Head Coach

Mark Fox

Fox, who reached 300 career wins with a victory over Stanford at the 2020 Pac-12 Tournament, owns a career record of 321-234 (35-58 at Cal) and has averaged nearly 20 wins per season over the last 17 years. Before his arrival in Berkeley, Fox compiled a 123-43 record in his first five seasons as a head coach at Nevada (2005-09), a run that included four conference championships, three invitations to the NCAA Tournament and two trips to the CBI Tournament. He then served as the head coach at Georgia for nine seasons (2010-18) and amassed a 163-133 overall mark while leading the Bulldogs to a pair of NCAA Tournaments and three National Invitation Tournaments.
 
Cal showed marked signs of improvement across the board in Fox’s first season in Bear Territory by compiling a 14-18 overall record, up from 8-23 the year prior. The Bears more than doubled their conference win total in year one of the Fox era, jumping from 3-15 in 2018-19 prior to his arrival to 7-11 in 2019-20. It was the largest margin of improvement by any Pac-12 team that season. His first season at Cal opened with seven consecutive home wins, later followed by weekend home sweeps of the Washington and Mountain programs, including an upset of No. 21 Colorado in February. A victory over rival Stanford at the 2020 Pac-12 Tournament in Las Vegas proved to be the Bears’ final game that season prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
Fox led the Bears through disruptive COVID-19 restrictions prior to and throughout the 2020-21 campaign. Cal notched another Pac-12 Tournament victory against rival Stanford, a wire-to-wire 76-58 win in the first round, before nearly pulling off the upset of Colorado the following day in the quarterfinals (61-58 loss). Standout conference wins came against Colorado (71-62) at home on Feb. 13 and against Utah (72-63) on the road on Jan. 16. A buzzer-beating 3-pointer by Makale Foreman clinched a home victory against San Francisco on Dec. 13. The Bears were paced by junior Matt Bradley, who earned his second consecutive selection to the All-Pac-12 Second Team.
 
Year three of the Fox era saw Cal post a 12-20 overall record with three Bears earning All-Pac-12 postseason honors, including honorable mentions for senior forward Andre Kelly and graduate guard Jordan Shepherd. Forward Sam Alajiki became the first Bear to earn an All-Freshman Team (honorable mention) recognition since 2016-17. An emphatic 78-64 win at Oregon helped Cal secure its first road sweep of the Oregon schools since 2014 while the Bears’ improved defensive identity fueled a stifling 53-39 victory against Stanford on Senior Day. The Bears reeled off nine consecutive home wins from Nov. 15-Jan. 2, a streak that included two Pac-12 victories over Oregon State and Arizona State.
 
Cal earned the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) Team Academic Excellence Award in both 2020 and 2021 while the Bears have earned a slew of individual academic accolades during Fox’s tenure, highlighted by Joel Brown (CoSIDA Academic All-District IV Team) and NABC Honors Court selections Andre Kelly (2021), Logan Alters (2022), Makale Foreman (2022) and Lars Thiemann (2022). The Cal men’s basketball program reached new academic heights with a record Graduation Success Rate (GSR) of 100 percent in data released by the NCAA in December 2021.

Between his departure from Georgia and his arrival at Cal, Fox spent the fall of 2018 with USA Basketball, serving as an assistant coach to Jeff Van Gundy for the World Cup qualifying team. He also assisted the Milwaukee Bucks in the NBA Summer League and professional development stints with coaches Brad Stevens, Gregg Popovich and Geno Auriemma, among others.
 
Fox’s tenure at Georgia included four 20-win seasons – tied for the most by a head coach in school history – two NCAA Tournament berths in 2011 and 2015, three NIT appearances in 2014, 2016 and 2017, and three SEC Tournament semifinal appearances. Three of those four 20-win seasons came consecutively from 2014-16, making Fox the only Georgia head coach to win at least 20 games three years in a row. From 2014-17, Georgia won a total of 80 games – the second-winningest four-year stretch in program history – and the Bulldogs’ 42 SEC wins and 54 home wins over the span are the most ever at the school.
 
In Fox’s first season with the Bulldogs, Georgia defeated three top-25 teams and paced the SEC in field goal shooting, free throw shooting and assists. A year later, Georgia had its first 20-win season and earned an NCAA Tournament berth for the first time in nine seasons. Fox’s 2013-14 squad tied for second in the SEC, a milestone achieved by just three other Georgia teams in the previous 82 years.
  
Individually under Fox, Yante Maten was named the 2017-18 Associated Press SEC Player of the Year after averaging an SEC-best 19.3 points and 8.6 rebounds per game, while Juwan Parker was named the SEC Scholar-Athlete of the Year in 2017-18. Every senior who played for Fox at Georgia graduated and more than 15 student-athletes went on to play professionally, including Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, who was the No. 8 pick of the 2013 NBA Draft by the Detroit Pistons. Caldwell-Pope, the first McDonald’s All-American in nearly 20 years to choose Georgia, was named the 2013 SEC Player of the Year.
 
Fox was ranked first nationally among all college coaches in player development by RealGM.com in February 2012, with the publication adding that he “has truly been fantastic at getting the most out of his players.”
 
Fox enjoyed one of the most successful starts to a coaching career in Division I history while at Nevada, establishing what was then a record for highest winning percentage in a coach’s first three seasons (.818, 81-18). He guided Nevada to four conference titles (one shared), three NCAA Tournament berths and two more trips to the CBI Tournament, as the Wolf Pack won at least 21 games each season. Fox was named WAC Coach of the Year three straight times in 2005, 2006 and 2007 and he coached four WAC Players of the Year.
 
Prior to accepting the head coaching role at Nevada, Fox served as an assistant coach under Trent Johnson, and together they helped the Wolf Pack to its first NCAA Sweet 16 appearance in 2004. Fox was an assistant to Tom Asbury at Kansas State from 1994-2000 and served as an assistant with Lynn Nance at Washington from 1991-93.

Outside of coaching, Fox is a former chair of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Rules Committee and member of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Ethics Coalition. He has also raised nearly $1 million for Coaches vs. Cancer. At Cal, Fox has funded an internship through the McLendon Minority Leadership Initiative alongside football head coach Justin Wilcox; the McLendon program provides opportunities for approximately 30 young minorities per year within college athletic departments across the country.
 
Fox played collegiately at Garden City Community College in Kansas under former Nevada head coach Jim Carey, and then lettered two seasons at Eastern New Mexico, where he was a first-team academic all-conference selection in 1991.
 
Fox, 53, earned his bachelor’s degree in physical education from Eastern New Mexico in 1991 and a master’s degree in sport administration/sports psychology from Kansas in 1996. Originally from Garden City, Kansas, he and his wife, Cindy, have two children, Parker and Olivia.