What can Mark Fox learn from his past as he goes about rebuilding Cal MBB?
Cal men’s basketball head coach Mark Fox finds himself in a difficult spot. His team just finished a season in which they went 8-19 overall and 3-17 in Pac-12 play. It was a major regression from his first year in Berkeley and to add insult to injury, Matt Bradley, Cal’s top player by a mile, transferred out as a junior to San Diego State. While Cal does have some solid talent coming in, it doesn’t project to adequately replace Bradley’s absence and it’s far from clear if the collection of returning players can do the same. The bottom line is Cal men’s basketball is in as rough of a spot as it’s ever been in and it’s on Mark Fox to right the ship.
If Fox is going to turn things around in Berkeley, he’d be wise to learn from his past head coaching stops at Nevada and Georgia. Reflect on both the good and the bad.
Mark Fox did have some success at Nevada and Georgia before coming to Cal. His best years were at Nevada, where he was a coach from 2004-09. Between 2005 and 2007, Fox was a three-time WAC Coach of the Year. In those three years, Nevada reached the NCAA tournament and reached the Round of 32 twice (2005 and 2007).
The anchor of those three NCAA tournament teams were forward Nick Fazekas, guard/forward Marcellas Kemp, forward Mo Charlo, and guard Ramon Sessions. Fazekas and Kemp were both recruited by Trent Johnson, who Fox replaced at Nevada. Charlo and Sessions were both recruited by Fox. Charlo transferred to Nevada from Diablo Valley JC and Sessions committed to Nevada out of Myrtle Beach High School in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina as an under the radar 3-star recruit. Of that bunch, Sessions went on to have the best pro career as he played 11 seasons in the NBA averaging 10.3 points, 2.7 rebounds, and 4.1 assists per game.
While some will say that Fox succeeded during his first three years at Nevada thanks to Trent Johnson’s recruiting, that’s an over-simplification of things. Yes, Fazekas was a huge part of those teams and having a senior in Kevin Pinkney in year 1 was a blessing. But, Fox still had to mold Kemp during his redshirt year in order for him to be an impact player in his second year, Fazekas ended up playing three years under Fox and grew a lot under his coaching, Charlo was a sneaky good find via the junior college transfer market, and Ramon Sessions was an absolute steal who maximized his potential in no small part due to Fox’s player development.
The last two years of Fox’s time at Nevada kinda fizzled out as the team missed the NCAA tournament in his fourth and fifth seasons as head coach. Ironically, his final season at Nevada was the year he landed his highest rated recruit Luke Babbitt, who was a McDonald’s All-American. In that year, Babbitt averaged a team-high 16.9 points and a team-high 7.4 rebounds per game while sophomore guard Armon Johnson averaged 15.5 points of his own. Despite the stellar play of both players, Nevada was unable to reach the tournament.
Looking at Fox’s Georgia years (2009-18), the anchors of his first NCAA tournament team (2010-11) were guys recruited by the previous coaching staff (Dennis Felton/Pete Herman): Forward Trey Thompkins and guard Travis Leslie. On the 2010-11 NCAA tournament team as juniors, Thompkins (16.4 points & 7.6 rebounds) and Leslie (14.4 points & 7.2 rebounds) both led the way for the Bulldogs and were major reasons for why the team reached the tournament. The team ended up losing in the Round of 64, but considering where Georgia was at before Fox took over, reaching the tournament alone was a major accomplishment.
After reaching the NCAA tournament in 2011, Georgia struggled for the next two seasons, failing to even reach the NIT. The 2011-12 and 2012-13 teams both went 15-17 overall, but there was a difference in league records. The 2011-12 team went 5-11 in SEC play while the 2012-13 team went 9-9. So, there was a little bit of improvement in 2012-13 from the previous year, but it still wasn’t anything to get too excited about.
Ironically, these were the two years in which Fox had Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, the lone 5-star recruit he landed at Georgia who like Babbitt was a McDonald’s All-American. Caldwell-Pope had a really nice freshman year, averaging 13.2 points and 5.2 rebounds before having an explosive sophomore year in which he averaged 18.5 points and 7.1 rebounds per game.
The problem with the 2012-13 team was Caldwell-Pope was the only player scoring in double figures on average. He didn’t have much help around him. Rather than returning for his junior year, Caldwell-Pope left for the NBA Draft and was selected with the 8th overall pick by the Detroit Pistons.
The 2013-14 team started to show signs of growth as they went 20-14 overall and 12-6 in the SEC, good enough for an NIT appearance. Sophomore guards Charles Mann (13.9 PPG) and Kenny Gaines (13.0 PPG) both started coming into their own after having very modest freshman seasons (Mann averaged 6.7 PPG while Gaines averaged 3.7). That team was then able to build on that NIT season to make the 2015 NCAA tournament the following year. That team once again lost in the first round of the NCAA tournament.
The key to the 2014-15 team’s success was having lots of contributors. Senior forward Marcus Thornton (12.3 points & 7.3 rebounds), Gaines (11.7 points), Mann (11.2 points), and senior forward Nemanja Djurisic (11.0 points & 5.2 rebounds) were all scoring in double figures on average while sophomore guard J.J. Frazier nearly averaged double figures of his own with 9.5 points per game. With nearly five guys scoring in double figures every night, that made it tough for opponents to stop Georgia because they had so many weapons.
