Mark Stoops told Mark Pope he wants to 'spend the rest of his life' in Lexington: 'He gave his heart and soul to this place.'

“Whether you like it or not, I’m a Kentuckian now. This is home.”

Those comments from Mark Stoops were polarizing between the Vanderbilt and Louisville blowout losses, but they read differently now that his time as Kentucky’s head coach has come to an end — and we know he means them.

How do we know that? KSR’s Matt Jones broke the news earlier on Monday that Stoops was in a “good place” with Kentucky following the breakup and “he may even stay around Lexington until his next gig.” Now, Mark Pope has said the same thing after talking to the former head coach himself.

The second-year basketball coach wanted to take a moment to open his call-in show Monday evening to thank Stoops for welcoming him in with open arms when he took the job last offseason and their friendship in the time since. Oh, and becoming the greatest leader of the football program in our lifetimes — that’s worth a hat-tip, too.

“Yeah, I love Mark. I talked to him today and exchanged text with him after the Louisville game, and we were together last week,” Pope said. “The way he is, what he’s done for the University of Kentucky, is incredible. By a whole host of measurements, he’s the greatest, most successful coach to ever coach here, and he gave his heart and soul to this place. Just grateful for his friendship and mentorship.”

Included in that conversation? Stoops telling him that, even as a fired head coach with his shiny new replacement on his way to Kentucky as we speak, he’s still a Kentuckian through and through and wants to spend the rest of his life in Lexington, if possible.

No hard feelings with his Wildcats, either.

“I know that the season hasn’t gone the way that he wanted it to, and maybe it’s been a little tough spell, but he is — man, he loves this place,” Pope said. “He loves — he talked to me today about how much he loves Lexington, and how he hopes to spend the rest of his life here.

“I’m just grateful for him. On a personal level, he’s been a great friend, and, like I said, he’s been an incredible coach here. I think he saw that this was just the right time for the change, but just a ton of gratitude for him.”

Everyone hopes to have the same job forever and perform at the highest level for the long haul, but that’s just not the reality for most.

For the time he did have at Kentucky, though, he became the winningest coach in program history and gave it everything he had. Pope, like most of BBN, is grateful for all of it.

“We just all have these windows where we get to do this in life,” he said. “We have windows where we do things and they’re limited. They’re always limited. So the one thing I know about Mark is he could not have given one more ounce of blood, sweat and tears, or his whole heart and life to this pursuit of making Kentucky football what it was. And so we’re so grateful.”

Pretty awesome stuff across the board.