Cal has found its next men’s basketball coach in Mark Madsen, who faces the tall task of turning around a program that has had six consecutive losing seasons, including a 3-29 mark this winter.
Madsen, a former star at Stanford, coached Utah Valley to a 28-9 record this year and reached the NIT semifinals, where the Wolverines lost in overtime to Alabama-Birmingham on Tuesday night.
Madsen went 70-51 over four years at Utah Valley after coaching as an assistant at Stanford for the 2012-13 season and with the Los Angeles Lakers from 2013-2019.
The nine-year NBA veteran replaces Mark Fox, who went 38-87 in four seasons with the Bears.
“Having grown up in the area, I have always admired Cal as an institution and as an athletic program, with so many of my teachers, coaches and friends impressive Cal graduates,” Madsen said in a release from Cal. “We will win with young men who have elite academic and athletic talent and who will represent Cal with pride.”
Athletic director Jim Knowlton said Cal performed an “exhaustive” search to replace Fox, and Madsen’s name kept coming up.
“Mark is a person of high character, high energy, high intensity, and he’s done it the right way. He’s intense. He’s passionate. He loves his student-athletes, and he loves competing.”
Even as a Stanford alum, Madsen has East Bay ties: He was born in Walnut Creek went to high school at San Ramon Valley in Danville. In his four years at Stanford, Madsen averaged 10.9 points and 7.9 rebounds a game and twice earned first-team All-Pac-10 honors.
Madsen will be formally introduced at a press conference at 1 p.m. PT Monday at Haas Pavilion.
