MarkFox

Mark Fox, who has 18 years of collegiate head coaching experience, joined the Kentucky men’s basketball staff as an associate coach in April of 2024 and begins his second season with the Wildcats in 2025-26.

The veteran coach was instrumental in helping the Wildcats to a 24-12 overall record and Sweet 16 appearance in the NCAA Tournament under Mark Pope’s direction in year one. The Cats also tied an NCAA record with eight victories over Associated Press Top 15 squads. Fox played an on-court role in defensive preparation, scouting and assisted in the development of wing Otega Oweh. Oweh was a Southeastern Conference Second Team selection and led the Cats in scoring at 16.2 points per game. Oweh set career highs in nearly every statistical category including points per game, rebounds per game, assists per game, blocks per game, steals per game and free-throw percentage.

Fox served as the Director of Student-Athlete Relations and NIL Partnerships at Georgetown University in 2023-24. Prior to that stint, Fox has been a head coach at Nevada, Georgia and California.

Fox and Pope reunited in Lexington, after Fox hired Pope for his first collegiate basketball position. Pope served as the Director of Basketball Operations at Georgia in 2009-10, coincidentally Fox’s first season with the Bulldogs.

Owning a career record of 324-263, Fox has directed teams to four regular-season conference titles, five NCAA Tournament appearances and 10 total postseason appearances during his collegiate head coaching tenure.

In his most recent head coaching stretch, Fox led the California program for four seasons. Leading up to his tenure with the Bears, Fox compiled a 123-43 record in his five seasons at Nevada and a 163-133 mark at Georgia.

With Nevada, Fox helped the Wolf Pack to four Western Athletic Conference championships, three trips to the NCAA Tournament and a pair of appearances in the College Basketball Invitational. He enjoyed one of the hottest starts for a head coach in Division I history with the Wolf Pack. Fox established what was then a record for highest winning percentage in a coach’s first three seasons (.818, 81-18). He was tabbed the WAC Coach of the Year three straight seasons in 2005, 2006 and 2007 and coached four WAC Players of the Year.

Fox was the head coach at Georgia for nine seasons, with the Bulldogs advancing to two NCAA Tournaments and three National Invitation Tournaments.

Yante Maten was the 2018 Associated Press Southeastern Conference Player of the Year after averaging a league-best 19.3 points and 8.6 rebounds per game. Juwan Parker was tabbed the SEC Scholar Athlete of the Year in the same season. Fox guided 15 players to professional careers, including Kentavious Caldwell-Pope who was drafted No. 8 overall in 2018 and is a two-time NBA Champion. Caldwell-Pope earned the distinction as the first McDonald’s All-American to sign with Georgia in nearly 20 years and he was the 2013 SEC Player of the Year. Furthermore, every senior who played for Fox graduated during his tenure.

The Bulldogs amassed four 20-win seasons, tied for the most by a head coach in school history. 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.

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.

Fox served as an assistant coach under Trent Johnson at Nevada and helped the Wolf Pack to its first NCAA Sweet 16 appearance in 2004 prior to taking the reins as head coach. Fox was also an assistant to Tom Asbury at Kansas State from 1994-2000 and served as an assistant with Lynn Nance at Washington from 1991-93, where he coached Pope to a Pac-10 Freshman of the Year nod.

Between his stints at Cal and Georgia, 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 currently serves on the Junior National Men’s Team Committee with Team USA. That group is responsible for selecting coaches and athletes for USA Basketball college-aged competitions, which include FIBA U19 World Cups, FIBA Americas U18 Championship and the Pan American Games.

He played collegiately at Garden City Community College and lettered two seasons at Eastern New Mexico. Fox earned a bachelor’s degree in physical education from Eastern New Mexico and a master’s in sport administration/sports psychology from Kansas.

Fox and his wife, Cindy, have two children, Parker and Olivia.