When Pope was hired, the one blemish on his resume was the lack of NCAA tournament success. He has been to the tournament twice at BYU as a six seed and went 0-2 in these games. The most recent of these losses was last year when BYU was upset by Duquesne.
Coach Pope has proven he can recruit at a big program like Kentucky which was the other concern with hiring him. Now that he has proven recruiting success, the last box Pope has to check is winning in the NCAA Tournament.
For this season to be a success, knowing how good this team is, the Wildcats have to get out of the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament.
Based on season long trends of this Kentucky basketball team, it will be interesting to see how the first game in the NCAA Tournament treats them. The Wildcats have been their best against ranked teams and, at times, struggled against lesser competition.
Some are concerned that this could lead to an ugly first-round loss for the Wildcats, but there is no question Pope will have his team ready for this game. The future for Kentucky basketball is extremely bright, and it would be great to see the Wildcats win a few games in March. Pope is going to bring a Championship to this university.