JUST IN: Kentucky’s coach announces his retirement….

During his nine years as head coach, he did not win a regular-season or conference tournament championship. His teams have experienced upset losses in the first round of the NCAA tournament, losing as a 6-seed to an 11-seed twice: against UCLA in 2021 and Duquesne last month.

After assisting Kentucky to the national championship in 1996, Pope spent seven seasons in the NBA. He finished two years of medical school at Columbia University before joining Mark Fox’s team at Georgia in 2009. Pope subsequently worked as an assistant coach at Wake Forest for one year before joining Dave Rose’s BYU staff for four years.Borzello: It’s an intriguing match, more in line with Duke hiring Jon Scheyer and North Carolina getting Hubert Davis than, say, Arkansas choosing John Calipari. Pope lacks the résumé of some of the other probable candidates, having

never won an NCAA tournament game or a regular-season title and only one year of coaching in a high-major conference. But he is well-known, particularly in Lexington, and he will understand what it means to be Kentucky’s head coach. The expectations will be tremendous from day one, which he hasn’t faced with during his tenure at

Kentucky and Barnhart pivoting to Pope on Thursday evening, following Baylor’s Scott Drew and