Mark Pope, Mark Stoops show united front between Kentucky men’s basketball, football

Mark Pope was a busy man on Saturday. When he wasn’t showing around a talented transfer portal recruit at Keeneland, he was fine dining at Jeff Ruby’s in downtown Lexington, mending the previous relationship between the men’s basketball and football programs.

Longtime local media member Jennifer Palumbo posted a picture to social media of Pope alongside several of the football coaches, including head coach Mark Stoops. Joining Pope and Stoops were associate head coach Vince Marrow, offensive line coach Eric Wolford, inside linebackers coach Mike Stoops, and safeties coach Frank Buffano — otherwise known as the crew from Youngstown, OH.

Marrow even quote-tweeted the post, adding “Good dude. Let’s go BBN”.

It’s no secret that the old coaching staff of the men’s basketball program had a “fallout” (for lack of a better word) with the football side after John Calipari’s slip of the tongue in the Bahamas during the summer of 2022 when he called Kentucky a “basketball school”. Marrow continued to attend games at Rupp Arena, but the two sides never seemed to fully get back within each other’s good graces ever since.

All that being said, the Mark Pope era is here and the vibes in Lexington are entirely different.

When was the last time you saw the head coaches of Kentucky men’s basketball and football willingly pose in the same picture together? United we stand, divided we fall…

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