The rare coaching carousel dominoes to work for every team involved

Almost exactly one year ago to the day, Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart and then-head coach John Calipari sat down for a joint interview on a local television station after the team’s second first-round exit from the NCAA tournament in three years.

Barnhart had already announced Calipari would return for another season but reports of a frigid bond between them remained.

“He’s been married 40-plus years. I’ve been married for 40-plus years,” Barnhart said during the March 29, 2024 interview. “We know how to manage relationships. And I think we’ve been together for 15 years, so we’re sort of, like, semi-married.”

But nine days later, the two sides had divorced.

Calipari’s surprising departure for Arkansas set off a domino effect that rivals anything college basketball has seen over the past decade.

For the Razorbacks, Calipari was a big fish — a name brand with a national title — but he also hadn’t been to the Final Four in a decade.

Meanwhile, coaches with noted legacies such as Dan Hurley and Billy Donovan were floated as potential successors at Kentucky, which is why Wildcats fans threatened to revolt when they signed Mark Pope from BYU. Then BYU turned to an NBA assistant with minimal collegiate coaching experience, Kevin Young, to replace Pope.

At the outset, supporters of all three programs wondered what would happen next. Now they know: With Arkansas, Kentucky and BYU all headed to the Sweet 16, this was a rare chain reaction in the coaching carousel that has seemingly benefited everyone involved.

Despite dealing with injuries early in the season and an 0-5 start to SEC play, the Razorbacks finally hit their stride late. Upsets over 7-seed Kansas and 2-seed St. John’s on opening weekend of the NCAA tournament have given the impression that Calipari is, in fact, back. His replacement in Lexington, Pope, snagged eight wins over top-15 teams during the regular season and erased the bad taste from the program’s recent run of early NCAA tournament exits with this trip to the second weekend. And his successor, Young — who earned a commitment from the No. 1 recruit of the 2025 class, A.J. Dybantsa, shortly after he was hired — seems ahead of schedule with a Cougars squad that has made the Sweet 16 for the first time since Jimmer Fredette led them in 2011.

Let’s take a look at how each of these dominoes has fallen over the course of this season.

To see Calipari in his Arkansas red blazer at last April’s introductory news conference after switching schools — but staying in the same conference — was akin to seeing Roger Clemens in a Yankees uniform, Jerry Rice with the Raiders or John Cena turning heel.

But it was well known Calipari needed a fresh start. Losses to Saint Peter’s (2022) and Oakland (2024) in the first round of the NCAA tournament had robbed him of the edge he once enjoyed as the king of the one-and-done era. But Calipari kept his charm. And he would need it at Arkansas.

The Razorbacks had been to the mountaintop and won a national championship in 1994, but a return to the title game a year later was the last time they had been within reach of another ring. That’s why Arkansas swiped right on an elite coach searching for redemption.

“[When] you talk about some of the best jobs in the country,” Calipari said then, “in basketball, this is one of them.”

How he would restore the program to its former glory still remained a question.

With an NIL coffer full of cash thanks to his billionaire friends, Calipari started to answer by signing promising talent: D.J. Wagner had once been the top recruit in America. Johnell Davis had been a star for a Florida Atlantic team that reached the Final Four in 2023. And Boogie Fland, a five-star recruit and top NBA prospect, decommitted from Kentucky to follow Calipari to Arkansas.

But preseason injuries made it difficult for Calipari to even hold practice. Then Fland and Adou Thiero, the team’s top scorers, sustained major injuries. That’s why it took four months — and a few recoveries — before the team found its rhythm, following the 0-5 start to SEC play with a respectable 9-6 stretch to close the regular season (including a win over his former team and Pope). They bonded, Calipari said, through the adversity to eventually make this run to the second weekend of the NCAA tournament.

“To be where we are, still playing and still fighting and having fun,” Calipari said after his team’s second-round win over St. John’s. “I’m enjoying it. Like I said, I’m not going to let anything faze me in this.”

Though Arkansas got the biggest piece of this coaching puzzle with Calipari choosing to leave Kentucky, his former school did not — at least initially — feel as fortunate.

As Kentucky searched for a head coach for the first time in 15 years, highly coveted targets declined. Baylor’s Scott Drew and Alabama’s Nate Oats released statements that they wouldn’t leave their schools while other big names (see: Donovan) never moved past the rumor stage.

That’s when the school turned to a familiar face: Pope, a captain on the Wildcats’ 1996 national championship team. But the backlash was real.

