1. Mitch Barnhart Swung for the Fences
We understand those among the Kentucky faithful who would have rather seen athletic director Mitch Barnhart wait for the Bulls’ season to end so he could negotiate with Billy Donovan. We understand those who wish he’d hired a coach like Bruce Pearl with a better worst-case scenario. We do not understand those who say Barnhart “settled” for Mark Pope. Settling involves passing on upside. From what we can tell, Pope was Barnhart’s third pick for the job, and the reason for that all comes back to upside.
No, Mark Pope is not Dan Hurley, nor is he Scott Drew. He’s not Mark Few, Bill Self, or Kelvin Sampson. Pope is, though, a relatively young head coach who took a recent JuCo to the upper reaches of the WAC at Utah Valley and who then turned in three of BYU’s best seasons ever in a five-year span. How good is he? We don’t really know. There’s uncertainty here. The downside is bad for Big Blue Nation. The upside, on the other hand…
What Barnhart did with this hire was take three big swings. The first two? Financial swings. Swings and misses. Hurley and Drew said no. The last? A real home run cut. A shot at not only hiring the best college basketball coach, but identifying that figure before he earns the label.
We don’t know how good a coach Mark Pope is. We’re still finding out. He’s pretty new at this. We haven’t known him as long as we’ve known most of the other names on Kentucky’s radar. How good is he?
The median case with Pope is that he’s a top-20 coach in the country. He raised Utah Valley from top-275 results to top-125 results. He raised BYU from top-85 results to top-40 results. He proved he can win in a power conference—he went 10–8 in the Big 12 this year—and he’s only been doing this for nine seasons. A top-20 coach at a job with top-5 resources? That should turn out pretty well.
The bad case with Pope is that he’s only a top-50 coach, that BYU was a good job or at least a really good fit for him and that Kentucky eats him alive. A top-50 coach at a job with top-5 resources? That isn’t great, but no permanent damage should be done to Kentucky if he fails. They still might never miss the NCAA Tournament in his tenure, even if he performs as merely a top-50 coach.
The good case with Pope is that he’s one of the best coaches in college basketball. It’s that his offensive gameplanning and his enthusiasm are a winning combination, and that as an alum of a particularly beloved version of Kentucky, he manages to unite the fanbase behind him. It’s that coming from BYU, he knows what it’s like to give football its due, and that he recognizes football’s current importance to Kentucky’s athletic department and navigates that minefield with skill. It’s that his close relationship with Reed Sheppard’s family leads Sheppard to shockingly return for his sophomore season and that Sheppard and Pope kick off this post-Calipari era with an SEC title.
I know Kentucky fans don’t want to lose. But once Drew and Hurley said no, there wasn’t a coach Kentucky could realistically hire who’d feel like a near-guarantee to win a title in ten years. Pearl? He’d probably make a Final Four, but the man’s best team ever just did the exact same thing John Calipari’s been doing. Rick Pitino? The man is already 71, and he just called last season—his debut season at a school where he supposedly had his pick of the portal—the most unenjoyable of his life. Donovan? Probably a very good hire, but even he had big downside, having not coached college basketball in a decade.
What Barnhart faced was three choices:
First, Barnhart could have settled, and I mean really settled. He could have hired Pearl, or Pitino, or Chris Beard. Those first two will not be the best coach in college basketball in five or ten years. The third comes with significant personal baggage.
Second, Barnhart could have waited for Billy Donovan. Was Donovan interested? We don’t know. We have no idea. What we can probably safely assume, though, is that Barnhart knew that answer better than we did, and that Barnhart was aware of what programs look like when they take a few weeks to hire a head coach, especially while the transfer portal keeps churning. Sure, Barnhart could have had Pope two weeks from now. But in a setting with demands to “win now,” that would have hamstrung whoever Barnhart hired in Year One and led to two weeks of Kentucky boosters being told their athletic department was a mess. It probably would have been fine long-term, but Kentucky fans aren’t exactly patient.
Third, Barnhart could have swung for the fences, hiring a young coach who might flop but also has a real (small, but real) chance of being the best coach in college basketball in five or ten years.
You don’t hire the next Scott Drew or Dan Hurley by looking for guys who’ll probably sneak you into one Final Four. You hire the next Scott Drew or Dan Hurley by looking for guys who could really be the next great college basketball coach. Kentucky is a program less susceptible to long-term damage than most from three or four bad years. If it doesn’t work out, Kentucky can try again with plenty of resources very soon. Why not try to start a dynasty?
2. What’s Next for BYU?
BYU is now in the tough spot of having to say goodbye to a man who was a godsend of a coach. There are definitely some resources in Provo, but the school is a hard sell for a lot of college basketball recruits, and the Big 12’s looking for a bottom-dweller to pick on. With Mark Madsen not interested, the situation is tough for the Cougars. It sounds like they’re looking to find someone who belongs to the LDS Church, which will probably mean hiring from the ranks of assistants. This is another swing for the fences, but not by choice. They’re going to hire someone who’s an uncertain product. He might be a rockstar. He might also fail. Unfortunately, the median case isn’t as good as it is with Mark Pope.
3. The Yankees Might Be Back
The Yankees and Guardians meet this weekend in a series between baseball’s best teams, at least going by records so far. It’s unlikely these are really the two best teams. On paper, the Yankees are fourth-best. The Guardians might not be in the baseball’s better half. We’re only about 13 games into the MLB season, which is the proportional equivalent of the second quarter of Week 2 in the NFL. Still, this is fun. The Guardians have been playing good baseball. The Yankees have the best record in the sport.
It’s funny to ask whether a team who’s won 99 or more games in half of the last six seasons is “back,” but that’s what the Yankees have become. Fittingly, they’re like the Cowboys, a team with no especially recent championship, no recent playoff wins, and a lot of regular season success. This makes it a fool’s errand to try to declare the Yankees back at all. No number of wins between now and the end of September will give Yankee fans the postseason victories they crave. They can only load the dice so much in their own favor.
And yet…are the Yankees back? Anthony Volpe’s off to a great start. Juan Soto is as advertised. Giancarlo Stanton has four home runs already, putting him on pace for 50. Each of the starters has been at least respectable so far.
We could make this boring. We could say the Yankees are projected to win 90.9 games and that they have just shy of a fifty percent chance of winning the AL East and that they’re the fourth-best team in baseball even if they momentarily have the best record. Or, we could say that the Yankees might be back, and that this weekend they get a good test in Cleveland against a classic young Guardians roster. Tomorrow’s even a doubleheader, because today’s game got rained out.
We like the second framing better.
“Big 12’s looking for a bottom-dweller to pick on…”
Soooo true.