Mark Pope Officially Becomes UK's 23rd Basketball Coach

[KentuckyWild2020]

Mark Pope came off the bus holding the trophy, savage lol..

Understand the assignment...

Bobby Hurley sucked before UCONN

Pope will be fine............

[Joneslab]

Bobby Hurley sucked before UCONN....

Danny Hurley...but he didn't suck. Not even close.

Took Wagner of all places to 25 wins. Then took Rhode island to two consecutive round of 32 games.

His build at UCONN took four years. I wouldn't expect the same for Pope because we have a little more built in here to help him succeed...but it wouldn't surprise me at all if we weren't sitting here in April of 2027 and fans are grumbling a little about how long it's been since we've been to a Final Four. I wouldn't expect magic right away, but on the other hand I wouldn't expect us to be under .500 the way Hurley's first team was at UCONN. (I believe that team had been hit with Kevin Ollie sanctions.)

[justafan]

IMO, without sanctions of some kind, no one coming to UK with some amount of time (to hit the portal) should be below .500. I don't think that's unreasonable with the number of OOC games and winning some mount of SEC games.

[KentuckyWild2020]

Danny Hurley...but he didn't suck. Not even close.

Took Wagner of all places to 25 wins. Then took Rhode island to two consecutive round of 32 games.

His build at UCONN took four years. I wouldn't expect the same for Pope because we have a little more built in here to help him succeed...but it wouldn't surprise me at all if we weren't sitting here in April of 2027 and fans are grumbling a little about how long it's been since we've been to a Final Four. I wouldn't expect magic right away, but on the other hand I wouldn't expect us to be under .500 the way Hurley's first team was at UCONN. (I believe that team had been hit with Kevin Ollie sanctions.)

From 2010-16 he sucked but I get it...


Hurley made the right choice in my opinion staying at Uconn, why fix it if it isn't broke.

Laying all jokes aside, the portal could be our saving grace until the new brand is built by Pope, at least I hope it is..

Pope basically said he's looking for a GM to handle all that for him...

[Joneslab]

IMO, without sanctions of some kind, no one coming to UK with some amount of time (to hit the portal) should be below .500. I don't think that's unreasonable with the number of OOC games and winning some mount of SEC games.

No, surely not. It would be crazy.

And, honestly, it's impossible to know what to expect next year. Gonna have to get a roster together first.

Tubby Smith is the closest analog to Mark Pope that we've hired. Tubby had more NCAA Tournament success at Tulsa and the one year at Georgia but he probably didn't have the season in a power conference Pope had last year at BYU. But if you look at Tubby's path, after the national championship the build for him lasted until basically 2003. So it was a four-year process that didn't have deep valleys, but also didn't have super high peaks. It wasn't until that powerful 2003 team that he really put "his" system in and had that three-year span that was pretty devastating.

The portal makes it so that we likely won't have to wait those three or four years. But we might have to wait for Pope's younger players to grow up, and that could be where the magic starts.

It'll be fun to watch regardless. It'll also require some patience, and we're not great at that as a rule.

[TrueblueCATfan]

I Saw This on WDRB this morning...at the time of hiring Mark Pope is the oldest coach to ever be hired at UK

He is 51 years old

[justafan]

Fans definitely enjoyed this past years team. If Pope can get some players to play the system he had at BYU the fans should be entertained. Sure he's going to drop games when 3s aren't dropping, etc. BYU #3 in 3pt makes (11.1/gm) and UK #16 (9.9/gm). UKs 3pt % was #1 at 40.9%, BYU lower at 34.7%. Fast break points (roughly) UK: 15 vs. BYU 12.

So, it could be an entertaining season even with a few more losses. Heck, win a single game in the post season and its a "win"

[Lighthouse]

I think a lot of things he threw out had been discussed by former players amongst themselves. I have to think the '96 guys in particular had a much harder time with Calipari than any of them (except Anderson) let on. I took what Pope said as basically the stuff a fan would say...and many of us fans have said that stuff over the years.

And we said it over and over.

[Joneslab]

Odd fact: Lee Anne Pope, Mark's wife, was at one time David Letterman's personal assistant. He apparently wished her well on the air and recalled watching Pope when he played for the Pacers.

Sorta neat.

[DA#23]

Now it’s official

If you haven’t viewed Jon Scott’s amazing site, you really ought to do so. Just an amazing amount of info and such a special gift to the Kentucky Fanbase.

Cats Pause and the yearbooks are amazing, and for me Jon’s site is every bit as special.

[Jeff ROCKober]

Now it’s official

If you haven’t viewed Jon Scott’s amazing site, you really ought to do so. Just an amazing amount of info and such a special gift to the Kentucky Fanbase.

Cats Pause and the yearbooks are amazing, and for me Jon’s site is every bit as special.

Cal had not one recruited player listed for career SEC Tourney points. He did have a few for the NCAA.

[justafan]

Mostly OT - but I wonder when the person that owns "firecoachcal.com" domain releases it. I guess they could advertise it towards the Arkansas fans......

[DA#23]

If you would like to listen to or watch his first radio show with Tom Leach, you can find it here

[Joneslab]

Really interesting story about Mark Pope and his days at Utah Valley State. What this reminds me of is some of the things John Calipari said he was trying to do when he was first hired at UMASS.

https://www.on3.com/sites/kentucky-wildcats/news/mark-pope-had-some-crazy-ideas-while-head-coach-at-utah-valley/