Mark Pope, the new Kentucky coach, had his best NBA season with the Bucks in 2001
New University of Kentucky men's basketball coach Mark Pope, a Kentucky alumnus who previously coached at BYU, didn't have a high-profile career in the NBA. But his best season did align with one of the more memorable pre-Giannis seasons in Milwaukee Bucks history, a 2000-01 campaign that ended in the conference finals.
Did you forget about Pope's tenure in Milwaukee? Would it surprised you that he started 45 games that season for the team that advanced to face Philadelphia in the Eastern Conference finals?
Here's what you may have forgotten:
More: Conspiracy? The word will forever be associated with the Bucks' 2001 Eastern Conference finals
Pope was barely drafted out of Kentucky and he played some pro basketball in La Crosse
Pope was drafted in the second round of the 1996 NBA Draft by Indiana, but the 6-foot-10 power forward/center only played in 32 games over two seasons before he wound up in the Continental Basketball Association. There were only 58 picks in the draft, and Pope was taken No. 52.
In 1999-2000, he didn't play in the NBA at all but did play in the Continental Basketball Association, which did include some time with the La Crosse Bobcats. The league went bankrupt in 2001, and the Bobcats folded along with it. Pope also played in Turkey in 1999-2000.
His agent had to beg for an NBA training camp invitational, and the Bucks obliged
There was no guarantee the Bucks would keep Pope, but he impressed with his workout habits and just kept sticking around as camp progressed. One of his biggest advocates was Bucks guard Sam Cassell.
There were also some injuries, specifically to future Bucks assistant and now Los Angeles Lakers head coach Darvin Ham, which created opportunity for Pope. Before that, Scott Williams came down with back spasms in camp that gave Pope some exhibition playing time. Jason Caffey pulled a muscle, and then Ham broke his foot in the third game of the season.
Pope himself had been stashed on the injury list at the start of the year when the regular season began, but with Ham injured, the club activated Pope.
Pope seemed to revel in the opportunity.
"Every day I'm here is a beautiful day," he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in December. "It might end tomorrow. But you know what? If it does, you can't take this away. It's been a beautiful experience."
The Bucks played an exhibition at Rupp Arena. Nobody showed up.
In October, Milwaukee faced the Denver Nuggets in an exhibition game at Rupp Arena in Lexington, where Pope had played college basketball. Naturally, coach George Karl put Pope in the starting lineup as a treat for the home fans … what few fans there were.
The Bucks won, 95-83, and the listed attendance was merely 1,100 fans in the 24,000-seat arena. It also marked the first start for rookie Michael Redd, who was also fighting to make the team at the time.
Pope played in 63 games for the Bucks that season
His time with the Bucks was by far the most playing time in Pope's career. He only averaged 2.4 points and 2.3 rebounds, but he played in 63 games and started a whopping 45, getting 15 minutes per contest.
"I was probably the worst player in the NBA and, about halfway through the season, the 'Pope Boys' started showing up," Pope recalled in 2021 in an interview with the Journal Sentinel. "They were from our bench, if you looked to our left, all the way at the top, back of the rafters, right at the top back, there's this group of kids that came in and they had a giant 'Pope Boys' banner and jersey and they would stand outside to wait for us to exit the arena every night. It was unreal, right? That's for like the worst player in the freakin' league."
With the team fully healthy, Pope's playing time dwindled in the playoffs, though he still started three games and appeared in six, with 7.7 minutes per game.
"We were 100% an offensive-minded team when you have three scorers like that," he said in 2021. "They were just so spectacular. Our natural identity was on the offensive end. That's really one of the only reasons George played me, too, was because he knew that, if I was on the court, I would not take any shots from any of those three scorers. It was a three-headed monster on the offensive end and then a bunch of dudes who just wanted to do whatever we could to help the team win."
It was assumed Pope wouldn't be back the next year, but he returned anyway
Pope re-signed with the Bucks in 2001-02 and appeared in another 45 games, with 12 starts. His minutes and production declined, but his two seasons in Milwaukee were by far the biggest of his NBA career.
After another year in the reorganized CBA, Pope played with Denver (and again with coach George Karl) in 2003-04 and 2004-05 but only saw action in a total of 13 games.
Pope was an assistant coach in the NCAA Tournament in Milwaukee
Pope was an assistant on the BYU team that lost to Oregon in the first round of the 2014 NCAA Tournament in Pope's former stomping grounds at the BMO Harris Bradley Center. Oregon went on to lose to Wisconsin in the second round in an epic, memorable clash.
Pope became head coach at Utah Valley from 2015 to 2019 and returned to BYU as head coach in 2019, where he has stayed until now.
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Mark Pope, new Kentucky coach, had decent-sized role with 2001 Bucks
