There was probably only one job that could pull Mark Pope away from BYU right now.

It looks like he’s taking it.

Pope was a favored son of Kentucky, the team captain of the 1996 NCAA Championship team. The Wildcats’ head coaching job opened up this week when John Calipari bolted for Arkansas, and it appears Pope is going to Lexington to take over one of the biggest blue-blood programs in college basketball.

Reports all over social media on Thursday night — including those from ESPN’s Pete Thamel and John Rothstein of CBS Sports — indicated Pope, who has been at BYU for five seasons, will be the next head coach at Kentucky.

A few higher profile candidates, including Scott Drew of Baylor, topped the list for the Wildcats but nothing materialized from those names. Matt Norlander of CBS Sports reported that Pope was identified as a candidate three days ago and had a previously arranged meeting with Kentucky administrators set for Thursday.

Pope was an assistant at BYU under Dave Rose from 2011 to 2015 before taking over at Utah Valley, where he spent four years. The Wolverines improved every season, going from 12 wins in 2015-16 to 25 in 2018-19. Pope was 77-56 overall (58%) at UVU.

When Rose retired at the end of the 2018-19 season, Pope was tabbed as his successor.

The Cougars went to a pair of NCAA Tournaments under Pope (2021, 2024) and would have gone in 2020 but the pandemic caused the cancellation of the event. Pope is 110-51 (68%) in his five seasons in Provo.

BYU was picked to finish 13th (out of 14) in its initial season in the Big 12 but ended up fifth at 10-8 with wins against No. 7 Kansas, No. 11 Baylor and No. 24 Iowa State. The Cougars ranked second in the nation in 3-point field goal attempts per game and third in 3-point field goals.

BYU (23-11) rose as high as No. 12 in the Associated Press poll and earned a No. 6 seed in the NCAA Tournament. The Cougars were upset by No. 11 Duquesne 71-67 in a first round game in Omaha on March 21.

The next few months will be a busy and unsettling time for BYU basketball. Not only will Director of Athletics Tom Holmoe and Deputy Athletic Director Brian Santiago be searching for a replacement but the roster will be in a huge state of flux as current athletes consider entering the transfer portal or joining Pope at Kentucky. In addition, one of the Cougars highest-ranked recruits, Collin Chandler, is returning from his mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints this spring and will have to consider his options as well.

The short list of candidates for replacing Pope includes former BYU assistant Chris Burgess (now an assistant at Utah), former UVU head coach Mark Madsen (now at Cal), current BYU assistant Cody Fueger and UNLV assistant coach Barret Peery.

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