UGA to Hire Mark Fox as Basketball Coach

Chip Towers of the AJC was the first to report that Mark Fox of Nevada will be named head basketball coach of the Georgia Bulldogs tomorrow at an 11:00 am press conference in Athens. Given what was available and willing to assume our challenge, this is a very strong hire.

His resume as a head coach beats the hell out of the one owned by Anthony Grant, Frank Haith, Brad Stevens (Butler) or Brian Gregory (Dayton).

Specifically, he has more conference titles, more NCAA Tourney wins, more weeks ranked in the Top 25, and more wins against teams you've ever heard of than Anthony Grant by a long shot.

Highlights of Fox's Career:

• Career Record - 123-43 overall and 66-16 in the WAC. Never won fewer than 21 games in a season in five seasons.
  
  
• Championships - Won the WAC regular season title four times in five years, and he won the conference tourney once.
  
  
• NCAA Appearances - 3 NCAA Tourney appearances. He advanced to the second round twice including a huge win over Texas, and he beat Creighton in the tourney when they had a Top 25 team. His tourney losses were to Memphis, Illinois (when they were #1) and an upset loss to Montana. Also made the CBI twice (the other NIT).
  
  
• Mentor of Note - Coached under Trent Johnson of LSU at Nevada for several years. When Johnson went to Stanford, Fox took over as head coach. Johnson's system and style of play was very effective in the SEC last year.

Fox is a guy that believes in scheduling relatively tough for the mid-major circuit. He typically scheduled about six quality non-conference games a year against high-majors (UNC, Kansas, UCLA, Cal, etc) or well known mid-majors like Gonzaga, UNLV, Santa Clara, etc.

Winner on the Road:
As a head coach he has won road games versus Kansas, Cal, Gonzaga, UNLV and Georgia. Given our program's problems winning road games the past few years, that's a quality list of wins for a mid-major program. He's also won home games against UNLV, Anthony Grant's VCU team (2009), Oregon State and UGA.

His record from Wikipedia:

Season	Team	Overall	Conference	Standing	Postseason
Nevada (Western Athletic Conference) (2004–present)
2004–2005	Nevada	25-7	16-2	1st	NCAA 2nd Round
2005–2006	Nevada	27-6	13-3	1st	NCAA 1st Round
2006–2007	Nevada	29-5	14-2	1st	NCAA 2nd Round
2007–2008	Nevada	21-12	12-4	1st (Tied)	CBI 1st Round
2008–2009	Nevada	21-13	11-5	2nd	CBI 1st Round
Nevada:		123-43	66-16

UPDATE Recruiting:
He put 4 players into the NBA in five years. For a mid-major, that's very strong. I would be embarrassed to tell you how far back you have to go to find four UGA players in the NBA.

He has a four star shooting guard committed for this season, but not signed yet (please oh please let him come here). He signed two four star kids last year, and he is credited with signing All-American Nick Fazekas at Nevada when he was an assistant coach.

UPDATE Profile Articles:
The NY Times put together a large profile piece on Fox's team in 2007. It talks about his background and views on life.

“The whole secret to our success has been finding kids that get better and kids that buy into how we operate here,” said Mark Fox, who is in his third season as Nevada’s coach. “They’ve all been really good kids that have allowed themselves to be coached and work hard.”

The Nevada News recently talked with Mark and Cindy Fox about a class they taught on campus. In the interview, Mark talks about his first paycheck where he realized his check was only $6 more than his rent.

Interestingly, his wife Cindy is the #2 athletic director at Nevada. Her title is Executive Associate Athletic Director, Sports Support. She's like the Arthur Johnson of Nevada.


Overall:
Before you say....WTF? Or "Who?" Consider this....if you had never heard that unrealistic, dumbass idea that Jeff Capel was obtainable, and you actually read the guy's qualifications....would you be interested? Wait til you see who he has actually beaten. It's no joke.


See Also:
-- Mark Fox Bio - Nevada Athletics
-- More info - SicEmDawgs

PWD