Mitch Barnhart praises Mark Pope: 'Anybody can recruit, but not everybody can evaluate'

Mark Pope can do no wrong for Big Blue Nation after two weeks of the 2024-25 college basketball season have been played. With Kentucky 3-0 and off to a hot start on the recruiting trail — he has the backing of a united BBN and athletic director Mitch Barnhart.

It’s no secret that the Pope hire was a Barnhart brainchild — and his support for Pope can be seen in his celebration after Kentucky sealed the victory against Duke on Tuesday. He was even in the front lines on the locker room waiting to spray water/Gatorade on the victorious Wildcats.

What also is no secret — Barnhart’s strained relationship with former head coach John Calipari. The two were reported to have close to no relationship during the latter stages of Calipari’s tenure, which is right around the same time Big Blue Nation began to become disgruntled with the continuous recruiting success with nothing but NBA Draft picks to show for it.

“Anybody can recruit, but not everybody can evaluate,” Barnhart said on the official UK pregame show ahead of Kentucky’s football game vs. Murray State. “You can recruit and you can be phenomenal at going out, bringing people into your program. But if it doesn’t fit your, it’s really not helpful”

Kentucky AD Mitch Barnhart on the start Mark Pope is off to:

"Anybody can recruit. But not everybody can evaluate. You can be phenomenal at recruiting. But if it doesn't fit your program, it's really not helpful" 😳pic.twitter.com/4FdD52DMIM

— The Field of 68 (@TheFieldOf68) November 16, 2024

Whether you take that as a jab or not, Barnhart is echoing Pope’s recent sentiment when discussing his trio of 2025 recruits — two of which are Kentucky natives, including five-star guard Jasper Johnson.

“These are kids that are seeing something way bigger than just themselves. And they care about the right things. It’s guys that I want to coach. .. They fit the way we play on a basketball court,” Pope said of Johnson, 7-footer Malachi Moreno and Acaden Lewis. “Their skillset really vibes with how we want to attack this game.”

That continues the theme of Pope wanting his players to embrace the name on the front of their jersey, a fan favorite theme to BBN.

Pope seems to have found a group of guys this offseason that are willing to do just that. This team will likely set the standard for the Mark Pope era in the same way the team led by John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins did for Calipari, just without the NBA level starpower.

That doesn’t mean Pope’s Wildcats won’t be as productive as Calipari’s during his first few seasons, though. With the implimentation of NIL and the transfer portal in college athletics, the one-and-done era that Calipari perfected is no longer the law of the land. Older, experienced teams have become more successful in recent seasons, and Pope has put together a team for this season to compensate that.

Add in some four and five-star level talents to the mix each offseason, and Pope could develop a happy medium between high-potential young talent and experienced veterans on his roster each season.

How selective Pope will be in this recruiting process remains to be seen, but it’s clear he has the support of his athletic director — and the fanbase — heading into the bulk of non-conference play in 2024.