Remember the night the world fell apart when reports came out that Mitch Barnhart was targeting BYU’s Mark Pope to replace Hall of Fame coach John Calipari at Kentucky? What an incredible swing of emotions from those first seconds and minutes to hours and days to weeks and months. Trying to track those approval ratings would be a hilarious disaster.
How are things looking for the new head coach in Lexington today? High. Extremely high, especially after he has secured the commitment of the best center in high school basketball. The staff is great, the roster is competitive, life is going well for the Wildcats – at least until the games are played and The The evaluation process begins.
It may have been a rocky start, but now that the dust of the offseason has settled, there is optimism. Don’t quite trust your gut yet? Maybe you can convince some college basketball coaches that Kentucky is in a good position with Pope.
In a poll of over 100 men’s Division I coaches conducted by Gary Parrish and Matt Norlander of CBS Sports, Pope was voted the third-best high-profile coach of the 2024 cycle.
8.5 percent of participants voted Pope the best coach. Only Dusty May of Michigan with 21.7 percent and John Calipari of Arkansas with 43.4 percent were better.
“He’s not a guy who’s looking for a microphone every 10 minutes to give his opinion. He doesn’t make a lot of excuses. Basketball is what drives him,” an anonymous coach said of Pope. “Underrated talent scout, very good talent scout and knows how to be ahead offensively and impossible to defend in open space. Uses his personnel like a surgeon. Everyone on the court is really good at something and they’ll buy into that role.”
“I know this isn’t the guy Kentucky fans wanted to replace Cal with – but he’s already won them over. He’ll be great there,” added another. “And he’s really a brilliant offensive coach. So not only will he be good there, but he’ll be fun to watch. He might not dominate the recruiting rankings like Cal does because a lot of schools use NIL. But he’ll get good players and win big.”
From there, Pat Kelsey of Louisville and Kevin Young of BYU finished fourth with 4.7 percent, followed by Kyle Smith of Stanford with 3.8 percent. Jake Diebler of Ohio State, Darian DeVries of West Virginia, Andy Enfield of SMU, Chris Holtmann of DePaul, Steve Lutz of Oklahoma State, Eric Musselman of USC and Danny Sprinkle of Washington also received votes.
What did the coaches have to say about our old buddy Coach Cal?
“Cal stayed in Kentucky too long. He knows that now,” one said. “But I talked to him along the way and you can just tell a heavy weight has been lifted off him. I’d be shocked if he doesn’t get back to the Final Four. He’s going to win big again. He’s got everything he needs to win big again.”
“Calipari is the best signing. (His) track record at every stop is at the highest level in the sport,” added another. “… Arkansas could sneak its best stop with all the power of the reserves and fans. And the less attention in the back (gives) him some breathing room. He’ll enjoy it more there.”
And then you had nothing left to say except a quick one-liner.
“The only Hall of Fame guy anyone hired. Period.”
I guess we’ll have to wait and see who the best of the bunch is. However, it’s pretty clear that we like our guy here in Lexington for the 2024-25 season.
