Jobs like Kentucky should be in the business of making coaching stars, not hiring them

Kentucky hired Mark Pope to replace John Calipari. That should be fine.

No, really.

The optics, yes, are bad, when the school flogged its job in front of Dan Hurley and Scott Drew and a fistful of other higher-profile coaches, only to be told no. But Pope is a good coach who’s steered BYU to three top-20 KenPom finishes in five seasons in Provo. His offenses are fun and inventive and shoot a thousand 3s, and if everything is presented the right way it shouldn’t be hard to find talented players willing to try them out.

CL Brown: Mark Pope worthy of being UK coach despite lack of signature wins

But there is a more fundamental philosophical discussion around the decision to hire a coach with Pope’s resume. History suggests jobs like Kentucky should be in the business of making stars, not hiring them.

There are no perfect analogues in coach searching. Each job is its own challenge at the time it opens, with strengths and weaknesses distinct to the present climate and situation. Sticking with the current example, Kentucky right now is not the job it would have been half a decade ago, had the rumors about John Calipari’s interest in NBA jobs taken more serious form. It is certainly a different animal than when Calipari was hired in 2008.

Ironically, Kentucky poaching Calipari from Memphis — a move UK Athletic Director Mitch Barnhart might not have been completely sure of when he made it, depending upon which reports you believe — is the exception in this case.

For the most part, when big jobs have come open recently, they’ve gone to someone other than the perceived grand slam (or home run, or slam dunk, or insert sports metaphor here) hire.

Duke elevated Jon Scheyer. North Carolina promoted Hubert Davis. UCLA went with Mick Cronin. Villanova brought Kyle Neptune back home, just as IU did Mike Woodson. Arizona tapped Tommy Lloyd, a long-time assistant whose entire coaching career had been spent at Gonzaga to that point. It’s easy to look at UConn hiring Hurley now as a master stroke, but when he was hired from Rhode Island he arrived with two NCAA tournament wins in eight years as a head coach, and it took him five more to win a tournament game in Storrs.

History leans into this idea too.

Mike Krzyzewski had made one postseason appearance in five years at Army before he got the Duke job. Jim Calhoun didn’t reach the NCAA tournament until his ninth season at Northeastern, or his fourth year at UConn. Jay Wright didn’t get Hofstra dancing until year six, or Villanova until year four. That trio won a total of 10 national championships.

Big Ten comparisons fit too. The best coach in Indiana history was hired from Army at age 30. Michigan State’s gold standard was an in-house promotion. Before he got the Wisconsin job, the bulk of Bo Ryan’s resume had been built at the NAIA and Division III levels. Matt Painter had been a head coach for just one (admittedly successful) season at Southern Illinois when Purdue circled him back to West Lafayette as Gene Keady’s successor. Keady himself had just two years of head-coaching experience above the junior college level before Purdue hired him in 1980.

Those five coaches combined to win 47 conference regular-season or tournament titles, reach 16 Final Fours and win four national titles.

Yes, there are examples the other way, Calipari not least among them. Bill Self fits too. To an extent, so does Roy Williams, though his legacy will be defined first by his final coaching stop.

And there are plenty of misses. Archie Miller looked fit for IU and never made the NCAA tournament. Chris Holtmann won Big Ten coach of the year in his first season at Ohio State and never reached those heights again. Matt Doherty at UNC. Billy Gillispie at Kentucky.

But in the aggregate, the road Kentucky walked Friday, when it announced Pope as its new head coach, is the one more often traveled. It is also one quite often successful.

The desire for outstanding hires is born of comfort and assurance. Surely, if a coach can win in a smaller job with a lower profile and fewer resources, he’ll thrive in a bigger job with a higher profile and greater resources.

History tells us the much more common — and plenty successful — path lets the job make the man, so to speak. Kentucky taking that approach with Pope now isn’t just normal. There’s historical evidence to suggest it might work out fine.

Follow IndyStar reporter Zach Osterman on Twitter: @ZachOsterman.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Kentucky basketball hiring Mark Pope as coach will be just fine