Hours after news broke of Kentucky’s plans to hire Mark Pope to replace John Calipari, contract details are starting to emerge. Pope is set to finalize a five-year contract worth $5.5 million per year, CBS Sports’ Matt Norlander reported.
Pope’s salary is set to be about $3 million less than Calipari’s after he made $8.5 million in 2023, according to USA Today. It would now put him ahead of Baylor coach Scott Drew – who turned down the Kentucky job Thursday afternoon – for the sixth-highest paid coach in the country.
Drew was the the first candidate to back out of Kentucky’s coaching search on Thursday, announcing his plans to stay at Baylor rather than leave to replace Calipari. The search then turned to UConn coach Dan Hurley, who also made it clear he planned to stay in Storrs after leading the Huskies to back-to-back national championships for the first time since the Billy Donovan-led Florida teams did it in 2006 and 2007.
In fact, the expectation was Donovan would be the next call. UK reached out, according to multiple reports, but it sounds like he’s happy coaching the Chicago Bulls in the NBA and he decided not to pursue the job as the franchise gets ready to play in the Play-In Tournament next week.
Still, Pope’s hire came as a surprise – at least, the timing did considering the list of candidates. It wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment call, though.
According to Norlander, the BYU head coach became a candidate in the last few days and it was not an “impromptu decision” by athletics director Mitch Barnhart. Pope and Kentucky previously scheduled a meeting for Thursday in case some of the higher-profile candidates “fell through” in the search following Calipari’s departure.
Pope is no stranger to Lexington, of course. He was a captain on the 1996 national championship-winning tean at Kentucky under Rick Pitino. In fact, Pitino voiced his support for Pope to get the role before the news broke.
“I love Mark Pope and his family and he would be an unbelievable choice,” Pitino told NJ.com’s Adam Zagoria.
BYU is coming off a 23-11 overall record this past season, including a 10-8 mark in its first Big 12 season. In fact, the Cougars ranked ahead of Kentucky in the final KenPom rankings. BYU ranked No. 18 while UK was No. 23.
All told, the Cougars amassed a 110-52 record after Pope took over the program in 2019.
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