A New Era Begins

Mark Pope hit a 3-pointer from the opposite foul line with that press conference. Wow!



It doesn't sound like he was reluctant whatsoever in his decision. He did allude to some possible other opportunity(ies) that may have drawn this out over a week, but he sold me as being totally into making this team successful. There was absolutely nothing to not like about what he said.



Since his staff from UVU was in attendance at the press conference, it wouldn't be hard to imagine they will be coming with him. Burgess might make it to BYU after all. How funny is that?

He did mention too that the interview process did involve a trip up to SLC to converse with some top official. I'm not sure even who it is these days that has primary responsibility over Church Education. I remember, maybe when Bronco or Dave came on it was Eyring. No idea who it is now.

EM_Puma wrote:

He did mention too that the interview process did involve a trip up to SLC to converse with some top official. I'm not sure even who it is these days that has primary responsibility over Church Education. I remember, maybe when Bronco or Dave came on it was Eyring. No idea who it is now.

Elders Holland and Bednar are the two on the executive committee, but it could have been a member of the 1st Presidency or Cook or Renlund as well as they are all on the board of CES.

Jay Drew tweeted that none of the current BYU BB players were in attendance. I wondered about that. I don't know what to make of it. It seems like I would have been there. I don't really believe it means anything, but it does make one wonder.



He stated that part of his responsibilities will be to recruit the current team, but I figured that was more figurative than anything.

Pope met with all of the current players about an hour before the presser.

There really didn't seem to be a lot of room for a huge gathering in that press conference room so I wouldn't read too much into the players not being there. I do wish that Childs had waited on hearing who the new coach would be before making his decision...

byufan4ever wrote:

There really didn't seem to be a lot of room for a huge gathering in that press conference room so I wouldn't read too much into the players not being there. I do wish that Childs had waited on hearing who the new coach would be before making his decision...

It seems very logical to me that MP would give YC a call. The great thing is that now he can hire an agent, go through the NBA draft and still return to BYU. Yet, I believe he's made the decision to begin his professional career even if it's internationally. It would be nice to hear him lay it all out there so we knew what he was thinking.



If he doesn't come back, he'll regret it one day. He most likely will not ever be the dominant presence that he was at BYU on any future professional team and he ought to enjoy that one more year and then not have any regrets.



Shame, same as all of us that are miles past that decision post of our lives, we usually see how we could have done it better. He'll be fine either way, but there have been very few individuals that have ever regretted staying their last year of college if they aren't a 1-2 round NBA pick.