Mitch Barnhart has found his John Calipari replacement.
Per CBS Sports’ Matt Norlander, BYU head coach Mark Pope is in line to become Kentucky’s next head coach. ” Kentucky has lined up BYU’s Mark Pope to be its next coach, sources tell. Nothing is signed at this hour, but the sides are quickly working toward a deal and hope to get it done by the end of the night.”
The 51-year-old Pope has been featured on all three of The Cats’ Pause hot boards.
Pope began his college career at Washington and transferred to Kentucky ahead of the 1993-94 season.
After a mandatory redshirt year, Pope averaged 8.2 points and 6.3 rebounds for the Cats during the 1995-96 national championship season, averaging 7.6 points per game with 5.2 rebounds. He was selected in the second round of the 1996 NBA Draft by the Indiana Pacers and spent parts of six seasons in the NBA between the Pacers, Milwaukee Bucks and Denver Nuggets.
He began his coaching career as an assistant at Georgia during the 2009-10 season under Mark Fox and at Wake Forest under Jeff Bzdelik during the 2010-11 season.
Pope then went west to serve as an assistant under Dave Rose at BYU from 2011-15 before being hired as Utah Valley’s head coach ahead of the 2015-19 season.
In four years as head coach of the Wolverines, he posted a 77–56 overall record, leading the team to three CBI appearances.
In his final season at Utah Valley, Pope went 25-10 and to the CBI quarterfinals. He was hired as BYU’s head coach ahead of the 2019-20 season.
He holds a 110-52 record as Cougars head coach with two NCAA Tournament appearances (2021 and 2023) and a trip to the 2022 NIT quarterfinals.
The 2020-21 season saw the Cougars go 20-7 and earn a No. 6 seed to the NCAA Tournament but lose to UCLA in the Round of 64. This past season, Pope led BYU to a 23-11 mark and 10-8 record in its debut season in the Big 12. His team reached the quarterfinals of the Big 12 tournament by winning its opening game over UCF but fell to Texas Tech.
As a No. 6 seed in the NCAA Tournament, Pope’s Cougars lost to Duquesne in the Round of 64.
Pope’s 2023-24 Cougars were led in scoring by 6-foot-7 guard Jaxson Robinson who averaged 14.2 points per game and has one year of remaining college eligibility.
BYU’s 2024 freshman recruiting class ranks 67th best in the country with three-star combo guard Brooks Bahr and three-star power forward Isaac Davis signed.
Pope is set to become the eighth head coach in the modern era at Kentucky, and the third was hired by Barnhart, joining Billy Gillispie and Calipari.
