Cal Basketball Coach Mark Fox: `I Understand People Are Frustrated. We're Frustrated'

The 0-7 Bears open Pac-12 Conference play Wednesday night at home vs. USC.

Mark Fox knows what people are saying, how they feel about him and his winless Cal basketball team.

“I understand people are frustrated. We’re frustrated,” he said.

At 0-7, the Bears are off to the worst start in program history and among just seven Division I teams — out of 363 — that are still without a victory this season. 

ESPN Stats reported that Cal is the first team from a major conference to begin its season with seven straight losses in 40 years.

And it could get worse this week with the start of Pac-12 Conference play.

The Bears are home Wednesday for a 7 p.m. tipoff against USC (4-3), which arrives with an eight-game win streak in the series. Then it’s on to Tucson for a 2 p.m. game on Sunday vs. No. 4 Arizona (6-0), which has beaten Cal 11 straight times.

How many fans will show up at Haas Pavilion on Wednesday remains to be seen. The Bears’ two most recent home games drew just 1,364 for Southern and 1,211 for Texas State. Fox admits it was a mistake scheduling the Southern game for the same night as the Big Game rally.

And while you might think USC should be a big draw, the Trojans’ average home attendance of 1,965 is worse than the 2,328 per game who have attended four games at Haas.

Fox’s response is to encourage fans to give his players a break. “I would just ask them to direct their frustration to me, not at the players,” he said.

And they are. Social media has not been supportive of Fox in recent weeks. That’s hardly surprising, considering Cal is on its way to a sixth consecutive losing season, the past four under Fox, whose record through 100 games is 35-65.

The Bears will be short-handed again Wednesday. Reserve guard Jarred Hyder is undergoing season-ending surgery, Fox said, and would-be starters Jalen Celestine (knee) and transfer DeJuan Clayton (hamstring) still have not played. Forward Sam Alajiki is expected to miss his second game while in concussion protocol.

Regardless of personnel issues, there is no debating how feeble the Bears have been offensively.

Cal is last in scoring in the Pac-12 at 58.4 — eight points per game fewer than any other conference school. Arizona is averaging 97.5 points.

The Bears also are last in field-goal percentage (.408), rebound margin (minus-0.71) and turnovers (16.0), tied for last in assists (9.57) and 11th in 3-point accuracy (.359).

“Offensively, we’ve really struggled. We’re having to reinvent how we play,” Fox said. “We essentially have two guards having to manage everything. We need to become more productive on the offensive end, more efficient. We’ve turned it over way too much. We’ve got some challenges there.”

The two guards he referenced are junior transfer Devin Askew, who is the team’s top scorer (16.7), and senior point guard Joel Brown, who never has been a scorer.

By 9 p.m. Wednesday night the chorus of unhappy would-be Cal fans could be louder still. Asked how he deals with the criticism, Fox gave an answer that is designed to insulate his team but sounds vaguely tone deaf.

“To be honest with you, we don’t worry about outside opinions,” he said. “We understand people are frustrated because we’re frustrated, too.

“Our focus is on just trying to get these guys better, on trying to get healthy because if we can get healthy that’ll make us better. So that’s where we put our energies.”

Fox talks in the video below about USC, led by Memphis transfer guard Boogie Ellis (18.0 points) and senior wing Drew Peterson (15.0 points, 8.1 rebounds). The Trojans have no wins of consequence so far — Alabama State, Vermont, Mount St. Mary’s and BYU — but they have wins. Four more than Cal.

Cover photo of Cal coach Mark Fox by Jayne Kamin-Oncea, USA Today

Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo