Yea when I say Mark isn’t any good, I mean at a level far above a regular joe. I’m comparing him to great coaches which is what Kentucky hired. Compared to his peers he’s terrible. Compared to Radom guy who manages IHOP obviously….
Mark also climbed into coaching late and moved way up fast. He’s no idiot. I will say, however, a lot of his rise did have to do with knowing people like Mark Fox, and being Mormon. They don’t have a lot of coaches to pick from and he was decent at Utah Valley, basically a Mormon school, and BYU was Mormon in a smaller conference so he moved up. I don’t think BYU today would come close to offering pope, unless there was not another Mormon coach and they just did it. Pope being Mormon is the main reason he’s here, without being Mormon I don’t think he could have risen like that. Without playing at UK he wouldn’t be here either.
So yes Mark isn’t an idiot he’s good compared to average people or low level coaches sure. But mark is also at the same time the luckiest guy ever associated with Kentucky basketball. Really wasn’t good enough to be on that 96 team, could be replaced with a lot of players, and coaching here was a very lucky situation and he wasn’t qualified. Being Mormon and a really bad AD really helped him out a lot.