BREAKING: Cal reportedly retaining Wyking Jones for a third season

The question we have all been wondering has presumably been answered, as Jeff Goodman of Stadium Sports just reported that Wyking Jones will return for a third season at the helm of the California Golden Bears Men’s Basketball program.

Jones’s coaching career began at his alma mater—Loyola Marymount—for the 1996–97 season. As an assistant, his most notable run was when he joined the staff of Rick Pitino and the Louisville Cardinals in 2011. This team peaked in 2012–13 when they won the NCAA Tournament, but the NCAA vacated all of the wins—and the national championship—from that season because the team had ordered strippers and prostitutes for recruits and players. Jones joined the California Golden Bears in 2015 for then–head coach Cuonzo Martin’s second season. When Martin left for the Missouri Tigers, Jones was elevated to head coach in March 2017.

Jones has led a young, rebuilding Bears squad to a disappointing 16–47 record in his first two seasons as head coach, going 5–31 in conference play. However, the Bears seemingly found their identity at the end of the year, winning their last three conference games to close out the season, including an upset over ranked Washington and an away win against Stanford. They finished their season with a close loss in the first round of the Pac-12 tournament.