After the success of the 2014-15 campaign, there was real hope that Georgia might make it back to the NCAA tournament once more and build on the success that they had. Unfortunately for Fox and the Bulldogs, they would never get back to the tournament during his tenure. Georgia would reach the NIT the next two seasons and then fail to make the NIT in Fox’s ninth and final year, which resulted in his firing.
The good: Starting off with the good, what worked best for Fox during his years at Nevada and Georgia was having teams where no one player had to really carry the load. Teams where it was more of a win by committee approach. The 2015 NCAA tournament team at Georgia in particular stands out, though this was a feature of all of Fox’s tournament teams.
The real key to building those teams was player development and getting everyone to buy in. Guys like Ramon Sessions, Marcellas Kemp, Nemanja Djurisic, Charles Mann, and Kenny Gaines all had humble beginnings as freshmen and turned into really solid players by their junior and senior years. It took those guys a little bit of time to figure it out, but once they did, they were quite good. Sessions in particular as he went on to have a really solid NBA career. On top of becoming good individual players, those guys all found out how to play well with their teammates and put together a solid team product on the floor, resulting in trips to the NCAA tournament.
The bad: Probably the oddest pattern we’ve seen with Fox at Nevada, Georgia, and even at Cal, is his inability to win with his most highly rated players. Granted he had Luke Babbitt for just one year, but one would think that after having three straight trips to the NCAA tournament, the presence of Babbitt would gave gotten Fox and the Wolfpack back to the NCAA tournament one more time. It didn’t happen.
Looking at the Kentavious Caldwell-Pope years at Georgia, while KCP himself was outstanding, he didn’t have much help around him and the team certainly didn’t produce the type of results that Georgia fans would have expected. When you land a McDonald’s All-American, you should expect to produce winning seasons and threaten to make the NCAA tournament.
And then at Cal, Fox was unable to win with Matt Bradley, who averaged 18.0 points per game as a junior last year and 17.5 points per game as a sophomore in Fox’s first year. During the Bradley years, Fox’s teams went a combined 22-37 overall and 10-28 in Pac-12 play. Even worse, Bradley left Cal for San Diego State, an in-state program that competes in the weaker Mountain West Conference.
Maybe it’s just bad luck for Fox that the years he’s had his highest recruits have been some of his worst, but it is a pattern at this point.
The other thing that didn’t go well for Fox was his inability to sustain competitive programs once he got them there. While the first three years at Nevada were successful, the last two years were a dud. After reaching the NCAA tournament in his second year at Georgia, Fox would only get Georgia back to the NCAA tournament one more time. Ideally, years four and five at Nevada would have been better and Georgia would have seen at least a couple more NCAA tournament trips.
Lastly, I don’t really like to call this “bad”, but it should be noted in here that Fox’s teams historically haven’t done great in the NCAA tournament. Georgia went 0-2 in the tournament under Fox as a 10 seed both years while Nevada went 2-3, unable to get past the Round of 32. The 2006 Nevada tournament team in particular was disappointing as they got a 5 seed only to get upset 87-79 by 12 seed Montana. Anything can happen in March and any year in which you reach the NCAA tournament is a good year, but it is a little disappointing for Fox that during his time as a head coach, he has failed to reach the Sweet Sixteen.
Takeaways that can apply to Cal: I think the first thing that Fox can take away from his years at Nevada and Georgia is that if he’s going to find success at Cal, it’s going to come through player development. He’s going to need some guys who start off slow to pick things up as juniors and seniors. Guys like Jalen Celestine, Monty Bowser, Joel Brown, and others are going to need to take steps forward come their junior and senior seasons. If they’re able to do that, Cal could be on the path to success much quicker than people expect.
Secondly, Fox has to find ways to get more out of his star players. If he’s going to turn Cal into his best stop yet, it’ll likely involve a highly rated recruit being a part of a winning program. The top target in the 2022 class for Cal right now is Aidan Mahaney, a talented point guard out of Campolindo High School in Moraga, CA. If Fox can not only land Mahaney, but have him be part of a winning program, that could kick start new life into Fox’s career. Landing elite level recruits and finding ways to win with them is something that Fox needs to figure out.
Finally, Fox needs to find some diamonds in the rough on the recruiting trail and continue to develop. While landing highly rated recruits is important, Fox also needs to find some quality underrated players and bring them to Cal. Ramon Sessions is the poster boy of that. He was a 3-star recruit with little college interest out of high school and he winded up having a fantastic NBA career. Maybe someone on the current roster or incoming recruiting class is that guy, but so far we haven’t seen it yet.
There are a lot of things that Fox can draw upon from his days at Nevada and Georgia as he goes about rebuilding Cal. He’s done some good things along the way and there are other things that haven’t gone so well. If he’s unable to improve in the areas that he needs to, his time in Berkeley will likely be short-lived and disappointing. If he’s able to step things up and figure out how to correct what he hasn’t gotten right in the past, then there’s hope for his time at Cal to have a happy ending.