After Scott Drew stays at Baylor, what’s next for Kentucky? Donovan, Pope, Pitino and other options

Kentucky’s coaching search is not off to a great start. One day after former coach John Calipari was introduced at Arkansas, the Wildcats’ first choice to replace him, Baylor coach Scott Drew, turned them down.

“God has called my family and I to continue our work here,” he said in a statement.

So what now for Kentucky? That’s a several-million-dollar question without a clear answer.

Drew was the preferred pick of UK athletic director Mitch Barnhart to replace Calipari dating back at least three years, since Barnhart was chair of the NCAA Tournament in the COVID-19 bubble in 2021, a tournament won by Baylor. Barnhart and Kentucky moved quickly to target Drew; Calipari had not even left town before a UK contingent flew to Texas to collect Drew’s family and show them around Lexington, Ky., on Wednesday. To already have a “no thanks” by Thursday morning is a significant blow.

#JOY pic.twitter.com/JhxpsmHVOw

— Scott Drew (@BUDREW) April 11, 2024

Not only is Drew one of seven active coaches with a national championship — and a sterling reputation for rebuilding a scandal-rocked, sanction-ridden program into a perennial Big 12 contender — he offered perhaps the best chance to immediately restock Kentucky’s roster. He would have brought some of his returning players with him, and Baylor has the No. 6 recruiting class in the country, including two five-star prospects. In theory, he has also already made major headway in restocking through the transfer portal. It could have been a quick flip, to borrow a phrase from BU superfan Chip Gaines, the HGTV star who spent all day Wednesday bantering with UK fans on social media.

Fixer Upper 1, Kentucky Rebuild 0.

When you let a Hall of Fame coach walk (or fly private) to a conference rival, as Kentucky did with Calipari, you better nail the replacement, and Barnhart thought he had his man. Now Kentucky’s 64-year-old AD, in his 22nd year at the school, is back to the drawing board on the most important hire of his career. This one is a legacy-defining hire.

That means now it’s time for Barnhart to marshal all available resources, with help from some highly motivated boosters, and take the big swings. It no longer matters that each of the “make-them-say-no” candidates has already publicly dismissed the idea they’d be interested, with varying degrees of definitiveness. Nate Oats, the Alabama coach fresh off a Final Four, released a statement that he was not going anywhere. Dan Hurley, the Connecticut coach fresh of back-to-back national titles, told The Athletic “no way” he’d leave the Huskies. Billy Donovan, the Chicago Bulls coach who led Florida to consecutive national titles in 2006 and 2007, said of his current job, “My total commitment and focus is here.”

It’s time to test their conviction, particularly Hurley and Donovan. Some in the upper tier of Kentucky’s donor base have maintained their belief that Kentucky should test the limits of UConn’s capacity to keep Hurley happy by making him an astronomical offer few men would refuse. We might be about to find out the price of happiness.

Donovan is the most interesting case, because his Chicago team is still playing until at least next week — the Bulls have qualified for the NBA Play-In Tournament — and he won’t actively engage with Kentucky until after his NBA season ends. But people close to the 58-year-old Donovan, who won six SEC titles and made four Final Fours at Florida, believe he’s more open to a return to college basketball than at any point since he left for the pros in 2015. Donovan also began his career as an assistant at Kentucky under Rick Pitino in the early 1990s.

“Two kids were born there. Like all my stops, you have very fond memories,” Donovan said when asked about the Kentucky opening on Tuesday. At the time, he said he had not been contacted about the job and was focused on his current one. But also, “I understand the magnitude of that place and the history and tradition. It is flattering to be mentioned with a school and a tradition like that in this game.”

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The timing makes Donovan as a candidate tricky. Kentucky needs someone who can hit the ground running and replenish the roster through recruiting and the transfer portal — which did not exist the last time Donovan coached in college. Neither did the massive name, image and likeness deals now required to get and keep top talent. There’s a whole new world Donovan would have to navigate, and he’s not bringing any players from his current team (or nonexistent recruiting class) with him, like other candidates could. But Donovan is one of the brightest minds in basketball and many believe he could figure all that out quickly, even if his hiring is delayed.

Donovan is worth waiting for. At least worth gauging, through back channels or otherwise, whether he’s willing to have that conversation after the Bulls’ season ends. If so, you wait.

If not, and if Barnhart strikes out on all the home run options, this search could become a circus. So who breaks the fall in that case?

BYU coach Mark Pope, the 51-year-old former captain of Kentucky’s 1996 national championship team, would be an option. Sensible, if not sexy. The safety-rated sedan of hires. He won 25 games in his fourth year at Utah Valley and has won 68 percent of his games in four seasons at BYU, making the NCAA Tournament twice. The Cougars moved to the Big 12 this season and more than held their own in that heavyweight division, finishing fifth in the league with a top-15 offense nationally. The question is whether Pope moves the needle enough for a program of Kentucky’s stature, especially after shooting for the moon.

If Barnhart is already that far down the list, though, he should consider 55-year-old Xavier coach Sean Miller. That does not come without some baggage, but neither did Calipari, who is coincidentally an old friend of Miller’s. In his first stint at Xavier, Miller coached the Musketeers to four straight NCAA Tournaments, two Sweet 16s and an Elite Eight. Then he left for Arizona and went on quite a run: seven 25-win seasons in eight years, four 30-win seasons, five Sweet 16s, three Elite Eights. But he never made a Final Four, got tangled up in the 2017 federal investigation into corruption in college basketball and was eventually fired four years later.

Miller rejuvenated his career with a return to Xavier last season, where he promptly led the Musketeers to 27 wins and another Sweet 16. If we’re talking about stopping a coaching search freefall, an AD could do much worse than Miller, who would certainly recruit at a high level.

But what about the nuclear option?

There’s a man who knows a thing or two about breathing new life into basketball programs in Kentucky, and he would walk barefoot over glass from New York to take the job. Rick Pitino back in the Bluegrass would be the biggest story in college basketball, by a mile. His age, 71, is certainly a factor. And if we’re talking about baggage, Pitino comes with a whole luggage cart, but the man is a Hall of Famer who won national titles at both Kentucky and Louisville, got Providence to a Final Four and has made St. John’s relevant again.

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Rick Pitino is obsessed. He doesn’t have time to stop

Would that be a crazy thing to do? Maybe. Completely out of Barnhart’s straight-laced character? Absolutely. But if this search quickly goes sideways, and the “no thank yous” begin to pile up, there’s only one coach who could absolutely flip the script. That’s Pitino, who might also double as the only person capable of convincing national freshman of the year Reed Sheppard, whose father played for Pitino, to return for a sophomore season.

If this all ends with Pitino striding across a stage at Rupp Arena with Sheppard at his side, Barnhart might yet win the news conference.

Required reading

(Photo: Sean M. Haffey / Getty Images)