One of ours.

Welcome home, Mark Pope 🫡

📰🔗 bit.ly/4cVACFh

Mark Pope can handle all your smoke. If he wins you’ll say you were with him all along. Support him and give him a chance and maybe it will all work out.

Count me among those who strongly believes this will be successful

Rick Pitino told me:

“If Mark Pope becomes the head coach of the University of Kentucky, it would be a dream for me, as he was the captain of one of the best teams ever constructed at Kentucky.”

If Mark Pope had never been an HC but been an asst on Cal's staff for 8 years + got promoted as the alum hire, people would probably shrug and be fine w/ this

Instead he had *three* top 20 KenPom teams at BYU and successfully transitioned to the Big 12

I'll take the latter

The year before he was hired at Duke, Coach K went 9-17 at Army.

Roy Williams was the third assistant at UNC when he was hired by Kansas.

Tom Izzo had never been a head coach when he was hired at Mich State.

Jay Wright never won a tourney game at Hofstra.

Carry on BBN.

Mark Pope does!!! Scott Drew said no this morning and Pope didn’t waste a second saying yes. You want a coach who can’t wait to get there, not one who needs to be convinced. I believe most UK fans understand that and are ready to get behind one of their own. Twitter isn’t real!!!

Mark Pope. Relentless…

BREAKING: Kentucky is expected to hire BYU’s Mark Pope, barring a last-second collapse in negotiations, source told The Field of 68.

Pope played for the Wildcats from 1994-96, has been the head coach at BYU since 2019.

Mark Pope is one of the most genuine, good people in college basketball.
What #BBN should know is, you’re getting an incredibly innovative coach — who has won and will continue to win.
I am THRILLED for Mark Pope!

If that’s the case then those folks don’t know what they’re watching. You can’t worry about them.

Like I said a few hours ago, I love my ‘96 champs. Every last one of ‘em. Nothing quite like a true Wildcat bringing all Big Blue fans back together again. Hope this becomes official very quickly. Mark Pope is a winner at BYU & will be a winner wherever he is next season.

I’d love to see Kentucky hire Mark Pope! He was an excellent teammate for us in Milwaukee and we all loved his hustle, grit and rebounding!

Kyle Tucker The Athletic CBB He’s smart, funny, charismatic, tough as shit. Will cut you competitively. Reminds me a lot of Danny Ainge.

Here’s what I will say about Mark Pope:

He has way more shit to him than most realize.

Kentucky Men’s Basketball is getting a very good coach. And he’s one of yours. It would actually be cool to see if the Commonwealth can get behind him.

If Mark Pope is the next coach at Kentucky as these reports indicate I think it’s a great move. Mark is super smart and engaging, coaches an entertaining style, understands the job and won’t get caught up in the wrong stuff. All things considered this ended well for Kentucky.

Nazr Mohammed Antoine Walker said on a podcast that the 1996 National Championship has a group chat. How lit is that group chat tonight?

Naz with the assist…