Louisville Basketball: 10 candidates to replace Chris Mack as head coach

Mark Pope

Louisville has been an elite program at times, though recent times are nothing like that. The Cardinals will want the best coach regardless of age to turn the tide for this program. However, it’s possible that Louisville could bring aboard one of the rising stars in the coaching world, and someone who just happened to play his college ball at a familiar school.

Pope played collegiately at Kentucky before a long professional career, involving a few stops in the NBA. He gained experience on staff at Georgia and Wake Forest and spent four years as head coach at Utah Valley, legitimately rebuilding that Wolverines program. Since taking over BYU in 2019, the Cougars have been a fantastic program, with a 61-19 record to this point and looking like an NCAA Tournament team again.

If Pope can get things going at Louisville as he has with BYU, then he can thrive with the Cardinals for decades to come. If the Cardinals can survive handing their program to a talented coach who played ball at rival Kentucky, then they could steal away one of the big young names in coaching circles. BYU will be in the Big 12 very soon; perhaps it comes down to Pope wanting to be a force in the ACC as opposed to playing second or third fiddle behind Kansas and several other programs in the future.