UK basketball’s Mark Pope hasn’t produced an NBA draft pick. Does that matter in recruiting?
During Mark Pope’s nine combined seasons as the head coach at Utah Valley and BYU, the now-Kentucky coach never oversaw a future NBA draft pick, let alone a future NBA player.
This is one of several unchecked boxes on Pope’s evolving coaching resume. The 52-year-old has also never won an NCAA Tournament game, or either a conference regular season or conference tournament championship.
But it’s the lack of NBA draft production that most people perceive as posing the biggest challenge to Pope’s high school recruiting at UK.
John Calipari revolutionized high school recruiting during his 15-year run in Lexington, churning out 50 NBA draft selections and firmly establishing Kentucky as the place to go for one-and-done prospects.
Pope, nor any other college coach, is likely to replicate that run of producing pro players. But a question that remains is how Pope will be able to recruit elite talent to Kentucky without a track record of sending players to the next level.
This discourse hasn’t been limited to UK fans and national pundits, either. Pope’s NBA draft record has been used against him on the recruiting trail, and it will continue to be until it changes.
How much does the NBA draft actually factor into recruiting, and what is Pope’s long-term outlook when it comes to convincing the best players to come to Lexington?
The Herald-Leader spoke with all involved parties — top high school recruits and their family members, recruiting analysts and Pope himself — to figure out the answer.
Mark Pope is focused on how Kentucky recruits, and nothing else
While seated on a plush couch in his office inside the Joe Craft Center, with a signature Diet Coke in hand, Pope told the Herald-Leader that he’s not focused on what other college coaches say about his program to recruits.
As Pope tells it, Kentucky’s place in the college basketball world means people will always be talking about the Cats.
“We don’t spend too much time talking about anybody else,” Pope starts. “We just recruit kids.”
As Pope begins to wade into answering the NBA draft question, he turns the focus to his coaching staff, which is chock-full of NBA draft accolades.
UK assistant Jason Hart was previously the head coach of the NBA’s now-shuttered G League Ignite team from 2021 to 2024, and produced 10 NBA draft selections during that time. That included five first-round picks and the No. 3 overall pick in the 2022 draft, guard Scoot Henderson. While Hart was on the coaching staff at Southern California from 2013 to 2021, he worked with five NBA draft picks.
Kentucky associate coach Mark Fox, the former head man at Nevada, Georgia and California, has overseen 15 college players who went on to play professionally, including 2018 NBA draft lottery pick Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.
Alvin Brooks III, UK’s associate head coach and someone with a strong recruiting reputation, was previously part of a Baylor coaching staff that had seven players chosen in the NBA draft, including three consecutive lottery picks from 2021-2023.
Pope was the operations coordinator at Georgia under Fox during the 2009-10 season. That Georgia team included two future second-round picks by the Los Angeles Clippers in the 2011 NBA draft: Guard Travis Leslie (10 career NBA games) and forward Trey Thompkins III (24 career NBA games).
Pope was an assistant coach at BYU when three players came through the Cougars’ program on their way to the NBA: Forwards Brandon Davies (78 career NBA games) and Eric Mika (1 career NBA game), and guard Kyle Collinsworth (32 career NBA games). None of these three players were drafted.
Both Pope (1996) and Hart (2000) were second-round NBA draft selections themselves and spent multiple seasons in the league.
But with this history acknowledged, Pope is quick to question how much any of it correlates to the next group of players that he and his staff are coaching.
“That’s all about somebody else, right?” Pope said. “If our staff had coached, Zion Williamson, right, what does that have to do with Acaden Lewis? Like, we’re here to coach Acaden Lewis and I think that’s the way we approach this.”
Lewis is one of three Kentucky signees in the 2025 recruiting class, along with local products Jasper Johnson and Malachi Moreno.
The point Pope is making is that basketball, and by extent recruiting, is fluid. What happened one season ago or one decade ago may not translate into the future.
And again, as Pope is wont to do, he tied everything back to the Kentucky program as a whole.
“We’re trying to do this like Kentucky, and that’s really important to us,” Pope added. “So we just recruit guys that are great players, that are really hungry, that want to want to come here and be super successful in NIL. They want to hang a banner. … And I’m actually interested in those kids.”
The Herald-Leader followed up with Pope on these points, specifically asking if this kind of recruiting message has resonated with elite, one-and-done type prospects.
That’s when Pope really got going.
“I think the public’s perspective on recruiting is probably a little bit different than what it is,” Pope began. “What’s interesting is, for the most part, you find that the most talented, elite-level players are actually some of the best, most beautiful character-trait people also. And they’re also smart. I think most of the guys at the elite level are interested in carving their own path, not retreading somebody else’s path.”
“… They kind of want to write their own story, not just be a retread story,” he continued. “So I think that that’s actually the beauty of it. I would never underestimate how good these young men are as human beings. They’re great young men. And sometimes we want to just put them into some cliche space, and they’re not. They’re actually really special.”
