Kentucky's coaching staff will be '100 times better' in year two under Mark Pope

Not only is Mark Pope expecting big things from his returning players, but he’s also expecting a leap from his coaching staff.

Often lost in the roster-building discussion from last offseason, when Pope had a late start crafting his first Kentucky team and had to work with what was available in the transfer portal, is that he also had to piece together an entire coaching staff on the fly. Alvin Brooks III (associate head coach), Cody Fueger (assistant coach), and Mark Fox (associate coach) all officially signed their contracts last May, Mikhail McLean (associate coach) followed in June, and Jason Hart (associate coach) rounded out the staff in July.

In a small amount of time with a shortened offseason to learn each other’s tendencies, Pope managed to put together a highly experienced staff that produced better-than-expected on-court results.

Brooks, who comes from a basketball family, brought 20 years of coaching experience (over 10 of those at high-majors) with recruiting connections in Texas. Fueger has been Pope’s right-hand man dating back to their time together at Utah Valley. Fox has over 30 years of coaching experience, including head coaching stints at Georgia (2009-18) and California (2019-23), and was the man who first took a chance on Pope as a coach. Hart, who has ties to California, was most recently the head coach of the G League Ignite program for three years before the NBA shut it down.

The only “unproven” commodity among the bunch was McLean. Just 10 years removed from his college playing days, he came to Kentucky with only a few years as an assistant to his name. But he was the coach Pope mentioned the most throughout the season, particularly by giving him credit for the development of big men Amari Williams and Brandon Garrison. McLean was rewarded with a significant pay raise in the offseason.

After a full year together, the synergy between all of the coaches has improved. Pope believes that’s only going to continue when they run it back in 2025-26.

“We have so many more data points, right? One is a lot more than zero, right? So we had a lot more data points,” Pope said when asked about a key difference going into his second offseason at Kentucky. “I talk about our players being better the second year, our staff is going to be 100 times better than we were last year, just because we had a chance to function together and learn each other, and the guys have had a chance to learn me.

“We’re excited to see how much better we can be year two, how much more efficiently we can do things, how much more smartly and intelligent we can do things. How much higher we can raise the standard that we hold ourselves accountable to as a staff and our players accountable to, and how relentless we can be at doing that. I think that year two is fun because you have your one under your belt.”

It’s not always easy keeping a full coaching staff in place year-over-year, but Pope will have continuity both on the floor and on the bench as he enters his second season coaching the Wildcats.

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