Cal hires former Stanford basketball star Mark Madsen as new head coach
What an amazing plot twist this was, and is, and will continue to be.
Imagine a situation in which School A had a chance to hire a former star, bringing him back to a program with the opportunity to revive its fortunes. A school which has struggled for the past 15 years in men’s basketball had a chance to hire a rising coach who played on the same school’s last Final Four team. This coach is popular within School A, beloved within School A. The coach was doing a good job at a smaller program. He was on the market. He was available.
School A was drifting into irrelevance under its current head coach, who has done nothing of note in seven years on the job.
School A chose to retain the coach who had done nothing in seven years instead of hiring the rising coach who had starred on the court for the program and led it to the Final Four 25 years earlier.
Then that school’s archrival, School B, which was willing and able to fire its underperforming head coach, hired the very same coach School A could have hired all along.
It’s ridiculous. It makes absolutely zero sense. It’s a situation in which School B can now humiliate School A by succeeding. Every School B achievement will reflect negatively on School A — not because the two schools are rivals, but because School A had a chance to hire a popular and successful alumnus as its coach, but passed on the opportunity and allowed School B to swoop in and seize the moment.
This is what has just happened in Pac-12 basketball. Stanford is School A. Cal-Berkeley is School B.
We told you that Cal was closing in on Mark Madsen — the Utah Valley coach and Stanford alumnus who led Stanford to the 1998 Final Four — as its next head coach.
On Wednesday, Cal made it official. The Golden Bears announced that Madsen has agreed to become the team’s new head coach.
We have been wondering for more than a year if Stanford would finally fire Jerod Haase. It seemed almost certain that the Trees and athletic director Bernard Muir would finally terminate their underperforming head coach, who has certainly been given a long amount of time to make things work in Palo Alto.
Yet, for reasons which remain inexplicable, Stanford stood pat and retained Haase for another season, even though Madsen was right there, waiting to come back to his alma mater and revive the program after a star turn at Utah Valley, which reached the NIT semifinals and very nearly made the NCAA Tournament this past season.
It’s bad enough if one school watches its bitter rival succeed. Now, though, every Cal achievement in men’s basketball will directly reflect negatively on Stanford and its athletic department, particularly Bernard Muir. Cal has a chance to humiliate Stanford, with Madsen — a Stanford alum — being the engine of that effort.
Bay Area basketball revolves around the Golden State Warriors and Stanford women’s basketball, but men’s college hoops just became a lot more interesting in Berkeley and Palo Alto.
It's officialhttps://t.co/PUQZWG4L8W
— Cal Sports Report (@jakecurtis53) March 29, 2023
