Cal Should Offer Its Basketball Coaching Job to Randy Bennett

It's assumed the Saint Mary's coach would reject the offer, but would he? Even if he says no it might have benefits for the Bears

Cal should offer Randy Bennett its basketball head coaching job. Even if Bennett declines the offer, let it leak that the job was offered to the Saint Mary’s coach, because simply offering Bennett the job might be beneficial for the Bears.

But would he reject the offer? The prevailing assumption is that he would immediately say “no thanks,” that he is too entrenched at Saint Mary’s. However, apparently Bennett has never been offered the Cal job despite his unprecedented success at a nearby Bay Area school, so we don’t really know whether he would take it or not. And there is absolutely no question that he would turn Cal into a winner, assuming he would get what is needed to accomplish it.

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---Cal interviews Kennesaw State coach Amir Abdur-Rahim for the Bears' coaching vacancy---

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But even if Bennett turns Cal down, it would be worthwhile to offer him the job.

Let’s back up a moment and start with the basic question: Why does a school change head coaches?

--1. Improve the on-court success of the team

--2. Provide hope to players that the school is serious about attaining success.

--3. Rekindle interest in the program.

No. 3 is often overlooked in the coach-changing discussion, but it is important. In fact, in an era when financial interests are paramount to college athletic departments, it may be the most important consideration when changing coaches.

Discussions regarding a possible coaching change often center on whether a dismissal would be fair to the current coach. Sure, that’s a consideration, but dismissals are often unfair to the coach but are needed for the basketball program. A change leads to renewed hope and excitement in the fan base and the basketball audience as a whole. That energy injection is just as important these days as whether a change will affect wins and losses.

Cal is a classic case of a fan base that needs renewed hope, as evidenced by a 3-29 record and average home attendance of 2,155, the worst of any school in the six power basketball conferences. In 2016-17, Cal averaged 9,307 in home attendance, and more than 15,000 people watched Cal and Jason Kidd upset No. 1 UCLA at the Oakland Coliseum in 1994 on the same day as the Super Bowl.

So the potential for a strong Cal basketball following exists. Obviously to achieve that following the team has to win games. But the first step in nudging interest in the program’s direction is making a coaching change that makes some noise. You want people to say, “Hmm, that sounds promising,” or at least, “Hmm, that sounds interesting.”

National college basketball reporter seems to agree:

Hey Cal athletic director Jim Knowlton. What the heck are you waiting for?

Go give Randy Bennett $3.5 mil a year and make him say no.

— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) March 20, 2023

So offer the job to Bennett. He might not accept. Afterall he’s 60 years old and has  been at Saint Mary's for 22 seasons, turning it into a nationally prominent program. At Cal he would face a complete rebuild.

Why would he leave?

Well, Bennett would make considerably more money at Cal, although salary has never been a big issue for Bennett. And it would probably be easier to get to the NCAA tournament on a regular basis at Cal, where you don’t have to win the conference tournament or be ranked in the top 25 to get to the Big Dance.

There’s little question that Bennett would dramatically improve the Cal basketball program and get it to the NCAA tournament within a few years. Any suggestions that his style would not work in the Pac-12 is not paying attention. The Gaels beat Gonzaga this year and handled a talented VCU team in the NCAA tournament. And they’ve been doing that against name programs for years.

But let’s suppose Bennett would say no to Cal. What would happen?

Bennett would get the acclaim he deserved for staying at the place that made him famous despite its lower financial reward, prestige and exposure.

And what would Cal get if it became known that Bennett rejected its offer? People would recognize that Cal was shooting high, that it was serious about improving its basketball program, that it desperately wanted to please a disgruntled fan base. It would be a wise public-relations move. Of course, Cal would have to leak to the media that it offered the job to Bennett to get that reward, but that would be easy enough.

Which leads us back to that other interesting note: To my knowledge Cal has never offered its head coaching job to Bennett.

So Cal could start by offering the job to Bennett, letting people know it went after the most logical solution to fixing the basketball program with a coach whose Bay Area success is unquestioned.

Sure, it would just a P.R. move, but P.R. matters, and Cal could use a little favorable P.R. at the moment.

And what if Bennett would accept? It’s not as farfetched as people think.

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Cover photo of Randy Bennett is by David Butler II, USA TODAY Sports

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