Mark Pope hires BYU assistant Cody Fueger to Kentucky staff

Mark Pope believes in the staff that helped him build up BYU, and that’s why he wants to keep some of it together at Kentucky. The new Wildcats coach is bringing on former Cougars assistant Cody Fueger to his staff in Lexington, according to KSR’s Matt Jones.

The pair spent five seasons together at BYU and Fueger was also on Pope’s staff at Utah Valley from 2015-19. Now they will continue to work alongside each other as they take over a Kentucky team coming off of a first-round exit in the NCAA Tournament for the second time in the past three seasons.

Fueger and Pope helped direct BYU to a winning record in each of the past five seasons, reaching 20 or more wins four times in that span. The Cougars twice appeared in the NCAA Tournament, including this past season when they fell in the first round against Duquesne.

Fueger is a graduate of Utah, where he began his coaching career as a student assistant and video coordinator with the Utes in 2002. He later moved into a role as Director of Basketball Operations at Louisiana Tech upon his graduation.

He stayed with the Bulldogs until 2011, when he later moved to UC Riverside in the same role. Fueger met Pope at BYU in 2013 when he was the Cougars’ Director of Basketball Operations. Just two years later when Pope accepted the head coaching position at UVU, he would give Fueger his first opportunity as an assistant.

Kentucky is set to enter a new era after John Calipari left to become the coach at Arkansas. Now the Wildcats have a new head coach for the first time in the past 15 seasons. There’s plenty of optimism that Pope can lead UK back to the glory days it is used to, and Cody Fueger will certainly play a big role in that as one of his most trusted assistants.

Pope brings a solid track record with a 187-108 overall record as a head coach. However, now he prepares to take on a new challenge of leading a blue blood program back to where it feels it belongs.

He’ll have an uphill battle to start as the Wildcats have already lost a few key pieces to the transfer portal including Zvonimir Ivisic and Adou Thiero. However, as he pieces his staff together, the future is only beginning to look brighter for Kentucky.