After the shocking departure of John Calipari to Arkansas, Kentucky basketball was looking for a new head coach for the first time in 15 years. College basketball fans across the country assumed that the Wildcats would get the best candidate for the job. However, as time went on big names like Scott Drew, Danny Hurley, and Nate Oats all turned down the position. This led Kentucky to hire a less flashy candidate; Mark Pope from BYU.
Kentucky Basketball Makes Unexpected Head Coaching Hire
Pope has had a good career as a head coach. He had a winning record at both Utah Valley and BYU and has only had one season with a losing record overall. He has had numerous twenty-win seasons and has major conference coaching experience as BYU was in the Big 12 this year.
Pope also has SEC experience. He played at Kentucky under Rick Pitino and was an assistant at Georgia earlier in his career. However, he has not coached at a program of Kentucky’s caliber.
Fan Reaction
Despite his solid career and connections to the program, Kentucky fans have had mixed reactions to this hire. This is understandable. At the start of the search, it seemed like they would be getting one of the best hires possible. But things just didn’t work out. Now with Pope, fans are questioning his resume. Most notably his lack of tournament success. Pope has made March Madness only twice and has not won a tournament game in either season. Not only has he not won a game, but BYU was the higher-ranked seed in both scenarios. In 2021 the Cougars lost to 11-seed UCLA and in 2024 they lost to 11-seed Duquense. He has also never won a conference tournament or regular season title. The best he has finished is second in the conference. Twice in the WAC with Utah Valley and twice in the WCC with BYU.
What This Means for Kentucky and Other Big Programs
This process is very telling about the new age of college basketball. Both Kentucky and Louisville struggled to higher “big-time candidates”. Both programs are considered to be some of the most desirable jobs in the sport, yet they could not attract the best names. Many factors go into this but one of the major reasons is fan expectations. At Blue Blood and other big programs, you are expected to make deep tournament runs and win championships.
If not, the fans will turn on you quickly. Just take a look at John Calipari. He won a national championship at Kentucky and has made multiple final fours, but a four-year stretch of above-average basketball made the fans call for his head. So he decided to leave for a program with similar resources and far lower expectations.
Similarly, at Louisville, they had to settle for Charleston’s Pat Kelsey as their new head coach. While Kelsey has been viewed as a promising coach, the Cardinals had higher expectations for who would be leading their program. Some other big programs like Duke, Syracuse, and North Carolina did not even look externally during their recent coaching searches. We will have to continue to monitor big programs in the future to see what happens. Indiana, Michigan State, and Maryland could all be in the coaching search next season, should this year go poorly. We will have to see how those possible searches are handled.
