Mark Pope staying patient with his final coaching staff hire

Kentucky Basketball has filled out its staff nicely after hiring Mark Pope as the new head coach.

Since the hiring of Pope, Kentucky has hired former Georgia head coach Mark Fox, former BYU assistant Cody Fueger, former G-League Ignite/USC assistant Jason Hart, and former Baylor assistant Alvin Brooks.

With all of those hirings, Kentucky still needs to hire one more assistant coach for the staff.

Although fans are eager to finish out the staff along with getting a completed roster, it may take some time to find the last staff member for the team, according to Matt Norlander of CBS Sports.

Remember, there are now five assistant spots for handling on-court coaching, but only three of them can recruit off campus, those being Brooks, Fueger, and Hart. This final hire is one of the spots for a coach who can’t recruit off campus.

Early on in the process of filling out the staff, many media members and fans thought Keegan Brown could make his way from BYU to Kentucky, but that never came to fruition, along with Orlando Antigua possibly wanting to stay. He has since taken a job at Illinois.

Kenny Payne was an option, but he has since accepted a job at Arkansas to team up with John Calipari. Of course, there were some talks of former Kentucky basketball players joining the staff, including Jeff Sheppard, Scott Padgett, Derek Anderson, Rajon Rondo, Tyler Ulis, and others.

With the staff being basically completed, Pope and Co. will now start to finish the roster for this upcoming year’s team, with a lot of openings to fill and not too much time to do so.