Mark Pope, John Calipari and the rest of the conference’s college basketball coaches are in Destin, FL this week for the annual SEC Spring Meetings.
Pope recently showed the former longtime Kentucky basketball head coach some love, saying that he’ll forever be “grateful” to the new Arkansas headman for what he did during tenure which included bringing a national championship to his alma mater. Calipari had similar praise for Pope, but forewarned him on the pressures he’ll have to face while taking over his old seat.
“I thought it was a terrific hire,” Calipari said on Wednesday in Destin. “Mark [Pope] and I have spent time together. He’s a good man. He and I talked on the Friday morning when I was at the Final Four. He couldn’t have been more — you know, he’s a former player. Proud of what Kentucky was doing. Didn’t know he would be the coach at that point, but I think it’s a terrific hire.
“There are things they gotta do that they know they gotta do now. No options. You either do them or — you know. They’re doing them from what I understand.”
Calipari and Pope were both in Indianapolis recruiting at the same AAU tournament alongside some of the bigger names in the college basketball coaching industry.
Both Calipari and Pope have been busy putting together their teams for next season as both inherited essentially empty rosters. Calipari had no scholarship players after Eric Musselman departed from Arkansas earlier in the offseason and it was almost academic that Calipari’s former recruits would move on to the transfer portal — a handful of which have already committed to the former UK head coach.
For Pope, he has gathered a transfer portal class featuring a handful veterans so far to fit his unique offensive schemes.
Many fans within BBN argued that Calipari’s use of the one-and-done method of recruiting and building his roster held the Wildcats back over the last several years. Calipari even admitted to this in Destin, saying that eventually his 18 and 19-year-olds were going to run into a team filled grown men in their four, fifth and sixth seasons in college.
Pope has built the exact opposite. Kentucky won’t be at the top of any recruiting class this offseason. Four-star guard Travis Perry, who is the all-time leading scorer in Kentucky high school basketball history, and Trent Noah, another Kentucky native, are the only true freshman, as of this report, that will be on Pope’s inaugural squad as of this report.
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