Mark Pope Is a Great Choice as Kentucky Basketball Coach: One Fan's View

The University of Kentucky's hire of Mark Pope as its new men's basketball coach is a wise decision in this fan's opinion.

Mark Pope has a reputation of integrity. That's important to UK athletic director Mitch Barnhart. It's key to many others too, including me.

Furthermore, Mark Pope has done a nice job of recruiting talented players. He's coached that talent well. And he's won many games. Details about his coaching record can be found on numerous webpages, including one on ESPN.

That past success of Pope's is not enough to make UK fans happy. But he can and will do much better at Kentucky.

UK's tradition, facilities, and other things, such as increased access to NIL money for players at UK compared to Brigham Young University, where Pope had been coaching, will help him 

As the new coach for the Wildcats, Pope likely won't recruit as well as John Calipari. Nor would anyone else as I see it.

Calipari is arguably the greatest recruiter in college basketball history. But this fan (me) thinks Pope will work out well overall.

Below is a photo of a UK banner I've kept for years. I'm a big fan.

By the way, the new coach has past ties to the Kentucky Wildcats. He played his final two seasons of college basketball at Kentucky. Pope was even a captain on the 1996 Kentucky team that won the NCAA title.

Mark Pope enjoys a reputation as a highly intelligent, extremely hard worker. He even attended medical school for two years after ending the NBA career that followed his college days.

The hire saves UK money too. Pope's annual salary at Kentucky is reported to be about $5.5 million dollars annually according to CBS Sports's Matt Norlander. That's about $3 million dollars a year less than John Calipari would be making at UK.

Still, Pope may be one of the ten highest paid men's college basketball coaches in the country next year. And when you're earning millions of dollars a year, are a few extra million that significant? That extra $3 million may be used to help in other ways.

Religion

Jokes may come since former Kentucky coach John Calipari was a Roman Catholic. Persons may say, "UK used to just have a Catholic. Now they have a Pope."

Mark Pope is actually a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons). His Christian faith is important to him.

However, he welcomes religious diversity. His last team at Brigham Young University featured persons of various faiths according to an article on Deseret.com.

Furthermore, I'm confident Coach Mark Pope will be an excellent role model for his players and Big Blue Nation as a whole. I'm assuming that Coach Pope abstains from alcoholic beverages, tobacco, adultery, and numerous other vices such as major NCAA violations. Wrongdoing has led to the downfall of many coaches.

Fanatical Fans and UK Coaches

Kentucky's huge and often fanatical fan base is a blessing for coaches at times, but can be fickle too.

Pope will find pleasing UK fans tough.

Every University of Kentucky men's basketball coach for over 90 years has left the university under pressure of some type, feeling the need to move on due to lack of support, except for Rick Pitino. And Pitino experienced problems on and off the court at other coaching jobs after leaving UK.

Even Adolph Rupp, who had achieved more wins than any other men's college basketball coach in history at the time of his retirement, left under pressure.

He was forced to retire at age 70. That was the University of Kentucky's mandatory retirement age at the time.

By then Rupp's record of 4 NCAA titles for a coach had been surpassed by UCLA's John Wooden. 

The UK program has succeeded under multiple coaches though. Five different Kentucky Wildcats head men's basketball coaches have won a total of eight NCAA titles: Adolph Rupp (4), Joe Hall, Rick Pitino, Tubby Smith, and John Calipari. No other university can lay claim to such success by so many coaches 

I optimistically expect Mark Pope to carry on the tradition for the Big Blue Nation. It's unrealistic to expect him to win title #9 for the Cats this upcoming season.  It's not happening the following year either. However, I'm confident he will succeed. NCAA title #9 (and more) may come during his coaching career at UK.

Big Blue fans who preferred another coach to be hired or for Calipari to stay will largely unite behind Pope--at least until he loses his first game. 

Furthermore, the new coach's faith, integrity, hard work, and determination can help reduce the number of those losses--and enable him to cope with fan displeasure at them.

Perspective

UK fans need to be realistic. Since John Wooden won 10 NCAA titles during a 12 year period at UCLA, Kentucky has been #2 in a sense. Neither Mark Pope nor anyone else is likely to break Coach Wooden's record.

Still, I'm looking forward to the upcoming season. Mark Pope will lead UK's men's basketball team proudly, humbly, with hard work, and--I'll state it again--integrity.

Last but not least, let's seek to keep college basketball in perspective. It's only a game. It's a minor thing in the grand scheme of things. Many (certainly including me) need to devote less time to following college basketball and more time to more important things.

Note: This article was last revised on April 13th, 2024.