A prominent booster called Barnhart after he announced the hiring of Pope, who hadn’t led BYU past the first round of the NCAA tournament, and threatened to never write another check to the program.

“Give me his number,” Pope told Barnhart. “I’ll call him.”

Pope converted that booster and so many others by acknowledging the skeptics and asking them to give him a chance. Plus, Pope wasn’t just a coach — his connection to Kentucky’s legacy helped lure thousands to Rupp Arena for his introductory news conference, which also featured dozens of former players.

“The expectations at Kentucky are higher than anywhere else,” Pope told ESPN. “That’s the standard and that’s the history of Kentucky. If you don’t hang a banner, then you haven’t had a successful season. And I love that.”

To reach his goal, Pope plucked players from the transfer portal who had experience but wanted a chance to win big for a storied program. Former San Diego State standout Lamont Butler had gone to the Final Four in 2023. Andrew Carr (Delaware then Wake Forest), Amari Williams (Drexel) and Koby Brea (Dayton) all had first- or second-round NCAA tournament experience. And Otega Oweh had been a high level player at Oklahoma.

That collective ambition and experience led to immediate results.

On Nov. 12, Pope led this crew to a 77-72 victory over Cooper Flagg and now-championship favorite Duke in the Champions Classic, uprooting any lingering concerns about the hire. Now with the program’s first run to the Sweet 16 in six years, it’s clear that a new era has dawned for Kentucky.

But while all of this was happening in Lexington, Pope’s replacement in Provo was charged with selling his vision to a room full of boosters.

Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, Chris Paul and other NBA stars had high praise for Young, who was an assistant for the Phoenix Suns when BYU hired him but lacked the same street credibility at the college level. But that might have ultimately helped him in a landscape that is determined by NIL deals and financial transactions.

“I honestly don’t even think twice about it,” he told ESPN about the impact of NIL on the sport. “It is what it is. It’s always been there for me [in the NBA], so I think, again, that’s a major advantage for me. I don’t get caught up in any of that.

“I’m like, ‘All right. Yeah. Cool. What’s the number? What are we working with?'”

For Dybantsa, the top recruit in America, that number was reportedly $8.5 million. Though the dollar figure captured all the headlines, Young’s ability to lure an elite prospect was the byproduct of the trust he had earned from the flagship school of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and his genuine connection with the program’s top supporters.

The latter group meets with Young regularly. They attend practice and mingle at private dinners before home games. They feel attached to Young in a way that has helped him attract top recruits such as NBA prospect Egor Demin — a 6-foot-9 point guard from Europe — and top-100 recruit Kanon Catchings a year before Dybanta’s arrival.

But all of this didn’t immediately translate on the court. Young looked like a first-year head coach in the first three months of the season, as the Cougars started 15-8 and 6-6 in the Big 12. But once he began to adjust to the college game, especially the Big 12’s physicality, the Cougars soared. Since Feb. 12, they have been the best offensive team in the country — better than 1-seeds Florida, Duke and Auburn.

Though the Dybantsa signing made BYU look like a powerhouse in the making, this run to the program’s first Sweet 16 appearance in 14 years signaled an equally important consideration: BYU, it appeared, hired the right guy.

No matter what happens next, those connected to Arkansas, Kentucky and BYU should leave the NCAA tournament with optimism. Because all three programs — for different reasons — are building foundations for fruitful tenures under new leadership.

But it’s also not out of the realm that each of these teams could advance to the Elite Eight and turn good stories into great ones.

BYU has lost only one game since Feb. 8, and the Cougars have the offensive juice to play a first-team-to-100 style against Alabama on Thursday. Kentucky swept its Sweet 16 opponent, Tennessee, during the regular season (though it’s worth noting injured star Jaxson Robinson scored 17 points in the first meeting). And Arkansas? The Razorbacks have already sent a pair of higher seeds in Kansas and St. John’s home — and both the Jayhawks and Red Storm were better defensive teams than Texas Tech, which Arkansas faces Thursday.

It rarely works out this way in the coaching carousel. Usually, some school is disappointed. But in this scenario, there is no bitterness because this trio of Sweet 16 appearances doubles as proof that you can part ways with a coach and all parties can end up better for it in the end.

During that TV interview with his former athletic director before he left Kentucky, Calipari said he wanted to exit the program knowing he’d left it in good condition.

“Make it future-proof,” he said a year ago. “That everything is in order. Come in and coach and recruit. You’ve got what you need here.”

In this scenario, all three schools should feel that way right now.

