When news started circulating Sunday that John Calipari was nearing a deal to be the next coach at Arkansas, Kentucky fans celebrated on social media and seemed largely thrilled to be getting the change in leadership they desperately wanted after another disappointing exit from the NCAA Tournament.
Four nights later, those same folks were melting down.
Mark Pope?
Yes, Mark Pope.
After missing on UConn’s Dan Hurley and Baylor’s Scott Drew, Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart quickly turned his attention to BYU’s Mark Pope. They reached an agreement Thursday night, announced their agreement Friday morning. And though UK fans might grow to love the move in time, there’s no denying the news was initially met with equal parts of confusion and disappointment, presumably because when you run off a Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame coach with six Final Four appearances and the 2012 national championship on his resume, you just don’t expect to end up replacing him with someone who has never won a conference championship or even a single NCAA Tournament game.
UK fans had bigger dreams.
And I’d be lying if I said I don’t understand their frustration. No, Dan Hurley was never exiting UConn after back-to-back national championships. And I’m not surprised that, in the end, Scott Drew just couldn’t pull the trigger and leave the Baylor program he built from nothing. So I don’t think it’s reasonable to be frustrated that Barnhart couldn’t land either of those coaches. But there’s a big gap between where this search started and where it ended. And, frankly, any fanbase would be frustrated to watch a search close with the hiring of a man who was really only a candidate because he wore the jersey three decades earlier (Pope) when it began with hopes of either hiring the man who won the 2021 NCAA Tournament (Drew) or the man who won the 2023 and 2024 NCAA Tournaments (Hurley).
But none of that matters now.
What’s done is…
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