California has fired men's basketball coach Mark Fox after four seasons, the school announced Thursday.
The Golden Bears finished 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.
"This was a difficult decision and one that I do not take lightly," Cal director of athletics Jim Knowlton said. "After deliberately and holistically evaluating all aspects of our program, I felt a change was needed at this time."
Fox took over in Berkeley in 2019 and initially provided reason for optimism in the Cal fan base. The Golden Bears went 14-18 overall in his first season and 7-11 in the league, a significant improvement over the previous two seasons. In the past three seasons, however, Cal has really struggled, finishing last in the Pac-12 in 2021 and 2023. The Bears are 10-50 in league play over the past three seasons.
Before replacing Wyking Jones at Cal, Fox spent nine seasons as the head coach of Georgia, leading the Bulldogs to a pair of NCAA tournament appearances and finishing above .500 in each of his last five seasons at the helm. Fox was also the head coach at Nevada, where he went to three NCAA tournaments and won at least 21 games all 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 in recent weeks to the Cal opening are UC Santa Barbara's Joe Pasternack and San Jose State's Tim Miles, sources told ESPN.