WESTFIELD, Ind. — Mark Pope appeared like a brand new scholar in school who was desirous to impress each the cool youngsters and the trainer. He wore all the massive model names: blue Kentucky quarter-zip, white Nike kicks and a black Louis Vuitton backpack, through which he hid the nerdier stuff. He definitely did his homework. After sliding right into a courtside seat finally weekend’s Nike EYBL recruiting occasion, Pope pulled out his big black binder stuffed filled with lists and charts and schedules and notes. Inside, he had analytics reviews on all the highschool gamers he deliberate to look at over the weekend, the NCAA’s first dwell analysis interval since Pope took over as head coach of his alma mater.
This was an vital checkpoint.
It didn’t take lengthy for Pope to display his mastery of the switch portal, from which he landed eight gamers in his first month on the job. And he’s not performed there, as coveted North Florida switch guard Chaz Lanier took an official go to to Lexington on Monday. What stays to be seen, nevertheless, is how Pope will fare in recruiting elite prep gamers, upon which predecessor John Calipari gorged himself for the final decade and a half. Pope wasn’t a severe suitor of five-star prospects in his first 9 seasons as a head coach at Utah Valley and BYU, however now he’s all of the sudden splashing round within the deep finish of the expertise pool. Final weekend offered the primary glimpses at how properly he can swim in these waters. It additionally created some vivid reminders of what a wild offseason this has been.
Throughout one sport, Pope sat a number of toes away from and shared a number of laughs with Calipari, now carrying Arkansas gear, whereas Baylor coach Scott Drew and Connecticut coach Dan Hurley stood close by. Drew was Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart’s first alternative to exchange Calipari, whereas Hurley was among the largest boosters’ prime candidate, however neither was keen to go away a spot they’d already gained a nationwide championship. Now Pope is competing with all three of these title-winning coaches — and plenty of others — for expertise. So what’s his method?
“We’re simply out right here recruiting one of the best gamers we will get, and one of the best gamers you may get at Kentucky are one of the best gamers,” Pope advised The Athletic on Saturday on the EYBL occasion exterior Indianapolis. “I’m used to working with a comparatively restricted pool, and Kentucky has a comparatively restricted pool additionally. It’s just a bit completely different type of pool. The blokes who belong at Kentucky are the easiest gamers in all of school basketball, so these are the fellows you’re chasing. After which from that group, we’re chasing guys that actually match us, the way in which we’re attacking the sport and the way in which we’re taking part in.”
Pope vowed at his introductory press convention that Kentucky was not going to cease touchdown McDonald’s All-Individuals simply because Calipari referred to as the Hogs. The gamers Pope and his workers watched final weekend — no less than seven top-five recruits within the 2025 and 2026 courses, plus a number of extra five-stars on each the Nike and Adidas circuits — recommend he’s severe about that promise. However Pope additionally cares about continuity and participant growth, and he has a plan for recruiting a extra numerous mixture of prospects than Calipari sometimes did.
That plan is within the big binder, a part of an ever-evolving sorting system.
“It’s a steadiness. We’re truly tiering youngsters,” Pope mentioned. “The children we expect are one-and-done that we actually need to attempt to seize; one other tier of men we expect can come be within the rotation as freshmen; after which a tier of men you say, ‘Man, I’m telling you, that child goes to return add one thing to our program as a freshman, even when he’s not within the rotation, after which he’s going to win us the most important video games in school basketball as a junior or senior.’ So we do our greatest to tier guys after which go searching and be tremendous deliberate concerning the guys in every of these swimming pools that we recruit actually onerous.”
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Mark Pope and John Calipari share amusing on the Nike EYBL occasion in Indianapolis final weekend.
One participant Pope appeared smitten with on the Nike circuit was 6-foot-5, 210-pound ahead Tounde Yessoufou, who ranks within the prime 5 within the EYBL in factors (23.0) and rebounds (7.5) per sport. He’s a five-star, top-25 prospect within the 2025 class, and Pope has already made contact.
“He loves my power, says I’ve obtained the killer intuition, and he’s a fan of my sport,” Yessoufou mentioned. “I like the way in which he talked to me. I really feel like he’s the kind of coach who will present me what I would like to enhance on essentially the most and push me to be actually good. Once we discuss on the cellphone, he has a fantastic power, and coaches like that deliver out one of the best model of your self.”
Yessoufou can be a superb reminder that, whereas Calipari’s popularity for churning out execs is a big consider recruiting prime expertise, Kentucky’s model can be nonetheless pretty robust by itself.
“That was my dream faculty after I got here right here to the USA,” mentioned Yessoufou, who’s from West Africa. However did the teaching change alter that dream? “Undoubtedly no. Coach Pope performed there, he performed within the NBA and he’s a extremely good coach. He’s one of many issues I like about Kentucky.”
Level guard Brandon McCoy, arguably the highest prospect in 2026, mentioned he wrote a aim down and tacked it to the wall of his childhood bed room: earn scholarship gives from Kentucky and Duke. He hadn’t talked to Pope but, “however I sit up for assembly him.”
Jasper Johnson, the No. 11 participant within the Class of 2025, per the 247Sports Composite, obtained a cellphone name from Pope final Thursday night time. The Cats’ new coach advised him he’d be watching his EYBL video games over the weekend, and Johnson grinned when he talked about it’s onerous to overlook a 6-foot-10 coach in a shiny blue shirt seated instantly beneath the basket, as Pope was Saturday.
