Mark Pope named to NABC Board of Directors

Mark Pope already has a lot on his plate as the head coach at Kentucky, but when the National Basketball Association of Basketball Coaches calls, you have to answer, right?

Pope has been named to the NABC Board of Directors, the organization announced Wednesday. He is one of nine new members of the top leadership body, providing strategic oversight of the association’s daily operations and advocacy work.

The Kentucky head coach will be joined by Baylor’s Scott Drew, North Georgia’s Dan Evans, Yale’s James Jones, Pomona-Pitzer’s Charles Katsiaficas, Liberty’s Ritchie McKay, Duke’s Jon Scheyer, Notre Dame’s Micah Shrewsberry and Illinois’ Brad Underwood on the board of directors. Minnesota State’s Matt Margenthaler will serve as the NABC Board of Directors President in 2025-26.

Kentucky played both Duke and Illinois last season while the Baylor connection is obvious with Drew a serious candidate to take the job before Pope was hired, only for Alvin Brooks III to follow the new head coach to Lexington from Waco as his associate head coach.

“As college athletics and the game of basketball undergo unprecedented transformation, it’s vital that coaches continue to present a unified voice and demonstrate sound national leadership,” NABC Executive Director Craig Robinson said in a press release. “These nine coaches were identified by their peers as ideal candidates to represent our over 5,000 members on the NABC Board of Directors, and their diverse perspectives will strengthen the NABC’s efforts to support the profession and grow the sport.”

The Wildcats made history in 2024-25 with eight top-15 victories to tie Indiana (1992-93) and Duke (1978-79) for the most in a single season. Five of those eight wins were against top-10 opponents to set a new program record.

Pope is coming off a Sweet 16 appearance, Kentucky’s first since 2019. It was a good start, but the head coach expects more in year two.

“If I was going to grade myself, I’d probably grade myself at a B or a B minus,” Pope said of his debut season. “Clearly, we didn’t get our end result. Our job is to go win it. We didn’t get that done. I felt like we did a lot of things really, really well that I’m very proud of.

“I felt like as a head coach, I failed our team a little bit in terms of picking and choosing the places where we’re going to have a relentless standard, where anything less than it was going to be successful. So one of our big keys going into the season is we’re going to have a standard that we will refuse to accept anything less in some facets of the game that are controllable. I think we’re going to do a much better job with that.”

He’ll be doing that while juggling duties on the NABC Board of Directors.