Mark Pope won a championship while playing for Kentucky.
College basketball fans will see someone new on the sidelines coaching the Kentucky Wildcats men’s basketball team this season.
After a decade and a half with Kentucky, former Wildcats head coach John Calipari is no longer leading the program. Now the head coach at Arkansas, the longtime face of the team brought a few of his former players to a new school in the SEC.
In his absence, former BYU head coach Mark Pope is now running the show for Kentucky.
Pope is originally from Washington and played college basketball for the Washington Huskies, where he was named Pac-10 Freshman of the Year in 1992.
He eventually transferred to Kentucky, where he played from 1994 until 1996. As a forward, he was team captain for the Wildcats when they won the NCAA men’s basketball championship in 1996.
Selected in the second round of the 1996 NBA Draft, he played professionally both overseas and in the NBA. After his playing career concluded, he began coaching.
Pope served as an assistant coach at Georgia, Wake Forest, and BYU before becoming head coach at Utah Valley in 2015. Pope took over as head coach for the Cougars in 2019 and was able to take the team to the March Madness tournament last season.
Now the head coach of his alma mater, fans will have high hopes for Pope’s first season. While several players left the team for the NBA or the transfer portal, he will bring former BYU top scorer Jaxson Robinson with him to the Wilcats.
San Antonio would end up with two of the best freshmen in the NCAA.
The San Antonio Spurs are one of the most interesting teams in the league due to Victor Wembanyama, and it will only get more fascinating.
San Antonio currently has two projected lottery picks in the 2025 NBA Draft, which could help them continue to retool around Wembanyama after picking Stephon Castle in the 2024 NBA Draft.
“Knueppel’s ability to shoot off screens, pull up off the dribble and spot up from deep vantage points with picture-perfect footwork and mechanics should keep him prominent in draft conversations, especially with the way he has contributed in other areas as well with his physicality, feel for the game and better-than-expected shot creation and defense.”
They also added that Knueppel is “arguably the best shooter” in this draft class.
Read more from them on Demin:
“Few freshmen have been more impressive than Demin, who is utilizing a tremendous platform at BYU to showcase his outstanding size, spectacular court vision, shotmaking prowess and all-around talent against, thus far, lower-level competition.”
Demin has looked fantastic as a tall playmaker for BYU, and he could provide a spark as the point guard of the future for San Antonio.
The Texas Longhorns (14-6) and No. 21 BYU Cougars (15-5) traded baskets in a fast paced first half on Saturday. The second half was dominated by the Cougars.
The pace of the game didn’t make it any less ugly. Both teams played an attacking style of basketball. The physical nature of the game saw both teams fumbling away opportunities. The Longhorns fumbled more.
Texas built an early lead in the game on the road. The Longhorns led by as many as seven points early in the first half before the Cougars caught fire. After leading 30-29, BYU went on a 11-2 run to take a 41-31 lead with 2:52 left in the first half.
The Longhorns offensive style in the final 11 minutes of the half looked more erratic than effective. After losing the lead with 11:14 left in the first half, more possessions than not failed to get Texas an easy basket. The erratic play carried over to the second half.
Texas forward Dylan Disu kept his team in the game with a couple of difficult baskets. Disu reached double digits in the first half with 11 points helping the Longhorns finish the half on a 10-3 run of its own.
BYU led Texas at halftime, 43-40. From that point, it was all Cougars.
The Longhorns couldn’t stop much of anything on the day. BYU’s offensive attack got one open basket after another. The Cougars effortlessly compiled a 64% field goal percentage for the game. On top of that, the team owned the boards securing eight more rebounds than Texas.
Disu led the Longhorns in scoring with 19 points followed by Chendall Weaver with 15 points off the bench. Texas will next take on No. 4 Houston on Monday night.
Former Rutgers basketball commit Braeden Moore is in the transfer portal.
Braeden Moore has entered the transfer portal, the former Rutgers basketball commit reportedly set to leave BYU.
A 2022 commit to BYU, Moore had committed to Rutgers in July of 2021 and de-committed months later in October. A product of Donda Academy (Simi Valley, CA), Moore was a 6-foot-8 small forward who was the No. 47 player at his position in the nation.
