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PROVO, Utah – Brigham Young University director of athletics Tom Holmoe today announced Mark Pope has been hired as head men’s basketball coach at BYU. Pope comes to Provo after serving as head coach at Utah Valley University for the last four seasons.
“We are excited to announce Mark as our new head men’s basketball coach and welcome him and his family back to BYU,” Holmoe said. “Mark is an outstanding leader and coach. He is also an exceptional recruiter, who recognizes BYU’s unique opportunities for success. We look forward to having him build on the great tradition of BYU basketball.”
Pope’s coaching career has included stints as an assistant coach at Georgia, Wake Forest and BYU before he was named the head coach at Utah Valley. As a player, Pope helped Kentucky win the 1996 NCAA National Title before enjoying a professional career that included stints in the NBA with the Indiana Pacers, Milwaukee Bucks, New York Knicks and Denver Nuggets.
“I’d like to thank the BYU administration,” Pope said. “It’s been an unbelievable opportunity for me to go through this process and see the vision. This place is like nowhere else. It’s such an honor and privilege to be the head basketball coach at BYU. There’s a standard of excellence on this campus and with this program. Those high expectations are one of the things that excites me the most about being here.”
In four years at Utah Valley, Pope’s Wolverine teams made improvements each season, going from 12 wins in 2015-16 to 25 victories in 2018-19. He also led Utah Valley to three-straight postseason appearances (2017, 2018, 2019) and back-to-back 20-win seasons (2017-18, 2018-19)—both are Wolverine records.
The 2018-19 season was highlighted by a program-record 25 wins and an 11-4 non-conference record, the best non-league record in UVU history. His team finished 14-1 at home and owned a 22-game home win streak — also a Wolverine record and the second-longest streak in the country at the time. In addition to the team success, Pope coached the Western Athletic Conference Player of the Year and Freshman of the Year.
Pope’s 2017-18 campaign finished with a 23-11 record, including the best home mark in school history of 16-1. The season began with what was known as the #Toughest24 as Pope and the Wolverines opened on the road at No. 4 Kentucky and No. 1 Duke on consecutive nights. That season ended with a trip to the quarterfinals of the College Basketball Invitational.
In 2016-17, Pope led Utah Valley to 17 wins and a trip to the CBI. The Wolverines won a pair of road games — the school’s first-ever postseason victories — to reach the semifinals of the CBI.
While on Dave Rose’s staff at BYU from 2011-15, Pope helped the Cougars to four-straight 20-win seasons and four-straight postseason appearances – including three bids to the NCAA Tournament and trip to the semifinals of the 2013 NIT. Prior to coaching at BYU, Pope was director of basketball operations for Mark Fox at Georgia in 2009-10 and an assistant under Jeff Bzdelik at Wake Forest in 2010-11.
A 6-foot-10 post player, Pope helped Kentucky claim the 1996 NCAA National Championship and enjoyed a nine-year professional career that included seven seasons in the NBA and two in Turkey. Pope was drafted in the second round of the 1996 NBA Draft by the Indiana Pacers. Following the draft, Pope played his first season as a professional in Turkey for Efes Pilsen. He then played two seasons for the Indiana Pacers under head coach Larry Bird and helped the Pacers to the 1998 Eastern Conference Finals.
In 1999-00, Pope split time between the La Crosse Bobcats of the CBA and Ulkerspor in Turkey. He returned to the NBA the next season, playing for the Milwaukee Bucks under head coach George Karl. In 2000-01, he started 45 games and helped the Bucks reach the Eastern Conference Finals. After two seasons with the Bucks, Pope spent the 2002-03 season on injured reserve with the New York Knicks. He concluded his NBA career playing two seasons with the Denver Nuggets from 2003-05.
Pope began his collegiate career playing at Washington. As a freshman in 1991-92, he earned Pac-10 Freshman of the Year honors after setting a Washington freshman single-season record with 8.1 rebounds per game. He earned All-Academic honors from the Pac-10 as a sophomore in 1992-93.
Following his sophomore season, Pope transferred to Kentucky where he played for Rick Pitino. After redshirting in 1993-94, Pope helped the Wildcats win back-to-back SEC titles, advance to the NCAA Elite Eight in 1995 and win the NCAA National Championship in 1996. He averaged 7.6 points and 5.2 rebounds and was a team captain during Kentucky's championship season. Pope earned Academic All-SEC honors in 1995 and graduated from Kentucky with a degree in English in 1996.
