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After four years at BYU, assistant basketball coach Mark Pope is set to move his office five miles down University Parkway to take the head coaching job at Utah Valley University, according to reports from CBS Sports. Dave Fox confirmed the reports.
.@GaryParrishCBS says Mark Pope is taking the Utah Valley job. Pope is pretty awesome. Sat next to the BYU bench against Pepperdine, and...
— Sam Vecenie (@Sam_Vecenie) March 30, 2015
Pope was one of the best coaches I’ve seen at screaming out defensive rotations and commands basically before they happened. Impressive dude
— Sam Vecenie (@Sam_Vecenie) March 30, 2015
The job at Utah Valley opened up this offseason after 11-year head man Dick Hunsaker, a long-time coach in the state, resigned his post. Pope would become just the second basketball coach at UVU in its Division-I history.
Pope joined Dave Rose's staff at BYU nearly four years ago after spending two seasons as an assistant at Wake Forest and two more as director of basketball operations at Georgia. As a player, Pope won the NCAA national championship at Kentucky before seven years in the NBA.
Best wishes to Coach Pope has he heads to take over his own program to compete in the WAC.