The small forward had significant offers including Arkansas, Auburn, Arizona State, Boston College, Cincinnati, Georgetown, Georgia Tech, Kansas, Memphis, Ole Miss, Missouri, San Diego State and St. John’s among others.
He was an intriguing prospect, one who was ranked nationally among the top 125 recruits in his class at one point. He has the ability to shoot from the perimeter and stretch the floor.
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He has some good range to his game and handles the ball well for a forward.
In high school, Moore scored over 2,100 points in his career and was a 41-percent shooter from three-point range.
Not impossible as there is always room for talent. But still this might be a difficult one to see reuniting.
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There is also the matter of fit.
It depends on where he could line-up. With four-star Gavin Griffiths coming on-board next season, the Scarlet Knights don’t have a pressing need at small forward. Could Moore play as a power forward potentially?
Difficult to say. He isn’t a classic down-low type of player who bangs around in the paint. Moore has talent for sure and Rutgers needs scoring, but without any college film from his freshman season at BYU, it is impossible to say there is a good fit here at Rutgers.
Covering as 6.5-point underdogs shouldn’t have even been an option for BYU after trailing by as much as 26 points in their West Coast Conference Tournament semifinal game Monday against BYU.
But as the final seconds of the game winded down, Cougars bettors were somehow in the green after a monster second-half surge cut the deficit to three with about 30 seconds left. The incredible backdoor cover was secured!
And then it wasn’t.
Saint Mary’s scored four straight points from there, and it was the very last cover-blowing point that was most heart-breaking. With the game all but decided, a BYU player fouled Saint Mary’s with less than a second left.
BYU fouls Saint Mary’s (-6.5) with 0.9 seconds left.
Adding to the heartbreak for BYU bettors is the missed free throw that led to the rebound and foul. It was third straight miss from the line for Atiki Ally. Had he made just one of them, the foul at the end wouldn’t have mattered.
Former Rutgers basketball commit Braeden Moore commits to BYU basketball.
Former Rutgers basketball verbal Braeden Moore has committed to BYU. The forward made his announcement on Friday.
A standout at Donda Academy (Simi Valley, CA), Moore transferred to the school for his senior season of high school. Donda Academy is famous as the school started by mogul Kanye West.
Moore is a 6-foot-8 forward who has good range to his game. As a junior at Christ Presbyterian (Nashville, TN), he averaged 18.5 points and 8.0 rebounds.
In late October, Moore de-committed from Rutgers. He had committed to Rutgers last July.
The three-star power forward was ranked the No. 278 player in the nation and is a class of 2022 prospect.
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He posted on social media about his decision to commit to BYU:
I want to thank my family, friends, coaches, and trainers who have invested in me. Most importantly, I want to thank God for all he is done in my life.
You don’t come into the gym without planning on scoring at least 80 against Gonzaga, and you might need a plan to figure out how to hang 100 to have any hope.
The Bulldogs have taken their offensive up a few notches with well over 100 points in four of their last seven games, and with 89 or more in eight of their last nine.
One of those big scoring days was the 110 put up on BYU – 84 wasn’t enough to even get an appetizer.
BYU doesn’t force enough defensive stops, it fouls like it’s fun, and it’s having a big problem with turnovers lately.
And it just doesn’t score enough to keep up if and when Gonzaga goes Gonzaga.
As versatile as Gonzaga might be, it was able to win the first time around by going gonzo from three. It can get hot, but even Gonzaga isn’t going to hit 53% from three and nail close to 70% from the field again.
BYU can rebound well enough to clean up the glass on both ends. It’s not like Gonzaga can’t own the boards from time to time – it’ll get 40 coming off the bus – but BYU leads the nation in total rebounds and should be able to come up with more than the 11 offensive boards it generated the first time around.
Will it matter that BYU is playing in the Marriott?
It lost a clunker of a home game a few days ago to San Francisco for the first time all year it dropped a game in Provo. It was 10-0 before that at home, and now it gets the No. 1 team in its house.
There’s enough defense and production on the boards to keep this from getting too obnoxiously out of hand, but the co-No. 1 team in America is in way too good of a groove.
