ESPN.com: Cal Basketball Coaching Job 'Trending Toward Opening'

ESPN.com ran a long story Thursday about college basketball coaching hot seats, and it sites four schools whose coaching positions are "trending toward opening." Cal is one of the four. (Georgetown, Stanford and Mississippi are the other three).

Here is what ESPN.com's Jeff Borzello said about the Cal situation, and he noted two possible replacements for Mark Fox:

California Golden Bears

While there were signs of promise during his first season at the helm (2019-20), Mark Fox's time in Berkeley seems likely to come to an end after this season. He was 15-43 in the Pac-12 in his first three seasons, 35-58 overall -- and the Bears are headed for their worst season under him this season. They entered the week at 3-24 overall, 2-14 in the Pac-12. Two names buzzing for this job over the past couple of weeks are UC Santa Barbara's Joe Pasternack and San Jose State's Tim Miles.

Pasternack, 45, was a Cal assistant coach from 2001 through 2007 under Golden Bears head coach Ben Braun.

UC Santa Barbara has won at least 20 games in five of Pastrernacks's six years as the Gauchos head coach. UCSB is 20-7, including 11-5 in the Big West, this season. UCSB qualified for the NCAA tournament in 2020 and 2021, although the tournament was canceled in 2020.

After his time as Cal's assistant coach, Pasternack became the head coach at New Orleans for four seasons, going 19-13 in his first season in 2007-08.

At the beginning of his second season, New Orleans decided it could not continue in Division I with the economic problems created by Hurrican Katrina. The university let players transfer out as it began its transition out of Division I.

Pasternack went 11-19 in his second season at New Orleans and 8-22, including 3-15 in the Sun Belt Conference, in the third year. In his final year in his four-year contract, New Orleans went 16-6 as an independent.

After fulfilling his four-year contract, Pasternack became an assistant coach at Arizona, and he spent seven years as an assistant under Sean Miller.

He then took over at UC Santa Barbara team that had gone 6-22 the previous season.

Pasternack's Gauchos went 23-9 in his first season in 2017-18. UCSB then went 22-10 in 2018-19, followed by 21-10 in 2019-20, then 22-5 in 2020-21 (when the Gauchos finished first in the Big West) and 17-11 last season.

They are 20-7 this season with four games left before the Big West tournament. The Gauchos are currently riding a three-game losing streak.

Miles, 56, is currently the head coach at a nearby Bay Area school, San Jose State. The Spartans' basketball program has struggled for years, and they went 8-23, including 1-17 in the Mountain West, in Miles' first season as head coach in 2021-22.

But San Jose State is 16-12 overall and 7-8 in the conference this season, and it's the first time in 12 years the Spartans have won more than 14 games in a season. If they win at least two of their remaining four games (including a first-round Mountain West tournament game), San Jose State will have its most victories in a season since 1980-81, when it went 21-9, setting a program record for victories in a season as a major-college program.

However, the Spartans have lost their last two games.

Before San Jose State, Miles was the head coach at Nebraska for seven seasons. He had a 116-114 record with the Cornhuskers from 2012 to 2019, and Nebraska made it to the NCAA tournament in his second season in 2013-14, when the Cornhuskers finished fourth in the Big Ten.

He was fired after Nebraska went 19-17, including 6-14 in the Big Ten, in 2018-19., Miles did not coach for two years before taking the San Jose State job.

Cover photo of San Jose State head coach Tim Miles is by Candice Ward, USA TODAY Sports