Mark Pope was on Arizona's radar for the head coaching job in 2021

Mark Pope is happy as a clam to be the head coach of Kentucky men’s basketball, but “there were some genuine conversations” happening between him and the Arizona program a few years ago.

The Field of 68’s Jeff Goodman made the revelation during Tuesday morning’s episode of KSR. Back in the spring of 2021, when Arizona was searching for a new head men’s basketball coach to replace the recently fired Sean Miller, Pope was in consideration for the job. At the time, the consensus was that Tommy Lloyd, who ended up taking the job and is still the school’s head coach, was the obvious choice to take over.

But as Goodman explains it, there was a brief moment when Pope and the Arizona brass were having serious talks about him taking over for the other Wildcats.

“Arizona, a couple of years ago, when they were going to hire Tommy Lloyd, it came out it was gonna be Tommy Lloyd. And then the AD at the time, Dave Heeke — they didn’t want to make it look like it was already wired for Tommy Lloyd. So they started saying another name, not gonna say who the name was at that point, another name was gonna be in the mix. I kinda freaked out, because it was a Billy Clyde (Gillispie) type. I called Steve Kerr, Arizona guy, I’m like ‘Steve, this guy, no, it shouldn’t happen.’

“Anyways, Steve kind of got that guy out and then I said to Dave Heeke, you should look at Mark Pope. And the next day, he actually had an interview with Arizona. And I guess he crushed it. But again, didn’t get the Arizona job. It was already hooked up for Tommy Lloyd. But he well could have had the Arizona job. But that’s how much I thought of Mark Pope at the time.”

Pope had just wrapped up his best season yet as a head coach during that offseason. He took his second BYU team that finished 20-7 (10-3; WCC) to the NCAA Tournament, his first making the field as a head coach. It was just Pope’s sixth season as a Division I head coach, but he was quickly making a name for himself. Three years later, he landed at Kentucky, much to the eventual joy of the fans — there was legitimate interest from Arizona at the time, though.

“Arizona, that was a pretty intriguing situation,” Pope said later on Tuesday during The Field of 68’s live show from the Joe Craft Center. “Tommy is the right guy for the job. And there were some genuine conversations happening but the right person got that job. He’s killing it there.”

We have no doubt that Pope would have crushed it at Arizona if he had ended up taking that job, but the Big Blue Nation is selfishly glad he had to wait a few more years before landing his first big-time role.

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