Former UK coach and current Arkansas coach John Calipari hugs Kentucky coach Mark Pope before the game Saturday Feb. 1, 2025 at Rupp Arena in Lexington, Kentucky. Matt Stone/Courier Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The final few years of John Calipari's time at Kentucky set Mark Pope up for success

Originally posted on Kentucky Wildcats on SI
By Andrew Stefaniak | Last updated Sep 4, 2025 1:05 PM ET

It has been a very interesting few years for the Kentucky basketball program as John Calipari left for Arkansas and Mitch Barnhart hired a former Wildcat player, Mark Pope to be the new coach.

During the last five years of Calipari's tenure, there wasn't any sort of NCAA Tournament success, and Kentucky fans seemed to be getting used to disappointment in the month of March. After the loss to Oakland with a team featuring Antonio Reeves, Reed Sheppard, and Rob Dillingham, fans seemed to have had enough, and days later, Calipari made the move to Arkansas.

A similar comparison can be drawn, but in college football. Nick Saban retired from coaching, and the Alabama Crimson Tide hired Kalen DeBoer. In year one of the DeBoer era, the Crimson Tide missed the 12-Team College Football Playoff.

William McLelland-Imagn Images

Last week, Alabama lost to Florida State in week one, and now Alabama fans are already begging for a coaching change.

The reason a comparison can be drawn to Kentucky basketball is because Calipari wasn't winning in the tournament the last five years of his time in Lexington. This means that in year one, expectations weren't sky high for Pope, and in all honesty, he exceeded them, taking the Wildcats to their first Sweet 16 since the pandemic.

Saban went out with Alabama still being one of the top teams in college football, so when DeBoer got to Tuscaloosa, fans expected him to have a playoff team right away, and it didn't happen in year one. Now, after the loss to Florida State, it's looking like it won't happen again this season.

In year one, the pressure was much higher on DeBoer than it was on Pope, and Coach Pope had a successful year while DeBoer did not.

Now heading into the 2025-26 Kentucky basketball season, the feeling around the program is that this roster is good enough to win a national. Big Blue Nation is incredibly excited about the start of the upcoming season, as this team has a real shot to make a run that hasn't been seen in Lexington in a very long time.

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Calipari leaving the Kentucky program in a place where fans had forgotten what postseason success looked like might have helped Coach Pope build something special because he hasn't been looking over his shoulder worried about his job.

It is going to be an exciting college basketball season this year in Lexington, Kentucky, and the Wildcats are good enough to win it all in year two of the Mark Pope era.

This article first appeared on Kentucky Wildcats on SI and was syndicated with permission.

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