Brown: Pat Kelsey, Mark Pope forever linked by timing of basketball hires in commonwealth

The contrasts are there, if that’s your focus, starting with their stature. Louisville men’s basketball coach Pat Kelsey stands at 5-foot-9, while Kentucky coach Mark Pope hulks in at 6-10.

They might as well be twins at this point. Both worked their way up to programs worthy of basketball royalty by first succeeding in places far from the spotlight — Winthrop and College of Charleston for Kelsey, Utah Valley and BYU for Pope.

Kelsey and Pope arrived in the commonwealth by different means — Louisville's inevitable firing of Kenny Payne and Kentucky's surprising resignation by John Calipari — but they will be forever linked and compared from here on out. It’s the first time in modern-day history that both programs have hired a new coach in the same year.

And they both have the same coach to thank for it. If they haven't already, they should send a thank-you card to Baylor coach Scott Drew or at least include him on their Christmas card mailing list.

Drew sat atop the wish list for U of L athletics director Josh Heird and UK athletics director Mitch Barnhart and received the first offer from both schools.

But Drew decided he was just fine where he was, having raised Baylor from arguably the worst job in all of NCAA Division I basketball when he took over from disgraced coach Dave Bliss in 2004 and brought it to the sport’s pinnacle by winning the 2021 national title.

Drew saying no to Louisville allowed the path to lead to Kelsey. Drew saying no to Kentucky led Barnhart directly to the guy he knew would not say no in Pope.

Not being the first choice, and everybody knowing it, can be humbling and simultaneously motivating.

It’d be hard to believe the moves Kelsey and Pope make in these first few weeks and months on the job are not fueled by a desire to prove they’re worthy of the job. That goes for the general public and maybe that doubting part of everyone’s brain that asks, “Are you ready for this?”

Kelsey and Pope are starting from scratch. This isn’t Tubby Smith inheriting a veteran core that had just reached the national title game the previous two seasons. There will be no “old way of doing things” the new coaches have to break their players out of or old roles to adhere to keeping.

With Payne and Calipari departed to reunite in Arkansas, the scholarship players who will still be playing college basketball next season all entered the transfer portal. Every single one of them.

Next season’s rosters at U of L and UK will be made up of players handpicked by each coach. So there will be no excuse to make about players who don’t fit, but giving neither had the benefit of a full recruiting cycle, the talent might not reach where it can in the coming years.

Kelsey struck the first blow for those keeping score, and some of you absolutely are. BYU transfer Aly Khalifa was recruited by both coaches, and some just assumed he’d go play for his former coach. Khalifa chose Louisville instead.

Pope avoided falling behind 2-0 when Louisville didn't close the deal with Jayden Quaintance, who originally committed to UK under Calipari. The 6-9 center is eighth nationally in the Class of 2024 in 247 Sports' Composite rankings and was considered a U of L lean after visiting on April 18.

Pope was set to make an in-home visit the following week but reportedly backed out. Quaintance committed to Arizona State on Monday, meaning Kelsey missed on signing Louisville's first top-10 recruit since Samardo Samuels in the Class of 2008.

They’re adversaries in the sense that Kelsey will be in red and Pope in blue, and that’s what they’re supposed to be when you’re the head coaches of these two programs. But past all that rivalry stuff, they’ll have way more in common than they have differences based on the challenges they’ll confront and the expectations they’ll face in their current positions.

It was this realization that broke the cold war between North Carolina’s Dean Smith and Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski and led to their friendship until Smith’s passing in 2015. The same held true for Roy Williams and Krzyzewski.

We saw it in the friendship of the late Joe B. Hall and Denny Crum, too. It happened well into their retirement years, but their radio show was an acknowledgment of just how intertwined these positions are.

There’s no radio show in their immediate future. But they'll learn quickly in these jobs that, aside from former U of L and UK coaches, very few can relate to what they're about to experience. The two who can for sure reside in the men's basketball offices at Louisville and Kentucky. And their names are Pat Kelsey and Mark Pope.

Reach sports columnist C.L. Brown at clbrown1@gannett.com, follow him on X at @CLBrownHoops and subscribe to his newsletter atprofile.courier-journal.com/newsletters/cl-browns-latest to make sure you never miss one of his columns.