Before joining the basketball staff at Georgia, Pope completed two years of medical school at Columbia University in New York. He did much of his pre-med course work while playing in the NBA. Pope and his wife Lee Anne have four daughters: Ella, Avery, Layla and Shay. Lee Anne worked at ESPN before serving as David Letterman's personal assistant for four years.
Pope becomes the 19th head men’s basketball coach in BYU history, dating back to the inaugural season in 1902-03. Over the past 117 seasons, the storied program has amassed a record of 1,828-1,096 to rank No. 11 all-time among NCAA Division I programs in total victories.
Along the way, BYU has claimed 29 regular season conference championships and received 42 postseason invitations, including 29 NCAA Tournament appearances. The Cougars won NIT championships in 1950-51 and 1965-66. Two BYU student-athletes have been named national player of the year — Danny Ainge (1981) and Jimmer Fredette (2011) — while Cougar players boast 132 all-conference and 82 All-America citations along with 45 NBA draft selections.
More from Coach Pope
Opening Statement
“I’d like to thank the BYU administration. It’s been an unbelievable opportunity for me to go through this process and see the vision. This place is like nowhere else. It’s such an honor and privilege to be the head basketball coach at BYU. There’s a standard of excellence on this campus and with this program. Those high expectations are one of the things that excites me the most about being here.”
“A thought came to me, of all these places, where do you want to win the most? Where can you go win and it will mean the most on every level. There is no doubt in my mind that is here at BYU. That’s why I’m here. That’s why we are here. Because this is a special place to come win and win big. It is like nowhere else.”
“My first meeting with Brian (Santiago) and Tom (Holmoe) was actually on the Marriott Center floor. It was such a huge deal to me to feel how badly they want to continue winning and winning bigger and bigger and bigger. It was one of the special things about this place that makes me want to be here so badly.”
“I have been really fortunate to have worked with unbelievable people in the profession of basketball, starting with my high school coach Rich Belcher, one of the great high school coaches of all time. I was really privileged to be with him, and then Lynn Nance at the University of Washington and Rick Pitino, who continues to be a mentor for me in basketball, at the University of Kentucky. Then great coaches throughout my NBA career like Rick Carlisle, George Karl and Don Chaney. I was blessed as a player.”
“Then as a coach, I worked with Mark Fox at the University of Georgia, who is now at Cal Berkeley; I learned incredible lessons from him. I had the opportunity to work with Jeff Bzdelik at Wake Forest, who now is the head assistant coach in the NBA for the Houston Rockets, doing a great job with them. And then I had the unbelievable opportunity, in fact I begged him for the opportunity, to come here and learn from Dave Rose, who is a legendary coach here and set a bar so high that it tantalizes all of us to see if we can actually jump over it.”
“So, I’ve been really blessed. But my No. 1 mentor, without doubt—there is no close second, is Lee Anne Pope, my wife. She is the smartest person I know. She is the most beautiful person I know. And she is the funniest person I know. And she is going to be a gift to this university.”
What are you going to do about assistants?
“I’m actually pretty far down the road with assistants. I have four things that I really care about in a staff: I care that my guys are 24/7, relentless guys. I care that my guys are fully capable of working guys on the floor and teaching them the game and are enmeshed in their life. Because it’s core that it is about these young men. I want coaches who are really hungry and are chasing their own careers. I want to them to move up through the ladder I want coaches that are 100% loyal. Loyal to these young men, loyal to the program, loyal to the staff and loyal to the university. So those are the things that I look for in a staff. I have been blessed to work with a great staff at UVI and I think we some really good ideas about where we’re going with that.”
Are there things you’ve learned from your first head coaching job at Utah Valley that will help you with establishing what you want at BYU?
“I learned everything right? Because I knew nothing before. I learned so much. I think that the core principles stay the same. I think that you keep it about these young men all the time. In fact, in this profession, like everything else that we do, it’s easy to get lost in the madness and the pressures and the stresses and the distractions. Lee Anne and I talk about this all the time, when you do that, the profession seems to have less meaning and it starts to go sideways. You always have to come back to these players. Making it about these young men and their growth and their accomplishments and their confidence is paramount in everything that we do. I think we will carry on some of the things that I really loved at UVU. I think we’ll schedule really aggressively, I think we’ll be fearless in everything we do, I think we’ll take our lumps and we’ll jump back up off the mat and with confidence go off to the next battle. I think we’ll be a team that’s not afraid of failure, that that’s afraid of not growing. I think all of those focuses will be important to what we do.”