Johnson represents one of the best of each worlds in Pope’s method to roster-building: a homegrown prospect who grew up rooting for Kentucky — his father, Dennis, was a soccer star there within the Tim Sofa period — and a future McDonald’s All-American.
“Kentucky has at all times been a faculty I look as much as,” Johnson mentioned. “I do know they’ve been busy constructing their roster, however now that the portal is over, they’re considering extra about recruiting and I’ve been studying extra about Coach Pope. His offense is actually good for guards, the way in which they shoot 3s and so they’re actually artistic, and he’s telling me I’m one of many few highschool gamers he needs. He doesn’t need to signal as many highschool guys as they’ve previously, since you want some older gamers, some portal guys, so him believing in me that manner feels good.”
Johnson mentioned he deliberate to take one other go to to Kentucky’s campus this summer time to spend time across the new workers and “construct our bond.”
These relationships matter loads in recruiting, and it’s one cause Pope’s assistant teaching hires have been so vital. In Alvin Brooks III, an ace recruiter at Baylor, and Jason Hart, a former NBA participant and most lately head coach of the G League Ignite, Pope landed two males with pre-existing ties to and standing with elite expertise. Hudson Greer and Shelton Anderson, two top-50 recruits from Texas who have been among the many standouts on the Nike circuit final weekend, have been recruited by Brooks at Baylor — and now he’s extolling to them the virtues of Kentucky.
Jasper Johnson and AJ Dybantsa, the No. 1 participant within the 2025 class, have been among the many gamers Hart had recruited to the now-defunct Ignite. “He’s a superb man. I like him loads,” Dybantsa’s father, Ace, mentioned. Pope formally provided Dybantsa a scholarship two weeks in the past and advised him he’s “simply making an attempt to maintain up the model after Cal leaving.” Touchdown a expertise like that will assist, and Hart offers UK an opportunity. Ignite was a professional possibility that was not sure by NCAA guidelines about how and when you possibly can contact highschool gamers and their households.
“He had that particular entry to quite a lot of gamers another way than the remainder of us do,” Pope mentioned. “And also you’re not going to satisfy a greater particular person on the planet than Jason Hart. He’s obtained an power that’s contagious, and he’s actually sensible and he may spend all day daily within the fitness center due to how a lot he loves the sport.”
Nearing the tenth hour of a 12-hour day of nonstop grassroots basketball Saturday, Hart sat alone within the bleachers with no notes or rosters in entrance of him for a change. The matchup didn’t seem to incorporate any of the gamers Kentucky was within the constructing to see or be seen by. That’s as a result of one in all his habits at occasions like that is to choose a few video games for a blind viewing, to look at with contemporary eyes and no preconceived notions about who the celebrities are imagined to be. Simply see who jumps out. Should you aren’t already recruiting that man, why not?
“I believe that’s the DNA of my complete workers, truly,” Pope mentioned of such thoroughness. He referred to as Brooks “one of many elite recruiters in all of school basketball, as a result of he builds these tremendous, tremendous deep, significant relationships with guys.”
The brand new Kentucky crew — minus Cody “Increase” Fueger, who’ll be right here tomorrow after two days on the Adidas circuit. pic.twitter.com/mOtxZoC0ul
— Kyle Tucker (@KyleTucker_ATH) Could 19, 2024
Pope’s third on-the-road recruiter, Cody Fueger, brings a distinct perspective to this course of. He labored for Pope at Utah Valley and BYU and earlier than that at Utah State, UC Riverside and Louisiana Tech. Fueger spent Friday and Saturday on the Adidas circuit cease in Bryan, Texas, seeing top-40, in-state prospect Malachi Moreno and a handful of five-stars, together with No. 3 Darryn Peterson, a Calipari goal at UK whom Pope has already re-offered. With the assistance of a personal jet, Fueger then traded locations with Pope and Hart on Sunday, becoming a member of Brooks at Nike.
“Cody has simply been grinding, getting nice expertise to among the hardest locations on the planet to recruit,” Pope mentioned. “So now he’s coming at this from a a lot completely different angle: That is simple in comparison with what I’ve been doing. As a result of it’s Kentucky. And we are saying that daily: It’s Kentucky.”
Even with out Calipari, that also carries quite a lot of weight. Former star John Wall, Calipari’s first large recruit at UK, was within the constructing for the Nike circuit Saturday. He spent loads of time hugging his outdated coach, however Wall additionally sought out Pope and his workers on a number of events to welcome them to the household. Even Calipari appeared drawn to that acquainted blue hue, gravitating towards Pope all through the weekend to converse and minimize up.
However as Calipari used to say: Kentucky isn’t for everyone. It was for Brooks, nevertheless it wasn’t for his former boss at Baylor, Drew, who turned down the Wildcats earlier than Pope took the job.
“That was very onerous, as a result of Mitch is without doubt one of the nice folks on this occupation that I obtained to know within the (2021 NCAA Match) bubble and somebody I drastically respect, however Baylor is house,” Drew mentioned Saturday. Kentucky is house for Pope, so perhaps it labored out greatest for everybody concerned, Drew figures. “The great factor is, I can cheer for him now that he’s not in our league. Everybody in school basketball is aware of offensively, Coach Pope’s stuff is tremendously onerous to protect and he’s on the innovative in that realm. However he additionally understands the significance of protection in profitable, and his groups are very bodily, and that’s why they’d a lot success this 12 months within the Huge 12. I’m glad for him and Kentucky, as a result of I believe they employed a extremely good coach and a really high-character man.”
And the Kentucky trustworthy all mentioned: That’s good, however when does the primary five-star commit?
(Images: Kyle Tucker / The Athletic)