Cal Basketball: Firing the Coach Isn't a Fix, According to Mike Montgomery

Mark Fox's team is 3-26 but the program faces larger systemic challenges.

The only man to coach the Cal basketball team to a conference championship in the 63 years since Pete Newell retired says firing Mark Fox won’t fix the Bears’ program.

“Mark Fox is a good coach,” Mike Montgomery said in our interview this week. “If you’re not going to support the person and give him an opportunity, you’re wasting your time.”

Montgomery, who coached the Bears to four NCAA tournament appearances in his six seasons through 2014, still pays attention to the program as a game analyst for the Pac-12 Network.

And while he did not weigh in on whether Cal should move on from Fox — who is 38-84 in his four seasons at Berkeley — he said the issues extend beyond the coaching office.

Cal coach Mark Fox / Photo by Neville E. Guard, USA Today

Montgomery, who turned 76 years old this week, is not a fan of the current direction of college athletics, with NIL money flowing and players moving freely through the transfer portal. “But I’m old,” he said.

A persistent problem for Cal, where Montgomery directed the team to the 2010 Pac-10 title, is finding talent that meets standards of the admissions office.

“You need access to players. It’s as simple as that. If you’re going to wring your hands on every single kid that got a `C,’ then you’re never going to get it done,” Montgomery said. “You’re going to have to allow kids an avenue, you’re going to have to support them academically and help them succeed.”

Montgomery recalls 2013, when the Cal basketball and football programs received poor graduate-rate scores from the NCAA. The university responded by tightening admissions standards, he said.

“They were really holding the line — and that’s great. But you’ve got to work together and have common goals, understand who you are and what you want,” he said. “If being successful in football and men’s basketball is important to them, and it should be, they’re going to have to work together and get it done.”

Cal’s talent level dropped off after coach Cuonzo Martin, Montgomery’s successor, left for Missouri following the 2016-17 season. The Bears haven’t had a top-50 national recruiting class since 2018 under Wyking Jones. None of the headliners from that group made it through their entire eligibility at Cal, as Matt Bradley, Andre Kelly and Connor Vanover all transferred during Fox’s tenure.

“Now all of a sudden they start losing and they got behind the 8-ball,” Montgomery said. “They’re going to have to work real hard to where they’re competitive again.”

Cal has reached a nadir in its competitive history dating back more than 100 years. The Bears’ three wins this season are their fewest since 1913-14 (when they were 2-0) and their 26 wins are their most ever.

Last in the Pac-12 at 2-16, the Bears play at Oregon on Thursday and Oregon State on Saturday to close the regular season. They will enter the conference tournament as the 12th seed, beginning March 8 in Las Vegas.

This is Cal’s fourth straight losing season under Fox, the program’s unprecedented sixth in a row overall. Jones sent the things in the wrong direction with back-to-back seasons of 8-24 and 8-23, and Fox hasn’t been able to turn the tide.

Over the past six seasons, the Bears are 22-90 in regular-season Pac-12 games.

As the transfer portal has rapidly increased player movement, programs such as Cal and Stanford often struggle to keep up because of their academic restrictions. That’s especially the case with graduate transfers, suggested Montgomery, who led the Cardinal to 12 NCAA tournament appearances including a Final Four in 1998.

“A kid at almost any other school is going to say, `Wow, it’s Stanford, Cal, Pac-12, West Coast, beautiful weather,’ ” Montgomery said. “The graduate thing is dicey because the graduate schools at both institutions are so very, very good that you’re not going to just go get a guy and let him into the school of engineering.

“I don’t think either school wants to make a living in the transfer portal. But you have to have the ability to plug a gap, fill a hole when it’s necessary.”

Pointing to the elite-level Olympic sport programs at both Cal and Stanford, Montgomery said the struggles of basketball and football at the two schools are long-standing and won’t be easy to reverse.

“It’s going to take structural changes. Nobody’s asking anybody to compromise in any way, shape or form. You’re asking them to work together to make it possible,” he said.

“The two most visible sports have always been difficult there. Always. What do they do? They’re going to have to make a decision.”

Cover photo of former Cal coach Mike Montgomery by Darren Yamashita, USA Today

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