It’s too amazing from three lately to lose this, but BYU will make it fun for a while.
Gonzaga vs BYU Prediction, Lines
Gonzaga 90, BYU 77
Line: Gonzaga -12, o/u: 159 ATS Confidence out of 5: 2
Must See Rating: 3
5: One week off before the Super Bowl
1: Two weeks off before the Super Bowl
Over the long off season I’ve seen a number of outlets release All-Decade teams for the conferences they cover. To the best of my knowledge, no one has released one for the Mountain West, so I took on the challenge. The years in question were the 2009-10 season through the 2018-19 season, as that is what I had seen the other outlets do. I asked the staff at @MWCwire to fill out a google form for their All-Decade Mountain West Team, and I asked as many fans as I could to fill out the google form as well. The results were then weighed 60% for the staff and 40% for the fans if only to help mitigate any bias from Aztec fans (who are most of my following on twitter.)
In the poll, I had a list of 27 players, plus gave the option to write in your own player in case I missed someone. Fans and staff chose 5 first team players, 5 second-team players, and 5 third-team players. If anyone is so offended at the results you feel the need to go change them, the link to the google form will be here: https://forms.gle/HGSaCNVDqnQhVuby7.
With that, let’s get into the results. Players will be listed from least votes to most votes.
This one is really a no brainer. When you consider longevity, success, conference championships, and postseason success, there’s only one choice here. Nevada and New Mexico fans stanning their guys is understandable, but it’s honestly not even a competition. Steve Fisher was the best coach of the decade, and what he was able to accomplish at San Diego State, turning it from an irrelevant school to a national program, is truly impressive. So much so that Fisher himself says that he’s more proud of what he accomplished at San Diego State than he is of winning a National Championship at Michigan.
One of the hardest questions to figure out when finding an all-decade team is, what should the criteria be? Does a player need to play at a high level for multiple seasons, or is one season where you’re the best player around enough to make the team. Bairstow answers that question. His first three seasons at New Mexico were nothing special. He took the classic route of advancing from bench player to starter. In his senior season something clicked, and he exploded for 20.4 points and 7.4 rebounds a game. That single season propelled him to a spot on the all decade team. During that season Bairstow led the Lobos past the Aztecs in the MW championship game, and helped the Lobos achieve a 7 seed in the March Madness tournament. As a senior, Bairstow finished 1st in points, 8th in rebounds, 6th in blocks, and 2nd in win shares. He likely would’ve been the MW player of the year too if it wasn’t for Xavier Thames’ great season.
Josh Adams never got to experience a large amount of team success, but as an individual player he was consistently pretty good throughout his career. He capped off his collegiate career by scoring 24.7 points a game, to go along with 5.5 rebounds and 4.2 assists. Adams was rewarded for his stellar play by winning the 2015-16 MW Player of the Year award. Adams currently stands at the 10th all time leading scorer in Mountain West history, after finishing in the top 10 in scoring 3 times, and leading the conference his senior year. He also finished top 5 in both assists and steals twice. His advanced data on Sports Reference is incomplete, so I substituted Wins Added for Win Shares. Adams led all Wyoming players in the decade in career Wins Added, and currently stands at 20th overall dating back to the 2005 season.
Tony Snell, New Mexico: 104 G, 9.2 Pts, 2.4 Rebs, 2 Ast, 8.9 Win Shares.
Tony Snell was an important piece to the dominant New Mexico teams at the beginning of the decade. He played in 104 games over the course of 3 years, and was efficient with an average eFG% of 53.3% over that time. In 2013 he was the second leading scorer on a New Mexico team that won 29 games and received a 3 seed in the tournament, scoring 12.5 points to go along with 2.6 rebounds and 2.9 assists. That campaign propelled Snell to the 20th pick in the 2013 NBA draft.
Skylar Spencer, San Diego State: 144 G, 3.8 Pts, 4.5 Reb, 0.3 Ast, 11.9 Win Shares.
