{"id":239631,"date":"2026-04-21T19:17:57","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T19:17:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/21\/kentucky-coach-mark-pope-might-be-under-even-more-pressure-following-billy-donovans-bulls-decision\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T19:17:57","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T19:17:57","slug":"kentucky-coach-mark-pope-might-be-under-even-more-pressure-following-billy-donovans-bulls-decision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/21\/kentucky-coach-mark-pope-might-be-under-even-more-pressure-following-billy-donovans-bulls-decision\/","title":{"rendered":"Kentucky coach Mark Pope might be under even more pressure following Billy Donovan&#8217;s Bulls decision"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/colleges\/kentucky_wildcats\/510\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Kentucky Wildcats<\/a> head coach <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/college_basketball\/players\/mark_pope\/911429\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mark Pope<\/a>&#8216;s seat just got hotter.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/nba\/players\/billy_donovan\/240277\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Billy Donovan<\/a> surprised many by stepping down as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/nba\/teams\/chicago_bulls\/68\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Chicago Bulls<\/a> head coach, instantly making the two-time NCAA champion coach one of the more coveted coaches on the open market.<\/p>\n<p>When announcing the decision, Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf said, &#8220;We wanted Billy to continue as our head coach &#8212; that was never in question.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/story\/_\/id\/48550436\/sources-billy-donovan-decides-step-bulls-coach\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Per ESPN NBA insider Shams Charania<\/a>, &#8220;Donovan, 60, plans to continue his coaching career and will be a viable target moving forward in the NBA landscape.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>He&#8217;ll be in the running for a number of NBA openings as they emerge, and for coaches like Pope, they better hope Donovan gets snatched up before next offseason, when he might come for their jobs.<\/p>\n<h2>Billy Donovan exit increases heat on Mark Pope heading into third season as Kentucky head coach<\/h2>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><script>\n    !function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)\n    {if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\n    n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};\n    if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';\n    n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\n    t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];\n    s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,'script',\n    'https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n    fbq('init', '1324276914788316');\n    fbq('track', 'PageView');\n  <\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/college_basketball\/articles\/kentucky_coach_mark_pope_might_be_under_even_more_pressure_following_billy_donovans_bulls_decision\/s1_13132_43754034\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kentucky Wildcats head coach Mark Pope&#8216;s seat just got hotter.\u00a0 On Tuesday, Billy Donovan surprised many by stepping down as Chicago Bulls head coach, instantly making the two-time NCAA champion coach one of the more coveted coaches on the open market. When announcing the decision, Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf said, &#8220;We wanted Billy to continue [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":239632,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6806],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-239631","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-gossip"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/239632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}