Comparing Mark Pope's resume to another elite college basketball coaches

Big Blue Nation needs to get behind Mark Pope.

The college basketball world was shocked when Mitch Barnhart decided to hire Mark Pope to be Kentucky's next head basketball coach.

Some members of Big Blue Nation were upset about this hire, but the more I look at it, the more I like it.

Let's compare Mark Pope's head coaching resume to an elite current college coach. This resume for the elite coach will be before he got to his current stop.

Mark Pope in nine seasons between Utah Valley and BYU

Record: 187-108
Winning Percentage: 63
NCAA Tournament Appearances: 2

Elite College Basketball Coach in eight seasons between Wagner and Rhode Island

Record: 151-105
Winning Percentage: 59
NCAA Tournament Appearances: 2

Who is this elite college basketball coach, you might ask? It's UConn's Dan Hurley who just won back-to-back National Titles.

The point of this experiment is to prove that not every hire is a guy who has had a ton of success at a top school.

Nate Oats came to Alabama after four very successful seasons at Buffalo but didn't have any experience at a big school.

Pope was not the hire Kentucky fans were expecting, but he is an elite X's and O's coach who knows what it takes to win at Kentucky, as he was a part of the 1996 National Championship team.

He will have to adjust to recruiting as it will be very different from what he did at BYU, but Pope will be able to develop the talent he recruits, and he has proven that he can use the portal well.

Kentucky fans wanted a proven coach, but at the end of the day, any coach they would have hired would have needed to prove it in Lexington, and after running numbers and watching tape, I believe Pope will be successful in Lexington.