Coaches most-linked with UK’s 2024 men’s hoops coaching search had tough seasons
April 14 was the one-year anniversary of former Kentucky team captain Mark Pope being officially introduced as John Calipari’s replacement as UK men’s basketball coach.
That intro came in a jam-packed Rupp Arena, as Kentucky fans turned what had been billed as a news conference into one of the epic college sports pep rallies ever held.
From that exuberant start, Pope during his first season as top Cat displayed a mostly deft touch in handling the whirlwind that is coaching men’s hoops at UK.
Meanwhile, the 2024-25 season supplied a sobering reality for those Cats backers who had hoped Mitch Barnhart and the University of Kentucky athletics administration could attract a head coach with more exalted credentials than what Pope brought to the job.
The two NCAA title-winning head men — Baylor’s Scott Drew and Connecticut’s Dan Hurley — who were thought to be Kentucky’s top choices during the 2024 coaching search just finished seasons that can only be described as challenging.
Coming off their national titles in 2023 and 2024, Hurley and UConn entered this past season seeking an NCAA championship three-peat.
Alas, after going 31-8 and 37-3, respectively, in the back-to-back NCAA title seasons, Connecticut slipped to 24-11 in 2024-25.
Rather than a third straight march to the Final Four, the Huskies were eliminated by eventual NCAA champ Florida, 77-75, in the NCAA Tournament round of 32.
For Hurley, the 2024-25 season was punctuated with moments in which the coach’s personal comportment overshadowed his team.
It started early, when Hurley had some heated arguments with game officials while UConn was absorbing upset losses to Memphis (99-97 in overtime), Colorado (73-72) and Dayton (85-67) in the Maui Invitational.
Midseason, Hurley taunted Creighton fans as he left the court following Connecticut’s 70-66 win over the Bluejays in Omaha.
“Two rings, baldy,” Hurley shouted at one Creighton supporter, alluding to the national titles the coach has won for UConn.
After the dream of a third consecutive national championship ended with the NCAA tourney loss to Florida, Hurley came off the court and told the players from Baylor — waiting to play in the ensuing game — that he hoped the officials did not (a far more evocative word for) cheat the Bears like they had (a far more evocative word for) cheated UConn.
Nothing that happened this year detracts from Hurley’s reputation as one of men’s college basketball’s elite strategists. At their best, his team’s offensive sets are almost works of art.
However, the excitable nature of Hurley’s sideline demeanor makes one wonder whether the coach, 52, could have survived even one season in the fish bowl that is coaching men’s basketball at Kentucky.
Since leading Baylor to the 2021 NCAA championship, Drew has gone a combined 94-44 in the four seasons since, including three-straight seasons with double-digit defeats.
This past season ended for Baylor (20-15) with an 89-66 loss to No. 1 seed Duke in the NCAA Tournament second round. Baylor has now gone out of the NCAA tourney in the round of 32 four straight times.
For Drew, the end of the season only brought more challenge. Due to players entering the transfer portal, the NBA draft and having their eligibility expire, Baylor does not presently have a scholarship player from its 2024-25 roster slated to return for 2025-26.
Especially vexing for Bears backers was the departure of standout freshman guard Robert Wright, who departed Baylor for Big 12 rival BYU amid reports he has signed a lucrative name, image and likeness deal.
As Drew, 54, seeks to extend Baylor’s streak of consecutive men’s NCAA Tournament appearances to seven in a row, he now faces the challenge of putting together an entirely new team for 2025-26.
On the plus side, Drew will have incoming freshman forward Tounde Yessoufou, one of the most impressive prospects in the high school class of 2025, around which to anchor Baylor’s roster rebuild.
With NCAA championships on their resumes, Drew and Hurley are both more-accomplished college head coaches than is Pope.
Small sample sizes, which one year certainly is, are not determinative of anything.
Still, for his first UK season, Pope coached a Kentucky roster he built from scratch after inheriting a Wildcats program with no returning scholarship players, to the NCAA tourney round of 16.
You will note that is one round deeper into March Madness than either Drew or Hurley advanced in 2025.
With a 24-12 mark, Pope and UK matched the number of wins put up by UConn and Hurley (24-11) and exceeded the victory total for Drew and Baylor (20-15).
At least for now, the lesson of last spring’s UK coaching search might have been best expressed by some wise men from London (England, not Kentucky):
“You can’t always get what you want. But, if you try sometimes, well, you might find, you get what you need.”
