me that nothing on the mainland matches the poor administration of everything in HI. We would be even more corrupt if we weren't so incompetent. Also, FL plays home games on campus but one game every year is neutral site in Jacksonville (new NFL facility where old Gator Bowl used to be). I used to live in JAX. I don't think there is any regular trip to see a game that is a worse drive than that 75 miles from Gainesville once a year (cue Big Trouble - "I'm a Gator fan and I'm callin'.)
No thank you
With LA traffic every LA mile gets a multiplier, though public transportation options do exist now (which don't apply to tailgating).
Might be some small schools that use this setup but can't think of any in the big conferences.
Yes, the big albatross is the Pac-12 media deal. If we were hitting even 80% of what the B1G was earning from their media deal, we'd have more than enough money to pay for buyouts and decent coaches. The 12 year contract really screwed us and will screw us for another 4-5 years.
Fire Knowlton
It may be that his seat is warming up. He has been subject to many, many entreaties from fans including readers on this site. He seems to answer his emails giving carefully worded responses. Like with Wilcox, I like him and hope he leads us to success - on the court and the football field and in the financial metrics. But admittedly with all the baggage that comes with the Cal bureaucracy and active efforts to sideline sports by some members of the Cal campus community and even the city of Berkeley - it is a tough, if not thankless job.
He's very safe. Crist really doesn't care about sports, so long as there is no bad drama and they don't backfire on us financially. That's the mandate and Knwlton is well suited for that. And the health of the non-revenue sports is quite good. He'll face more criticism from fans the longer Fox's tenure drags, but I'm not sure that it will count for a lot. Eventually Fox's contract will expire and they'll hire another half-measure, spin it like they hired Coach K, and the cycle will continue for another five years.
Knowlton has failed on so many levels including the disaster of MBB and with other sports too. He is the living embodiment of playing not to lose
I think he's in over his head at the P5 level. RPI and Air Force can not prepare you for the challenges of Cal.
I totally agree. He doesn't understand the UC System either.
Only good thing he has done is hire Mike Neu
Please do not give him credit for that. Williams hired Neu, "We are extremely excited to welcome Mike Neu back to Berkeley as the head coach of our baseball program,” then-Director of Athletics Mike Williams said. “During his first tenure here, Mike displayed a keen understanding of what it takes to recruit and develop student-athletes for success both on the field and in the Berkeley community as a whole. That experience, combined with the time he has spent as head coach at Pacific, convinced us that he is the perfect fit to lead Cal baseball.”
https://calbears.com/sports/baseball/roster/coaches/mike-neu/5378#:~:text=California%20baseball%20called%20on%20a,head%20coach%20in%20program%20history.
Since Williams (moronically) signed that no-cut contract with Wyking, Cal should have asked him to pay the severance personally.
Interesting
Great piece. Thanks for the research. It confirms what I have been thinking. I said at the time we hired Wyking and again when we hired Fox, that the athletic department was essentially defaulting on the program. This may make some short-term financial sense, but I really wonder at what cost over the longer term. We now have a generation that has missed out on Cal hoops and largely sees the program as an un-cared-for bottom feeder not worthy of paying an even casual interest. I can only speak for myself, but going to Cal games with my family at an early age, played no small part for my choosing to attend the university, why I worked at university and why I have donated to the university for most of my adult life. It seems short sighted to not to improve performance at least enough not to alienate casual fans, alumni and students. Unlike football, the amount of money it takes to raise the basketball program a notch or two is not going to sink the rest of the ship. There's no doubt that football is the straw that stirs the financial drink, but our chances of having top-level success--much less sustained success--is really unlikely. The same can not be said for basketball, where we actually could have a premium program if we invested and were smart about it.
Cogent. In business, neglect is euphemistically sometimes called "deferred maintenance". (Also Mordo - "The bill comes due.") Knowlton has said he is working on a dedicated practice facility. I have heard many times that is a big deal to recruits. Not only is it a measure of interest in basketball at the school, but it relates to their daily enjoyment of practice (which can sometimes feel like a grind...) I don't know what other infrastructure (physical and otherwise) issues are being addressed. If Knowlton can quietly (read "I don't think he communicates the way I would like") improve the basketball environment at CAL in the next couple of years then it could pay dividends for Fox's replacement. Since the current state of neglect reflects what I feel is the administration's real disinterest in MBB (and similarly in women's though that has a different set of issues overall) I am not eagerly anticipating a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (I don't think I have to pay copyright on just including part of a title...).
I'm not arguing with you even though I'm about to write this, but a lot was made (fairly) about the quality of Cal's football facilities before the Memorial project. But it was at the moment that project was finished that the program nosedived. Of course much contributed to that downturn and the team still needs a practice facility, but it was mostly coaching and not so much the extra stuff. That's all to say I don't know the full value of a new practice facility and how that might contribute to our success. But it's also a nifty excuse to have in your pocket too if you might want to distract with something that is not likely to be resolved in the short term.
Actually, I agree with all that. If anyone wants to distract then it can be a scapegoat. I think there are plenty of other things going on. IF some other non-coaching issues exist (probably a given everywhere) and IF some of them can be addressed (I'm not holding my breath but I'm a CAL fan so I have to look for the silver lining or die) then the improvements could be a boon to "Fox's replacement". I don't advocate sitting on one's hands instead of fixing a particular problem (like a bad coach, say) , and I don't know that anything will actually be improved, but MAYBE a better situation could help recruit a better coach which could lead to synergistic cycles of improvement. For the record, I am here neither to praise Fox nor bury him. He is an honorable man (I think...). I want better and am just saying that maybe we can raise our sites even higher at the end of this contract (I wish sooner)... or maybe not... being a CAL fan I also expect disappointment (which should not be disappointing if it was expected, right?).