From a famed Russian basketball academy to Provo, Egor Demin is dialed in

His father had a long professional career in their native Russia and played for the country’s national team, and his mother played until she was 18. So it was fitting that when he was 2 years old, Egor tagged along to his older brother’s practices.

Demin watched as much basketball as he could growing up, but catching the NBA in Russia was difficult. Games were on in the middle of the night, so the best he could do to watch the world’s best players was to catch highlights on his way to school in the morning.

For kids in the United States, it’s easy to dream about playing in the NBA, but it was so beyond the pale for Demin that for a long time he never imagined himself on that stage one day.

“It was really hard to think about the NBA being in Moscow, being in Russia, because it’s really far,” Demin said. “It’s like being in space. It’s just a different world. It was like, ‘How can I get there? And I don’t see that trajectory. I don’t see that path.'”

Those days have long been over. Demin blossomed into arguably the most highly touted young player Russia has ever produced, is viewed as a likely lottery pick whenever he decides to enter the NBA draft and Thursday night he has a chance to help BYU advance past the Sweet 16 for the first time since the NCAA men’s basketball tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985.

For all the talented athletes BYU has had at the school over the years, Demin’s path to Provo might be the most unique.

From a famed basketball academy in Russia, to international power Real Madrid in Spain, to Provo, Utah, Demin has trotted the globe in pursuit of that previously unimaginable dream. He left his parents behind at 16 years old, learned two new languages, and it has all led him to Newark, New Jersey, where sixth-seeded BYU will look to upset second-seeded Alabama.

DEMIN’S FATHER, VLADIMIR, retired right around the time Egor was born, in 2006, and it wasn’t long before Egor picked up a basketball.

“I was probably 2 or 3 years old, and I was just messing around,” Egor Demin said.

But he took to it right away and, thanks mostly to encouragement from his mother, was dedicated to getting better from a young age.

“My mom’s mentality kind of brought me that huge passion where I’m like, ‘OK, this is something that I want to do through my life, and I got to take it real serious,'” Demin said.

He trained at the Moscow Basketball Academy, which is commonly referred to as Trinta and known for producing top Russian players.

“There were so many superstars, like Russian legends who played in this team, who went out of this academy, who played in the Olympics, in the NBA, all over the world,” Demin said.

It was high-level, regimented training, and in his early teens, Demin had developed into the best player in his age group in Russia. He played up a year with the youth national team and switched from in-person schooling to online to be able to devote more time to training. By 15 years old, it was clear he had the potential to play professionally, and he and his family started considering a move abroad to help pursue that goal.

The opportunities for European academies started to roll in from France, Italy and Spain. But when Real Madrid came calling, it became the obvious choice — the Spanish club has the record for most EuroLeague titles (11) and a strong track record of sending players to the NBA.

This is where the idea of one day reaching the NBA entered Demin’s mind as a real possibility. It became even more realistic as he sprouted to 6-foot-9.

He arrived in Spain not speaking Spanish or English, which made communication in his first year difficult. He was a 16-year-old kid without his parents, but he embraced the adventure. He picked up the languages quickly.

The basketball wasn’t exactly easy, but it was the easy part considering all the other adaptations in his life.

At Madrid, Demin started by playing with the club’s cadet A team, before moving up to the junior A team and Real Madrid B team. Former NBA player Sergio Rodriguez, a first-team player at the club, became a mentor to him, and Demin’s progress was steady. He appeared in one official game for the first team and played with it during preseason games.

At the end of last season, Demin again came to a fork in the road. He had outgrown the development teams at Madrid, and the club offered him a first-team contract. This was the opportunity he had set his sights on when he moved from Russia, but when it arrived, he was no longer sure it was the best path forward.

A first-team deal didn’t guarantee playing time, and he had interest from other clubs in Europe, where he figured to slide right into a meaningful role.

“And another path was to come play in the states in university, which was basically the last option,” he said. “I never could have imagined myself playing here.”

WHEN AMERICAN COLLEGE programs started to reach out, Demin had a change of heart.

He received several offers, including ones from Duke, UConn, Arkansas and Illinois. Demin’s perception was that NCAA basketball was more physical than he was used to, and he liked the idea of coming to the United States to develop in anticipation of playing in the NBA.

He did deep dives on all the programs and the coaches who were recruiting him. Kevin Young’s track record coaching in the NBA and in the G League was particularly appealing.

“Who can teach me better about NBA, who can prepare me better for NBA than an NBA coach?” Demin said.

