Mark Pope addresses possibility of hiring GM at Kentucky, says conversations happen on 'weekly basis'

In the new era of college sport, general managers are becoming both more common and important. While Kentucky has not brought one aboard, though, but Mark Pope said those conversations are happening.

A listener wrote in to Pope’s radio show on Wednesday and asked whether Kentucky is considering hiring a GM. The listener cited Indiana’s recent splash hire this week when the Hoosiers brought aboard Indiana Pacers senior vice president of player personnel Ryan Carr as executive director of basketball – a new GM-like role.

Pope said UK is still deciding whether it wants to go the route of hiring a general manager. The talks are taking place regularly as the program weighs the idea of bringing someone else aboard.

“That’s been an ongoing conversation for us,” Pope said on The Mark Pope Show. “We’ve had a lot of conversations, trying to find exactly the space that’ll work best for us. As everybody figure this out, that is certainly a direction that some teams have gone with really, incredibly varied levels of success. That’s something that we’re probably having conversations about on a weekly basis.”

General managers have become key parts of the new college sports landscape, particularly in football and basketball. In fact, the top five teams in the KenPom rankings all have GMs to help with roster construction. They also play roles in the revenue-sharing era now that schools can directly share up to $20.5 million with athletes – a number that will increase to $21.3 million on July 1.

Pope previously confirmed in December that Kentucky had plans to hire a general manager while speaking with KSR. However, he said the program was not rushing to do so despite a rocky start to his second season at the helm.

“I like it in terms of the manpower, for sure. I like it in terms of the manpower, I like it in terms of the focus. I like it in terms of the 24/7, just being solely focused on that,” Pope told KSR. “One of the ways where I think it kind of can hurt is — the purpose is to purchase one degree of separation. There’s also some danger that comes with that in terms of, I think sometimes it can be less beneficial for student-athletes. I think sometimes it can be a little bit problematic in terms of communication. That’s the whole purpose of it, right? That’s the part that, if we go that direction, we’ll have to be very clear and very focused on that, because at the end of the day, we have things that have to be done here.

“We have to win. We have to put together great rosters. We have to do it in the most responsible way we can. And, believe it or not, these student-athletes still matter, right? They still matter. That’s still the most important thing that’s going on, so honoring that is really, really important.”