LAS VEGAS — Looking back, how about that Mark Pope hire?
It was no roll of the dice by BYU’s administration.
Energetic, smart, a worker, communicator, cheerleader, leader and coach, it now seems the package delivered. No gamble at all.
After only a few short months, the program finds itself drenched in national attention and predicted to make a deep postseason run. In the last home game against Gonzaga, the atmosphere was magic, enthralling. Now, after a nine-game win streak and an undefeated February, some are throwing out the idea that Pope may be too hot for BYU to keep.
We shall see.
The Cougars head out to the West Coast Conference Tournament this weekend where their No. 2 seeding pits them against a quarterfinal winner Monday night in the Orleans Arena.
This will be Pope’s first WCC Tournament as head coach; he’s been here before as an assistant to Dave Rose. It will join a litany of firsts for Pope, right along with a No. 15 ranking in the AP poll, a peek into the top 10 in the NCAA’s NET and KenPom rankings, and a possible No. 4 or 5 seed in the NCAA Tournament as the nation’s top 3-point shooting team.
Deputy athletic director Brian Santiago had the task of picking Dave Rose’s replacement and recommending it up the chain of command last March.
But even Santiago couldn’t have foreseen a trajectory like this if he was a NASA engineer.
You couldn’t write a script like this.
Back in April 2019, just days after BYU hired Pope from Utah Valley, I asked Santiago to revisit his job interview when he brought Pope in and how they found their way to the Marriott Center floor looking at the seats and banners. At that time, Santiago made an impassioned sales speech to Pope. It was a scene-setter pitched to all candidates in this interview cycle.
“We want to keep it going,” he told Pope.
“From Day 1 in 1997 when Dave Rose and I were on the staff, we used to talk about getting to the Final Four,” Santiago said. “We were a free throw away from making that dream become a reality in a very tough situation with one of our players (the suspension of Brandon Davies). We felt it back then (2011) and we feel it now.
“We feel like this is a special place that’s got an incredible history and an incredible future and we wanted coach Pope to feel that from the first moment we started talking about the possibilities of becoming a new coach for BYU.”
Pope may have felt exactly what Santiago tried to describe before, during and after his squad delivered a win over No. 2 Gonzaga in BYU’s last home game that drew a sellout crowd, including 8,000 delirious students, some of whom camped out for a good seat.
Now, in Las Vegas, Pope’s team has qualified to play directly into the league tournament’s semifinal Monday, likely against Saint Mary’s. In Vegas, BYU cannot incur a bad loss, only enhance its resume for the Big Dance.
In other words, BYU is playing with house money in the Orleans Arena. An absolute lock into the NCAA Tournament, the Cougars risk only slipping a seed line or two and could climb higher with one or two wins. The most likely WCC final would pit BYU against projected NCAA No. 1 seed Gonzaga.
However, BYU could stumble on Monday and head home.
In the NCAA Tournament, the Cougars could trip again, although most experts nationally see this Cougars team a favorite to win at least two games and make the Sweet 16.
That is a far cry from making it to the vision Rose and Santiago had and projected to Pope that a Final Four is possible, but that is the magic of this time of the season when anything can happen.
The day BYU announced Pope was hired, I made a few predictions that were published online before his press conference.
Included in the piece was the following:
“I see a Pope staff looking at Saint Mary’s or Wisconsin and saying that a system can create havoc; the shot clock doesn’t have to run down without a systematic offensive play executed at a high level.
“I think BYU’s challenge to Pope is to take what Rose built and take it higher — be it skill development, better ball-sharing, better defense, scouting and game plans — and thus making it far harder for top players of the school’s faith to go other places.
“You do that by creating reasons to be in Provo. Pope is uniquely gifted for that because as a highly recruited high school athlete, he chose to go elsewhere. He knows the reasons why. He can speak to that.”
Now begins Pope’s postseason with BYU at 24-7 and outscoring opponents 80-68.
It will be interesting to see how this so-called second season is managed and coached beginning Monday night in Las Vegas.