Mark Pope
Mark Pope is the head men’s basketball coach at the University of Kentucky. The official announcement came on April 12, 2024, and Pope—captain of the Kentucky's 1996 National Championship team—is thrilled to return to his alma mater. He called it the "pinnacle of coaching in college basketball."[1] In taking the position, he left his successful head coaching career at Brigham Young University. At the time of his appointment to BYU in 2019, he was head coach at Utah Valley University. Under his leadership, the Wolverine teams went from 12 wins in 2015–16 to 25 wins in 2018–19 and set several Wolverine records. Prior to his four seasons at UVU, he was an assistant coach at Georgia, Wake Forest, and BYU.
He played professionally in the NBA for nine years with the Indiana Pacers, Milwaukee Bucks, New York Knicks, and Denver Nuggets.
During his collegiate career playing at Washington, he earned Pac-10 Freshman of the Year honors and set a Washington freshman single-season record. He earned All-Academic honors from the Pac-10 as a sophomore. He transferred to Kentucky during his junior year. He helped the Wildcats win back-to-back SEC titles, advance to the NCAA Elite Eight in 1995 and win the NCAA National Championship in 1996. He earned Academic All-SEC honors in 1995 and graduated in 1996.
He and his wife, Lee Anne, are the parents of four daughters.
In May 2020, Sports Illustrated ran a feature praising Mark Pope. The article said, in part, "He is one of the buzz coaches in college basketball. He is winning games and winning recruiting battles—most recently beating Kentucky’s John Calipari and Texas Tech’s Chris Beard in late April for the nation’s top available graduate transfer, Purdue’s Matt Haarms. Landing the 7-foot-3 Haarms could upgrade BYU’s 2020–21 season from a transition year to maintaining national relevance. Pope’s first season at BYU was a 24-8 triumph that included a 13-3 record in what probably was the best-ever version of West Coast Conference." (Read full article here.)
