Estimated read time: 5-6 minutes
PROVO — The last time the BYU men's basketball program was looking for a coach, it took the Cougars 15 days to go from Dave Rose's retirement press conference to introducing then-former Utah Valley coach Mark Pope in front of administrators, family, donors and a handful of media on campus.
In many ways, the five-mile drive up University Parkway never felt so long.
Five years later, times have changed, both for BYU and college basketball as the Cougars now turn their attention to finding a new coach after Pope opted to return to his alma mater.
Pope's new contract at Kentucky, a five-year deal worth an average of $5.5 million annually, will make him the sixth-highest paid coach in the country, according to records compiled by the Louisville Courier-Journal. No one can blame the coach for accepting his dream job, especially after John Calipari bolted out of a favorable "lifetime" contract with the Wildcats to accept the same position, similar pay and the reported promise of significantly more name, image and like ness support at Arkansas.
The process that began when SMU fired Rob Lanier after just two seasons March 21 brought Pope to Lexington for his veritable dream job where he won a national championship with the Wildcats in 1996. In between, the Mustangs hired Andy Enfield from USC to lead them SMU into the ACC, with reporting of the arrangement being no joking matter by April 1.
The Trojans acted quickly, poaching Eric Musselman from Arkansas on April 4, expediting the former Nevada coach back to the West Coast.
With the help of friends in high places and the heir of the Tyson chicken empire, Arkansas zeroed in on Calipari as the hire became official April 10. Then, barely 48 hours later, Pope was being introduced as Kentucky's next head coach (the Wildcats will have a press conference introducing Pope and his family to Lexington on Sunday).
In roughly the same amount of time it took the Cougars to go from Rose to Pope five years ago, no fewer than four institutions have formally changed leadership that directly resulted in BYU's current vacancy. It's a stark contrast from BYU, where Jeff Judkins' retirement announcement in 2022 evolved into Amber Whiting's hire as the next women's basketball coach over a month later.
Life comes at everyone fast, but college athletics move faster — for good reason. In the time since Pope's hire was leaked to national media Thursday night until Friday afternoon, at least two starters from BYU's 2023-24 roster had entered the transfer portal in point guard Dallin Hall and center Aly Khalifa.
More could follow as other BYU players consider their future. Jaxson Robinson's future is still a mystery as the Big 12 sixth man of the year contemplates staying, going or declaring for the NBA draft. Trevin Knell, Fousseyni Traore and Richie Saunders could face similar situations — especially as teammates opt for the portal.
The list goes on, and could expand by the end of the weekend.
Utah assistant Chris Burgess has relationships with most of those players, having recruited the bulk of BYU's roster before joining Craig Smith's staff at his alma mater in 2022. So, too, does Wasatch Academy coach Paul Peterson, who coached Saunders and Traore among a roster that regularly sends a half-dozen prospects to college basketball every year and whose private training practice counts Frank Jackson, Eric Mika and Brandon Davies among his clients.
Both of them will be candidates to be the next head coach at BYU. So will plenty of others whose names are both spoken and not. Whomever takes the job will likely need to do so in swift fashion, though.
It's why Utah State let pass just four days between the departure of Danny Sprinkle to Washington before finalizing a deal with Jerrod Calhoun from Youngstown State. At least one player opted to stick with the Aggies as Mason Falslev exited the transfer portal and committed to return to Logan.
The Cougars don't have two weeks to deliberate, interview, and bring in multiple prospects for additional interviews with the school's board of trustees, which includes members of the First Presidency and Quorum of Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Waiting too long could leave whichever coach is hired with a hole the size of the Great Salt Lake to fill, or spun another direction, a blank canvas to rebuild an entirely new team.
Complicating matters is that BYU did not appoint an interim head coach to handle the transitional period. That suggests that the administration either has a plan to move forward quickly — or that Pope's assistants are also considering joining the new Kentucky coach in the SEC.
At the very least, two likely candidates to follow Pope to Lexington would probably include assistant coach Cody Fueger — Pope's top assistant at Utah Valley and BYU — and director of video and analytics strategy Keegan Brown, whose embrace of numbers was regularly lauded by Pope during the 2023-24 season. Former BYU assistant Kahil Fennell was just introduced as the new head coach at Texas-Rio Grande Valley.
That would presumably leave assistants Nick Robinson and Collin Terry and director of basketball operations Nate Austin filling chairs in the Marriott Center Annex.
The more time that passes, the more vacant those chairs become.
