Mark Pope on John Calipari: 'All of us will be grateful to him forever'

Despite the way that things ended for John Calipari at Kentucky, it doesn’t take away from all he accomplished in the eyes of Mark Pope. The new Wildcats basketball coach made it clear in a recent press conference that Calipari will always have a place in Big Blue Nation.

Calipari trails only the legendary Adolph Rupp for the most wins in Kentucky history with a 410-123 record in Lexington. He coached countless NBA Draft picks, made four Final Four appearances and even won a national title in 2012.

His relationship with the fan base had seemed to sour over the final few seasons, and was exacerbated by a couple of first-round NCAA Tournament upsets. Now Pope, a Kentucky alumnus, will work on rejuvenating the program while also acknowledging the impact Calipari left behind.

“Cal is one of the great coaches to ever coach here,” Pope said. He went to four Final Fours in five years, coached a bunch of draft picks and represented Kentucky really, really well. Gave his heart and soul to this place. As BBN, and I’m just as much a member of BBN as anybody, all of us will be grateful to him forever. He’s a Hall of Fame coach.

“One of the things that you learn really early on if you have great mentors in this game is you just have to coach you. I have to be me. I can’t be coach Pitino. I can’t be Tubby. I can’t be Cal. It would be disingenuous and my guys wouldn’t actually believe it if I tried to take on that persona or personality. We’re us. I love getting to coach me.”

Kentucky has not been to the Sweet Sixteen since 2019 and is coming off of a loss to No. 14 seed Oakland this past March Madness. That led to some speculation about Calipari’s future, and he ended it by leaving to take the job at Arkansas.

Pope was left to essentially rebuild the roster from scratch after several Wildcats players transferred, including members of their incoming freshman staff. It’s a completely new team and new staff, and the new coach is going to do things his way going forward as he hopes to live up to the legacy the coaches before him built.

“I’m a big believer in what we do and our staff,” Pope said. “So I think right now, we’re just trying to do everything we can to build on this incredible legacy that is Kentucky basketball and do it the way that we know how to do it that we really believe is gonna work. Cal has been super generous. I’ve had a chance to speak with him multiple times. He’s always been generous throughout my whole career.

“But as you step into this job, this is the only one of its kind. We’ve gotta go do this the best way we can and it’s us. Certainly I’ve been huge fans of these coaches and the coaches who coached me, so I steal stuff from every single one of those coaches, but we’re trying to do us.”