Mitch Barnhart praises Mark Pope’s recruiting approach while seemingly shading John Calipari

The Mark Pope era started out with a bang after a remarkable win against the then-No. 6 Duke Blue Devils in the Champions Classic. For many, it has been a breath of fresh air since Pope took over for John Calipari, and many fans needed it.

Not many people wanted Pope to be the head coach when he was hired, but that quickly changed when he got support from others like Rick Pitino. His introductory press conference's success helped. Mitch Barnhart knew he was taking a leap of faith in hiring Pope after Scott Drew and Dan Hurley said no to the job.

Since then, Barnhart has been fully supporting Pope no matter what he does and even joined in the locker room celebration when the team soaked Pope with water bottles after the Duke game. The relationship between Barnhart and Pope was definitely not the same as between Barnhart and Calipari, which showed itself as problematic plenty of times during Calipari’s tenure.

On Saturday morning, Barnhart decided to join the official UK Sports Network football pregame show where he even showed more support to Pope with how he has been doing, specifically with recruiting.

At this time, Kentucky has signed three players in the early signing period for the Class of 2025 with 5-star guard Jasper Johnson, 4-star center Malachi Moreno, and 4-star guard Acaden Lewis. Pope has a chance to sign 5-star forward Caleb Wilson, who many people believe Kentucky may be the frontrunner.

“I think the one thing that he uses the word repeatedly is the word balance,” Barnhart said about how Pope has been able to handle recruiting and NIL. “Finding a balance between that NIL space and fit for your program. I tell people all the time, anybody can recruit, but not everybody can evaluate. You can recruit, you can be phenomenal at going out and bringing people into your program, but if it doesn’t fit you, it’s really not helpful.

“And I think what he’s done this year — and I got, we’re three games into a 31-game slate, but I think if I said one thing early on, fit was real important, and he has fit the pieces of the puzzles together and evaluation, I think, is critical mass in today’s landscape of college sports.”

“You better find people that fit what you’re trying to do, and they fit together, because you have such a small window of time to get your locker room together. All these new bodies have to mesh quickly in today’s world. You don’t have 3-4 years to get it put together. You’ve got six, eight, 10 months at most, and all of a sudden, it’s got to come together, and all of a sudden, you’ve got to have a product that looks like it’s fit together.”

Once you read Barnhart’s comments in full, he seems like he is praising even more how Pope has been able to run the show and less of a shot at Calipari. Obviously, Barnhart could have still been throwing shade at Calipari due to the previous four years and how it all ended in April when Calipari resigned and accepted the Arkansas head coaching position.

Since the hire and given the way Pope has handled the job, you can expect Barnhart, and the fans are, so far, happy with how it has turned out here in Lexington.

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