What do recruits think of college coaches and the NBA draft?
Those are Pope’s thoughts on the correlation between a college coach’s NBA draft history and recruiting.
Some top recruits tell a different story.
The Herald-Leader spoke to top recruits with a Kentucky basketball scholarship offer in the 2025, 2026 and 2027 classes to gauge their thoughts on the matter.
Several of these prospects said that a coach’s track record of producing NBA draft picks will be a factor in their recruitment.
“I think the most important thing to me is just development,” said Chris Cenac Jr., a five-star center in the 2025 class who has Kentucky among his top seven schools. “… Going into college for nine months, just being able to be ready for the next level.”
“For me, it’s really (about) ‘How do they get people like me to the NBA?’” said Jordan Smith Jr., a five-star shooting guard in the 2026 class. “Like, what players that play like me get to the NBA? It’s not really how many players they have. It’s just like, how many people like me have they gotten to the league?”
“My goal is to go one-and-done for sure,” said Caleb Holt, a five-star shooting guard in the 2026 class. “So any coach that (has) that plan in for me.”
“Making sure I’m playing for a coach that has a pro resume, that has sent players to the league. That’s my goal, to get to the league,” said Baba Oladotun, a small forward who is one of only two players in the 2027 class with a UK offer. “(It’s) very, very important. Like I said, that’s the end goal: To get to the league, however many years it takes me to get there. Just playing with a coach that has faith in me.”
“I will definitely look at that. Getting guys to the league or having experience in the league, as a player or a coach, or just being able to send multiple guys to the league,” added Oladotun’s father, Ibrahim, who played college basketball at both Wagner and Virginia Tech. “That’s extremely, extremely important for us.”
Pope’s lack of NBA draft production doesn’t mean he can’t still successfully recruit these players.
In fact, these same prospects also spent portions of their interviews with the Herald-Leader praising Pope’s playing style and how it highlights his players.
Still, Pope’s lack of NBA draft history is part of the recruiting picture.
David Sisk — a basketball analyst for Rivals who covers both Kentucky and North Carolina — told the Herald-Leader that recruits are keenly aware of the NBA draft histories of the coaching staffs that are recruiting them.
“Trust me, the inner circles, the families, the players, they’re doing their homework,” Sisk said. “There’s so much information that’s available out there. If I’m a college recruit and I’m in high school, I can go on the Internet and Google instantly and know every player that’s ever played for Mark Pope within seconds. It’s easy to get.”
“It has been a factor as far as being considered by players,” Sisk added of Pope’s lacking NBA draft record.
Soon enough, Pope will produce an NBA player at Kentucky
It won’t be long until the discussion of Pope’s NBA draft record is moot.
According to ESPN’s most recent projection of the 2025 NBA draft, fifth-year UK guard Koby Brea is the Wildcat most likely to be taken in next year’s draft. Brea, a knockdown 3-point shooter, is listed by ESPN at No. 57 overall on the big board, which would make him a late-second round selection.
In addition to Brea, fifth-year guard Jaxson Robinson and second-year big man Brandon Garrison also have outside chances to play their way into next summer’s draft.
There’s also plenty of reason to believe that players who stay in Lexington and play for Pope for multiple years — freshman guard Collin Chandler comes to mind — will make a strong case to be selected in future drafts.
Looking down the line, the draft picks are coming for Pope and the Wildcats.
Leading the way is Johnson, the top-ranked recruit among UK’s three signees in the 2025 class. Johnson, a 6-foot-4 guard, is a consensus five-star prospect and the No. 16 overall recruit, per the 247Sports Composite.
Sisk, the Rivals analyst, said one of the factors that worked against UK in its pursuit of Johnson — who is projected as a first-round pick in the 2026 NBA draft — was Pope’s lack of having produced a first-round NBA draft selection.
“(Pope) was able to get through that and recruit his way through it,” Sisk said. “He’s actually had a big-time recruit where that’s been a factor. And he came out on the good end of it. Yes, (the NBA draft record) can be used against him, but it’s not fatal.”
Kentucky’s top remaining target in the 2025 recruiting class is 6-9 power forward Caleb Wilson. Pope has yet to land a player like Wilson — who analysts tout as a surefire one-and-done prospect — at any of his college head coaching stops.
UK, North Carolina and Ohio State are currently viewed as the schools trending the most for Wilson, who announced his top-five list of schools Monday. Joining those three schools in Wilson’s top-five list were Central Florida and Tennessee.
Even if the Cats don’t land Wilson, nobody seems overly concerned about NBA-level talent no longer finding its way to Lexington.
“This is not a permanent deal,” Sisk added. “He’s going to have first-round draft picks. So you can use it now, but it’s kind of like the saying, ‘If you’re going to beat us, you better beat us now.’ It’s kind of like that in recruiting for him. … If he gets Caleb Wilson, that’s going to be put to bed in a hurry.”
This story was originally published November 18, 2024 at 6:45 AM.