When it comes to Skylar Spencer, it’s all about his defense. Offensively Spencer was pretty limited, with his best offensive season contributing a mere 4.8 points per game. HE was a great offensive rebounder though, and currently has the 7th most offensive rebounds in conference history. As for the defense, Spencer currently stands at 7th in conference history in defensive win shares. Most notably, Spencer collected more blocks over his career than any other Mountain West player and it’s not close. Spencer blocked 303 shots over his four years at San Diego State.
It’s a record that is likely to stand for a while. Neemias Queta will have a chance at breaking the record but is currently on pace to fall 34 blocks short. As for team impact, while Spencer was at SDSU the Aztec’s defense never finished ranked lower than 13th in the nation according to KenPom. That’s not all because of Spencer, but he was the defensive centerpiece. As a reward for his efforts, he took home consecutive Mountain West defensive player of the year awards.
Kendall WIlliams dropping down to the third team all decade blows my mind. This man is the all time leader in assists in conference history with 617. In addition to being a great passer, Williams also currently stands at 11th place in points scored all time, 8th in career steals, and won the 2013 MW player of the year award. Over the course of four years Williams collected 20.6 win shares, which happens to be the most out of any MW player collected during the decade, and 4th in conference history. One of his best moments was arguably in the MW title game against the Aztecs in 2014 where Williams hit a 3 with under 30 seconds left to ice the game. I suspect his lack of pro success had a factor in Williams falling this far, but finishing with the 11th most points in the voting process is nothing to scoff at.
All-Time Mountain West Basketball Series: 2009 BYU vs. 2018 Nevada No. 8 Cougars vs. No. 12 Wolf Pack Contact/Follow @MWCwire Upsets are going wild. Our quest to find the best Mountain West basketball team ever has taken quite the turn as we enter …
[jwplayer tvp6Pbnr-sNi3MVSU]
All-Time Mountain West Basketball Series: 2009 BYU vs. 2018 Nevada
Our quest to find the best Mountain West basketball team ever has taken quite the turn as we enter the semifinals. The highest seed is No. 7 Air Force from 2007 and there are also a pair of double-digit seeds as well.
We are using WhatIfSports.com and these results are odd but we move forward finding out who the best of the best is.
Round 3 Matchups:
Series 13: #8 2009 BYU vs. #12 2018 Nevada
Series 14: #7 2007 Air Force vs. # 14 2009 Utah
First up is that Cougars to Wolf Pack matchup.
Game 1: Marriott Center, series tied 0-0.
BYU shoots lights out from the field and takes game 1. They also dominate the boards despite a serious size disadvantage.
Game 2: Marriott Center, BYU leads series 1-0.
Nevada comes out guns blazing in the first half, but BYU pulls off a major comeback to take a 2-0 lead.
Game 3: Lawlor Events Center, BYU leads series 2-0.
Nevada finds its offensive rhythm at home and avoids a sweep.
Game 4: Lawlor Events Center, BYU leads series 2-1.
BYU takes a 3-1 series lead with a chance to close out the series at home. Jordan Caroline is going to need to play better than this game if Nevada is going to have a chance.
Series 12 Preview: 2011 BYU ran circles around 2019 Nevada. Can 2018 Nevada get some revenge, or is BYU simply too good on both sides of the floor for a heavily offensive focused Nevada team to take advantage of?
Nevada was able to score easily on one of the better defensive teams in the field, so this series can go to anyone.
This Cougar team features player of the year Jimmer Fredette and Nevada’s squad from that year was considered an early-season Final Four contender.
Game 1: Marriott Center, series tied 0-0.
Nevada looks like a juggernaut that can’t be stopped in the second half and takes game 1 on the road. Jimmer and Jackson both put up 20+ but don’t get much support.
Game 2: Marriott Center, Nevada leads series 1-0.
Another close game, this one favors BYU as Jimmer says to the world he won’t go down without a fight.
Game 3: Lawlor Events Center, series tied 1-1.
Nevada controls the game from the tip in game 3. Their depth and size seem to be giving BYU some problems.
Game 4: Lawlor Events Center, Nevada leads series 2-1.
Nevada dominates game 4 and takes a 3-1 lead in the series. Normally that would bode extremely well, but during this simulation, we’ve seen a number of 3-1 leads get squandered.
How will Nevada respond, on the road with the hostile BYU crowd?
