As if Mark Pope could have looked even more over his skis on the Kentucky sidelines, he opened his mouth after the game. Kentucky was only down one point at halftime to a shorthanded Iowa State team. Whatever Pope said at halftime did not motivate his players at all. TJ Otzelberger's team ran roughshod on them to win effortlessly in the second half. They did all this without Joshua Jefferson.
Following the 82-63 beatdown in the Round of 32, all Pope could offer to the media was coach speak.
"For us, I’m really proud of our guys. You know, these guys took on a character this year of just dealing with a ton and just trying to stand back up, stand back up, and stand back up. If we were blessed to have another game, I’m sure they would again. We just weren’t good enough tonight.”
If you are a fan of empty-calorie nonsense coming out of someone's mouth, watch this entire video...
Pope may not want to admit it just yet, but it is so unbelievably over for him as the Kentucky coach.
Mark Pope is not the right person to be leading the Kentucky Wildcats
While it remains to be seen if athletic director Mitch Barnhart will fire this Kentucky alum after only two years on the job, he did fire former Wildcats football coach Mark Stoops back in the fall. With Barnhart stepping down as athletic director and into retirement at the end of the academic year, Pope's status with the program lingers on. Who would want this job if it cannot move on from Pope?
Right now, the only head coach who is sitting on as hot of a seat across major college basketball would have to be Hubert Davis at North Carolina. While he too leads his alma mater's program in the wake of replacing a hall-of-fame head coach, Davis has played for a national title before. Granted, that was with Roy Williams' players. No. 6 North Carolina just bowed out in the Round of 64 to No. 11 VCU...
To attempt to tie a bow on this, Pope may have been hired away from BYU to appease Kentucky fans in the wake of John Calipari's exodus to Arkansas. Two years in, and Calipari is the one heading back to the Sweet 16. Pope seems to have let this traditional power settle for sad mediocrity. Kentucky has devolved into being a middle-of-the-pack team in the SEC under his watch. He probably needs to go.
It may have been a challenging year for him and his entire staff, but Pope knows that this is Kentucky!