California has fired men’s basketball coach Mark Fox after four seasons, the school announced Thursday.
The Golden Bears ended their season Wednesday with a first-round Pac-12 tournament loss to Washington State that dropped them to 3-29 on the season. They went 2-18 in Pac-12 play.
“It was a difficult decision and one I don’t take lightly,” Cal Director of Athletics Jim Knowlton said. “After deliberatively and holistically evaluating all aspects of our program, I felt a change was necessary at this time.”
Fox took over at Berkeley in 2019 and initially provided reason for optimism in the Cal fan base. The Golden Bears went 14-18 in his first season and 7-11 in the league, a significant improvement over the previous two seasons. But over the past three seasons, Cal has really struggled, finishing in the Pac-12 in 2021 and 2023. The Bears have gone 10-50 in league play over the past three seasons.
Prior to replacing Jones at Cal Viking, Fox spent nine seasons as Georgia’s head coach, leading the Bulldogs to a pair of NCAA Tournament appearances and finishing above .500 in each of his last five seasons. Fox was also the head coach at Nevada, where he went to three NCAA Tournaments and won at least 21 games in the five seasons he was in Reno.
Fox began his career as an assistant coach at Washington, also spending time as an assistant at Kansas State and Nevada.
Two names consistently linked to the Cal opening in recent weeks are UC Santa Barbara’s Joe Pasternak and San Jose State’s Tim Miles, sources told ESPN.