The story behind UK’s coaching search: Mitch Barnhart’s process in arriving at Mark Pope
What a week it was in the world of Kentucky basketball.
Two Sundays ago, UK fans awoke fully expecting John Calipari to return to Lexington for his 16th season as the head coach of the Wildcats.
By that night, Big Blue Nation was in a frenzy amid buzz that its longtime leader was prepared to bolt the program for the same position at SEC rival Arkansas. And exactly one week later, Mark Pope was the new head coach of the Wildcats and had just presided over what was surely one of the most impressive pep rallies in college basketball history.
Quite a bit happened in between.
On Tuesday afternoon, Calipari ended 48 hours of rumor with his resignation.
In a letter dated April 9 and sent to UK athletics director Mitch Barnhart — obtained by the Herald-Leader via an open records request — the former UK coach officially informed his boss that he was stepping down.
Dear Mitch, Please accept this letter as notice that I will resigning (sic) my position as head basketball coach at the University of Kentucky. My final day of work will be today, April 9th. Thank you for the support and opportunities you have provided me over the course of the last fifteen (15) years. I am committed to making this transition as smooth as possible.
“I wish you and the University of Kentucky continued success. Sincerely, John Calipari.”
Records show that the letter was marked “read” at 2 p.m., around the same time he released a video on social media publicly announcing his departure.
With that, the Calipari era was officially over. And then things got a little crazy.
For nearly two days, Barnhart knew he was going to have a coaching vacancy, but he couldn’t formally move on filling one of the most prestigious positions in college sports until Calipari had officially resigned from the program. When that happened, the phones started buzzing.
It was already presumed that Baylor’s Scott Drew would be at the top of Barnhart’s list, and UK immediately reached out to the Bears’ head coach, who’d spent the past 21 seasons in Waco.
The Herald-Leader was also told that individuals connected to UK Athletics — but not Barnhart, specifically — reached out that same day to gauge the interest of Chicago Bulls head coach Billy Donovan, who spent the first five years of his coaching career as an assistant under Rick Pitino at Kentucky before ultimately winning back-to-back NCAA titles at Florida and then moving on to the NBA.
Drew was interested enough to have conversations about the job with Kentucky, and some of his family members were flown to Lexington the following day on an aircraft belonging to a company owned by Joe Craft, the athletics department’s biggest booster.