100%
Hmmm.... not sure I understand this post. We are talking basketball here...? Besides the mental impact on recruits, there is the scheduling/availability issue. Having dedicated facilities makes it much easier to schedule/drop in without having to worry about other teams or support staff. For guys who want to spend hours just working on their shot/dribble/whatever it makes a difference. I assume the weight room, napping cubes, food, etc. won't be duplicated, but I don't claim to actually know what is being discussed/planned...
I probably need to slow down before writing a post. - Man, I've been there! I vaguely recall the football team took over another facility (women's soccer?) for practice anyway in addition to the stadium ... which also shows a lack of room for all the sports (see below)... and cue something related to field hockey and Title IX. I used to live in Unit 2 dorms, and I remember Underhill as being this solid concrete death trap with a nasty slant... and now there's competitive sports on it...? I played intramural B level soccer there and thought it was cool that something was available but feared for my health every game.
2 Things:
basketball wise Legans should objectively be front runner for this job. The WCC is better than the Big Sky and yet helped bring Portland from the dead into a serviceable team, irrespective of what players he brought in. Portland is not a winning place...at all. Across prior coach Terry Porter in his 4 seasons, UP won 7 conference games. This season UP won 7 conference games. This is the first time UP has won more than 15 games since 2016-2017. Let me reiterate that the WCC is better than the Big Sky so this isn't some slouch. Not to mention the energy he has and the buy in around the program. Goes to bat for his players, especially as someone who has seen him coach in person at Santa Clara he will go to hell and back for the players.
As for the suggestions to Nick we appreciate the new and creative ideas. We have a schedule that we work with, and if Nick wants to happen to adopt your idea, he will do so in a manner that fits his desire whether that is in two days or two months. You don't dictate when the content comes out.
On the list, maybe, but not the front runner. Let’s see how he does this year…you’d like to see a little more success at the mid-major level than a Big Sky bid & a .500 season, and with a different cycle of players? Can he recruit the right players to win at Cal...he has zero P5 coaching/recruiting experience…that’s a big ask. Getting the Pilots to .500 is admirable - my cousin was an Asst. Coach there & it’s a tough place to win.
No secret I and many others are still creased at him for totally quitting on his Cal team - showed an incredible lack of leadership with the timing (literally right before school started - totally left a loaded Bears team hanging). If he got the gig, would definitely give him a shot, as I did with Fox…but would definitely prefer a different candidate. The list of realistic potential candidates is admittedly short, however, and he’d definitely be on it. Seems to know how to navigate the transfer portal tho, which is essential nowadays.
I do think you’re underselling him on what he’s done at Portland. It’s basically the St Peters of the WCC. You get no help from fans or the athletic department, so to turn a steaming pile of garbage into something respectable says a lot. Certainly says more than anything we have to show for.
I don't mean to diminish Shantay's accomplishments, but I would want to see him take that program further (a WCC championship is probably out of reach for any team not named Gonzaga, but a tourney appearance maybe) before concluding he should be a frontrunner. Hiring him today feels like we would be underselling ourselves. Campinelli took James Madison to 5 tourneys before taking the Cal job, Braun took Eastern Michigan to 3 tourneys and beat a typically talented Duke team in one of those before he was hired. Mike Montgomery was Mike Montgomery and had been to a final four. And Cuonzo had taken a Tennessee team to the Sweet 16. He may be on his way, but sans Wyking, his resume is simply not comparable to what we are accustomed . . . yet.
I think the way the WCC is setup he's going to need to make consistent NIT runs. Gonzaga is Gonzaga and the only team well equipped to take them down consistently is St.Mary's. UP will not beat St.Mary's on a basis consistent enough to get towards the tournament. So to judge his advancements he needs to being Portland into a consistent NIT program. We don't have room to play hardball so we may have to dig for him whether we like it or not.
Portland did quite well last year beating the teams they were supposed to beat...if Fox had done that, the Bears have 3-4 more P12 wins, plus the UCSD disaster.
As for Portland, I absolutely acknowledge that the WCC is a legitimately challenging conference, but at the end of the day, 5 of UP's 7 conference wins came v. UOP, LMU and Pepperdine, all of whom were awful. Like the Bears, they had 1 quality win, at USF...
Would like to see more, and based on your analysis, I figure we can expect to...he's got a decent nucleus coming back, and Robertson could be in WCC POY conversation.
Respectfully, I don’t think I am…but when Legans gets Portland to the Tournament, let alone the Sweet 16, I’ll maybe quit underselling him.
Getting a middling mid-major like Portland to .500 in conference is nice, but hardly an elite coaching job. And Holloway had crucial P5 AC/recruiting experience prior to St P…is Shantay a dynamic recruiter that’s going to attract 4* talent to Cal? Doubtful. Can he accurately sell an institution he himself bailed on? He’s not a graduate, so does he really see the value of a Cal education? He didn’t as a SR.
Important questions
[technically an alumnus only has to have attended a school - graduation is not necessary]
TIL…fixed it!
Tho were Legans a graduate it’s a different conversation. Instead, tho a potential team captain as SR PG, he quit in August. That matters.
Only BYU plays football and they are leaving. As you said earlier the WCC is better in basketball because of those big brand names on the West Coast. If Portland and Santa Clara continue to ascend they can be there too in 5-10 years. The Big Sky will never be ahead of the WCC due to the history and name branding.