During his recent radio show, Pope offered a sobering reality check regarding the timeline for the rest of his staff overhaul.

“We’re going through a little bit of a hiring process that will be ongoing—probably for the next six weeks,” Pope explained. “We could have some closure on some things quickly, but I can’t really talk in detail about anything until it gets through the whole HR process.”

In a vacuum, a six-week HR timeline is standard corporate procedure. But in the modern landscape of college basketball, that timeline is a massive hurdle because of the newly accelerated Transfer Portal window instituted by the NCAA.

The 15-Day Transfer Portal window

Players cannot officially enter their names into the Transfer Portal until April 7th. However, anyone paying attention knows that backdoor deals are already being orchestrated, and agents are prematurely announcing their clients’ intentions to leave. It is an unregulated mess, but it is the reality of the sport.

That April 7th opening is the first major date to circle on your calendar.

Once the portal opens, it remains active for exactly 15 days. When that window slams shut, no new names can enter. There are no graduate exemptions or special loopholes for late decisions. If a player plans on transferring, they must formally notify their current school before that 15-day window expires on April 21st at 11:59 PM. If they miss the deadline, they are stuck.

Mark Pope has to have his staff aligned, his evaluations complete, and his recruiting pitches perfected before that window opens. It is indeed a very short clock as the coaching staff looks to change drastically.

Once the dust from the transfer portal finally settles, the new-look Wildcats will quickly hit the floor.

Official mid-June practices will tip off the summer schedule, but Pope recently hinted that an international offseason trip is currently in the works. Per NCAA rules, college basketball programs are only allowed to take these foreign exhibition tours once every four years.

If the trip gets finalized, BBN will get a highly anticipated, early look at this brand-new roster competing against actual opponents long before Big Blue Madness in the fall.

Needless to say, it is going to be an incredibly busy, high-stakes few months in Lexington.

Any guesses on where Pope and company plan on going? And do you like the new Transfer Portal window?

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WAVE) – Kentucky’s optometry board is trying to address a scandal after years of issuing waivers for optometry graduates who couldn’t pass their national exams.

The board reversed course earlier this year. But at a public hearing on the new rules, the national testing group said the reforms still carve out loopholes.

Nevada and New Hampshire say they will not accept the testing exceptions Kentucky has proposed and won’t recognize Kentucky optometry licenses as equivalent to their own.

21 Kentucky optometrists have been under scrutiny.

At Wednesday’s public hearing, the state gave the public under 15 minutes to make their case.

Public voices opposition at brief hearing

In the conference room of a Holiday Inn Express, two members of the public voiced their opposition to Kentucky’s proposed reforms. Both are from the National Board of Examiners in Optometry.

“The KBOE has not taken the straightforward and obvious path to ensure public safety,” NBEO Secretary/Treasurer Daniel Taylor said.

“The Kentucky optometry board has lost its way, putting patient safety at risk and placing a lower priority on public health than on upholding competency standards,” said NBEO Executive Director Jill Bryant.

Kentucky reversed itself after a series of reports about optometrists who were granted licenses with waivers. Some didn’t pass a single part of the national exams.

In February, the state said optometrists with these waivers would have to stop performing laser procedures and would be dropping a Canadian substitute test. But it did not prohibit these doctors from practicing and proposed other alternative tests.

Daniel Taylor said these tests have been standardized across the country for a simple reason.

“If you were to see an optometrist in Kentucky, and then go across the border and see an optometrist in another state or move to another state, you would have to check with the local standards to see what those levels of quality were,” Taylor said.

No one else spoke. The optometry board did not respond, saying it will file its response as part of the process, taking this feedback into consideration.

A letter from NBEO to the state revealed the group had questioned how 21 optometrists had gotten their licenses based on their lack of testing records.

The state board denied WAVE’s records request for another letter NBEO sent to the board in the fall. The attorney general’s office is currently reviewing our appeal.

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