What is Mark Pope’s history as a college basketball head coach in the NCAA Tournament?
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Men’s NCAA Tournament preview: Kentucky vs. Troy
Click below to read more coverage from the Lexington Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com ahead of Kentucky’s men’s NCAA Tournament opener against Troy University in Milwaukee on Friday night.
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Another chapter of Kentucky basketball’s rich history in the NCAA Tournament will be written this week.
The Wildcats, a 3 seed in the Midwest Regional for the 2025 edition of March Madness, will make their national postseason debut against 14 seed Troy on Friday night in Milwaukee.
That matchup between the Wildcats and Trojans will be the first time Mark Pope coaches UK in an NCAA Tournament setting. Pope, who famously won the 1996 national title at UK as a player, is also looking to achieve a personal milestone with Friday’s contest.
Pope is in his 10th season as a college basketball head coach. He’s made the Big Dance twice before with BYU in 2021 and 2024, but lost on both occasions in the round of 64.
As such, Pope is bringing his 0-for-2 head coaching record in March Madness into Friday’s game between Kentucky and Troy.
“It just doesn’t really matter,” Pope said Sunday night when speaking with media members following the NCAA Selection Show. “Like, that doesn’t even register for me. If this is about me, then it’s just dumb. I didn’t come to Kentucky to make this about me.”
There were plenty of questions about Pope’s hiring when UK tabbed him to take over for John Calipari last April. Most of those concerns — such as Pope’s ability to win showcase games, his ability to recruit at a school with significant resources and how his brand-new roster of players would fit together — were addressed over the last 11 months.
Pope scored first-year victories over Duke, Florida, Louisville and Tennessee (twice). He successfully signed three high school recruits who all rank among the top 30 prospects nationally. Kentucky went 22-11 this season and had a winning record against SEC schools, along with a record-setting eight wins over opponents who were ranked inside the top 15 of the AP poll at the time of the game.
But the one thing that Pope hasn’t yet had a chance to address is his performance as a postseason head coach.
Last week’s SEC Tournament provided a mixed bag of answers. Pope — who historically has been a middle-of-the-road coach in conference tournament settings — guided the Wildcats to a thrilling SEC Tournament second-round win over Oklahoma, which gave the Wildcats their first victory in the SEC Tournament since 2022.
But, UK crashed out of the event on Friday after being on the wrong end of a 29-point drubbing by Alabama. That final margin was Kentucky’s worst-ever defeat in an SEC Tournament contest, although it came amid plenty of injury issues.
Now, it’s time to see what Pope can do in March Madness. That starts with seeing if Pope can score his first NCAA Tournament win as a college head coach.
“I actually have no interest in me,” Pope added, continuing his earlier response. “I’m interested in our team. I have an interest in this program. I have an interest in this tradition. I have an interest in these guys who made this bold and brazen decision to come here with nothing proven and say, ‘Hey, we’re going to go make our mark on this game.’ Which they’ve done so incredibly well this season. ...
People are going to talk about what they’re going to talk about, but this is just so much bigger than any one individual here.”
Mark Pope lost both of his NCAA Tournament games at BYU
As mentioned earlier, Pope is 0-2 as a head coach in NCAA Tournament games.
In 2021, Pope oversaw 6 seeded BYU’s upset loss to 11 seeded UCLA. The Bruins topped the Cougars 73-62 in a game that was played at Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis as part of a reworked March Madness during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Last year, Pope’s final game as the BYU head coach ended up being another 6-11 upset loss in the national postseason. The 6 seeded Cougars lost to 11 seeded Duquesne 71-67 in a contest played in Omaha, Nebraska, where Pope was born.
What went wrong in those games for BYU?
Let’s start with the 2021 defeat to UCLA, which came as part of the Bruins’ stunning run from the First Four to the Final Four.
That season, the Cougars were a top-50 team in the nation when shooting 3-pointers (36.7%). That figure didn’t hold up against UCLA. BYU shot a woeful 3-for-17 (17.6%) on 3-pointers in the loss.
The defeat also featured an outlier of a performance from BYU at the foul line: The Cougars shot a respectable 73% on free throws for the season, but went just 9-for-16 (56.3%) against UCLA.
Much like this year’s Kentucky squad, the 2020-21 BYU team was not adept at creating turnovers. That season, the Cougars’ defense forced turnovers on just 15.7% of opponents’ possessions. In the NCAA Tournament loss to UCLA, the Bruins turned the ball over only four times, while BYU had 10 giveaways of its own.
The 62 points BYU scored in the loss matched the Cougars’ second-worst offensive output of the 2020-21 season.
BYU was also on the wrong end of a special offensive performance by ex-Cat Johnny Juzang, who poured in 27 points and made a trio of 3-pointers for UCLA.
Why did Mark Pope, BYU lose in 2024 NCAA Tournament?
Now let’s take stock of BYU’s early exit from the 2024 NCAA Tournament. Duquesne, an 11 seed, turned back the 6 seeded Cougars 71-67 for the school’s first March Madness win since 1969.
BYU — which went more than seven minutes of game time in the first half without making a field goal — led for less than 30 seconds in the game.
A big reason for Duquesne’s history-making moment was BYU’s struggles went it came to 2-point shots. For the 2023-24 season, BYU ranked eighth in the nation by making 57.5% of its 2-point shots. Against Duquesne, BYU went just 14-for-33 (42.4%) on 2-point attempts. The Dukes blocked seven BYU shots and caused 12 Cougars turnovers.
One of BYU’s best players also picked a bad day to have a bad game. Center Aly Khalifa — who is now at Louisville and is redshirting this season due to a knee injury — went 0-for-6 from the field against Duquesne. The talented big-man passer also had just one assist (he averaged four per game last season) against two turnovers.
BYU lost that game despite current UK player Jaxson Robinson — whose college career ended this season because of a right wrist injury — scoring 25 points and making five 3-pointers off the bench.
The 3-point line also cost BYU in this game, although it was due to shot volume rather than shot efficiency. For the 2023-24 season, BYU ranked 137th in the nation by making 34.8% of its 3-point tries. But, BYU shot a lot of 3-pointers in Pope’s final season at the helm. The Cougars averaged 32 attempts from deep per game, and 3-pointers accounted for 41% of BYU’s points, the second-highest mark in the country last season.
None of this went to script against the Dukes. In that March Madness defeat, BYU attempted only 24 shots from 3-point range, eight shots below their season average. BYU made eight of those attempts for 33.3% on the night. By scoring 24 of its 67 points on 3-pointers against Duquesne, BYU’s makes from deep accounted for less than 36% of its points in the game.
Two games in the NCAA Tournament — including one that was played during an ongoing global pandemic — hardly makes for an air-tight sample size. But it’s what we have to go off of with Pope for now, until he’s able to lead a team on a deep NCAA Tournament run.
Those connected to UK basketball hope that process starts Friday night.
This story was originally published March 18, 2025 at 9:00 AM.
