Quickly after Kentucky’s first round loss to Oakland; fans wanted immediate change and improvement from results from the past few years. The only thing keeping us from making immediate coaching changes was the buyout on Coach Calipari being $33 million. This made it very difficult for Kentucky to fire or move on from their head coach. However; Kentucky’s former head coach John Calipari jumped ship and packed his bags heading for Arkansas. On April 7th, Arkansas hired John Calipari to be their new head coach for the next five seasons. This was the change Kentucky needed right? Kentucky has lost many players decommitting or entering the transfer portal due to Calipari leaving. Although they made the coaching change they still had to hire a new head coach and rebuild the team. They looked through many options including: Dan Hurley, Drew Scott, and potentially Bruce Pearl. After having some of these interests denied; they eventually decided to go with former Kentucky play and current BYU coach Mark Pope. 

    Mark Pope is a former player for Kentucky Basketball from 1994-96 and also was a part of the beloved 96’ National Championship team. So he knows the history of Kentucky basketball and what it takes to win a national championship as a player. The question is; can he do it now as a coach? Mark Pope coached at BYU for the past 5 seasons and found 2 March Madness appearances. Pope recently had his press conference at Kentucky and was found to be a huge hit and went very well. Big Blue nation showed out and filled up the stadium completely to show support for Pope’s arrival.

    Even though some people are starting to get on Mark Pope train and believe he can do very well. Kentucky still does not have very much of a team. A lot of players entered the transfer portal after John Calipari left or entered their name into the NBA draft. Mark Pope has basically been dealt nothing and has to build this team from the ground up by himself. With a new coach entering one of the greatest college basketball teams of all time and responsible for building most of the team. People are left wondering if this was the right move to make.