On3's Andy Staples: 'Mark Pope is Going to Succeed or Fail on His Own Merits' at Kentucky
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Mark Pope is officially the new head coach at Kentucky and many are wondering what kind of an impact he’ll have in Lexington.
On3 national analyst Andy Staples sees this as a great opportunity for Pope, especially as an alumnus of the program and a 1996 national title winner as a player. Still, Staples told KSR+ that his success won’t be determined by his connection to the program.
“Mark Pope is going to succeed or fail on his own merits as a coach, not because he played at Kentucky,” Staples said.
Staples doesn’t think it matters much from a win-loss perspective that Pope is an alumnus of Kentucky (or that he won a national championship as a player there). The statistics show that it doesn’t make a big difference.
“The only thing it does is that it gives them a kind of natural connection to start with, but it doesn’t really change the end result,” he said.
Kentucky is a ‘Completely Different Job’ Than BYU
The biggest question with Mark Pope at Kentucky comes in the recruiting space. Pope hasn’t been known as an elite recruiter, but he’s also been hampered by the small pool of potential targets to come to a school owned by the Mormon church.
“You’re recruiting guys who are willing to go to BYU and follow the honor code,” Staples said. “It’s a way of life that’s not like a lot of major college athletic programs.”
Pope has never operated at a program with such a recruiting pedigree as Kentucky. Nobody knows what to expect.
“We haven’t seen him operate at a place where you can pretty much recruit anybody you want,” Staples said. “I guarantee you everybody is going to love what he says in the press conference. He’s very engaging, very interesting. He’s going to impress people with the way he talks about what he plans to do at Kentucky.”
That leaves only one question. It’s one that can’t be answered until the ball tips off next season.
“Can he pull it off?”
‘I Don’t Think Mitch Barnhart Failed’
Kentucky pursued some very high-profile names during this coaching search such as UConn’s Dan Hurley and Baylor’s Scott Drew. Hiring Mark Pope afterward caused many fans of Big Blue Nation to criticize the efforts of athletic director Mitch Barnhart. Staples doesn’t think the anger is fully warranted.
“They went after the guys they were supposed to go after,” Staples said. “You could say, Mitch Barnhart whiffed. He didn’t whiff. He tried to hire people who would have been very difficult to hire.”
Drew initially seemed like the obvious choice to pursue. He was the one who would listen to Kentucky.
“This isn’t 20 years ago. Baylor has lots of money too right now,” Staples said. “If you’re comfortable at Baylor and you’re making millions of dollars and you’ve already won a national title there, you don’t need to go to a blue-blood program to do things differently. You’re still going to make millions of dollars and you’re still going to have a chance to win national titles. It’s kind of a different world that Kentucky is operating in and it makes it tougher.”
Staples also doesn’t see Drew as someone who’s looking to climb to the “most prestigious program.” He’s going to do what makes him feel comfortable. Hurley doesn’t exactly fall into that camp either.
“Why would you leave a situation where everything is absolutely perfect right now,” Staples asked. “I don’t think Mitch Barnhart failed by trying to get those guys and not getting them. I think it was always going to be difficult to get those guys. Then you’re going to have to move on to what’s realistic. That’s what he did.”
Once the hiring process made it past Drew and Hurley, Staples saw Pope as an interesting fit. He can get the fan base rallied around him.
“I don’t think there was a real obvious candidate,” Staples said. “He’s a Kentucky guy. You need to decide if he is someone who can get you there. I don’t think we know the answer to that.”
Mark Pope Needs to Recruit and Will Have NIL to Do So
As mentioned above, recruiting is a big question mark for Mark Pope at Kentucky. While he might not have the track record, he could have the acumen to recruit at a high level.
“His background makes him a very interesting recruiter,” Staples said. “Here’s a guy who was a captain of a national championship team. He’s played in the NBA, played in Europe, and he’s been to medical school. He’s not going to have a shortage of things to talk about with recruits and their parents.”
Now, the question is about how he puts together his roster. How does he get top-tier talent to Lexington?
“That’s not something you had to recruit at Utah Valley and not something you were going to be in on at BYU,” Staples said. “How does he deal with those guys? We don’t know that yet.”
Then, there’s the question of NIL. KSR’s Matt Jones reported Friday that two donors have already pledged a $4 million in NIL up front.
“If you have a collective that puts you at the top of the food chain money-wise, which Kentucky will be, how much does it matter who the coach is?” Staples said.
Kentucky was always going to be a school that “put its best foot forward” when it came to NIL due to enthusiastic donors. Pope’s ties to UK could certainly help.
“I definitely think that piece of it is helped by hiring someone with a connection to the program already,” Staples said. “I’m not normally one who thinks it matters if the person has a connection to the program. In this particular case, when everyone was so excited about the potential of getting Scott Drew and when that doesn’t happen, there is natural disappointment there, you give them a reason to be excited again.”
Mark Pope Has to Fix Kentucky’s NCAA Tournament Troubles
Kentucky hasn’t made it out of the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament. It’s something you’ve heard said plenty of times over the last month. Now it’s up to Mark Pope to change things.
“One week ago, [Kentucky] was a program that couldn’t get out of the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament since 2019,” Staples said. “It’s still a program that hasn’t gotten out of the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament since 2019. Mark Pope has to fix that. I don’t think you can retroactively change anything about the way everyone acted toward Calipari because they hired Mark Pope versus Scott Drew.”
The hire of Pope didn’t change the frustration surrounding the program when Calipari left for Arkansas. Now, it’s time to move forward.
“The fact of the matter is, [Calipari] was not getting it done to the satisfaction of Kentucky fans and the Kentucky administration,” Staples said. “They hired somebody else and let’s see if we can get it done.”
Staples isn’t willing to say the Mark Pope hire is a home run or that it won’t work. He’s out of the business of judging a hire so affirmatively before a coach’s first game.
“I’ve covered so many of these now in football and basketball where the person you think is going to be a home run and the person you think is going to mess up ultimately ends up fitting in very well at that job,” he said. “We don’t know, especially when it’s a case of somebody going from a level we’ve seen them work at before to a new level. That’s what this is.”
