Report: Mark Pope adds Cody Fueger, Mark Fox, Jason Hart to Kentucky coaching staff

The puzzle pieces under new Kentucky head coach Mark Pope are slowly coming together. Along with former BYU assistant Cody Fueger, Pope is reportedly hiring former Georgia head coach Mark Fox and G-League Ignite head coach Jason Hart, per the Athletic’s Kyle Tucker.

Mark Fox and Pope have history. When Pope dropped out of medical school in 2009, Fox hired him to be Georgia’s director of basketball operations for the 2009-10 season. With head coaching experience at Nevada, Georgia and California, Pope boasts a career 324-263 record.

Jason Hart also has no shortage of experience. Hart played 10 years in the NBA before beginning his coaching career. His first collegiate coaching gig was at Pepperdine, but Hart quickly rose up the ranks and secured an assistant coaching position at USC.

In 2021, Hart was named the head coach of the NBA G League Ignite, a developmental team for players coming out of high school that plays against other teams in the NBA G League. Now, he will look to help Pope develop players at the collegiate level.

Mark Pope hires former BYU assistant Cody Fueger

Pope and Fueger 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.

Now, Fueger will follow Pope again. The pair, along with Pope’s other hires, will look to replace Kentucky head coach John Calipari and Co., who left the program to take over at Arkansas.