When Young started to assemble his staff at BYU after being hired in April, one priority he had was to bring in someone who was familiar with the European basketball scene, and he quickly identified Tim Fanning as a good fit. They were assistants together with the Delaware 86ers in the G League a decade ago, after which Fanning spent five years with Maccabi Tel-Aviv, a professional club in Israel.

“After I hired Tim, he sort of put together an initial list of prospects, and Egor was on it,” Young said. “The more we dove into him, the more different connections led us to Egor, and once we made contact and started getting more serious about him, watching more film, I saw how unique his game is.”

Demin is not a member of the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, so landing at BYU might not seem like the most natural fit. There is a long history of BYU recruiting prominent athletes who don’t belong to the church — star quarterback Jake Retzlaff is Jewish — but rarely are they also from overseas. It was a nonissue for Demin, who saw the appeal in a place where there would be few distractions outside of basketball and school.

“What we tell our guys that we’re recruiting is that you’re walking into a locker room of a bunch of serious-minded guys that you don’t have to worry about what they’re doing the night before the game,” Young said. “And if you really are serious about basketball, this is a great place to just come in and lock in and make that the main thing.”

That resonated with Demin.

Then there was the Travis Hansen factor. Hansen had a standout career at BYU that ended in 2003, and he was part of the same NBA draft class as LeBron James (Hansen was selected No. 37 by the Atlanta Hawks). After one year in the NBA, he continued his career abroad, including three years in Russia with Dynamo Moscow before time at Real Madrid.

Demin’s father retired just before Hansen arrived in Russia, but they crossed paths enough in those years to familiarize themselves with each other. So, when Demin had a Zoom call with the BYU coaching staff, Hansen joined.

“The first time I came here, I went to his house, he invited me for dinner,” Demin said. “They have an awesome family, big family, really kind people.

“Travis Hansen was a really big reason for me coming here. Having Travis on my side is special.”

In the latest ESPN NBA mock draft from Jonathan Givony and Jeremy Woo, which was published before the tournament started, Demin was projected to go No. 9. Whether Demin officially declares for the draft remains to be seen — he told ESPN before the season he didn’t come in planning to be a one-and-done player, for sure — but when he leaves he’ll be among the highest selections in program history.

Rafael Araujo (No. 8; 2004) and Jimmer Fredette (No. 10; 2011) are the only two lottery picks BYU has produced in the past three decades and only two others — Shawn Bradley (No. 2; 1993) and Mel Hutchins (No. 2; 1951) — have ever gone in the top 10. No BYU player has ever been drafted after their freshman or sophomore season.

BEFORE BYU LEFT for Denver for the first round of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, Young sat down with Demin for a final film session.

At times during the season, there had been a sense that Demin tried to do too much. He had developed into a likely NBA lottery pick in Spain, in part, because of his decision-making, and Young wanted to go over Demin’s shot selection and reinforce where on the court he thought he was at his best.

“I thought a lot had been made of his shot,” Young said. “It’s hard to shoot a high percentage when you take difficult shots. I think that’s been a growth moment for him as the season has gone on.”

There was a clear correlation between Demin’s erratic shooting and BYU’s slow start to conference play. As the Cougars began 2-4 in the Big 12, Demin was just 17-of-55 from the field (30.9%) and committed 18 turnovers in that span. It was part of an extended period in which he struggled from 3-point range, at one point connecting on just five of 43 such attempts (11.6%).

This wasn’t what Demin had imagined when he turned down a professional contract offer to play for Real Madrid’s first team — the pathway Los Angeles Lakers star Luka Doncic used to springboard himself to becoming the No. 3 pick in the 2018 NBA draft — to move to Provo.

But as Demin adjusted to the college game, BYU found its groove. He didn’t turn into Steph Curry overnight, but he showed a level of comfort that wasn’t there early on. A tournament bubble team midway through the season, the Cougars won their final eight games of the regular season and easily landed in the NCAA tournament as the No. 6 seed in the East region, setting the stage for Demin to deliver when it mattered most.

So far, so good.

In BYU’s first-round win against VCU, Demin provided an immediate spark. He scored 15 points and played a team-high 31 minutes, showing the poise that brought BYU calling from halfway across the world.

“That’s a mature way to handle things, especially in a game like this, playing within yourself, not trying to do so much,” Young said immediately after the game. “The sky’s the limit. He’s 18, just turned 19. His feel is really good.”

His shot wasn’t falling two days later against Wisconsin, but he led the team in rebounds (eight) and assists (eight) to go along with 11 points as BYU outlasted the Badgers to advance to the program’s first Sweet 16 since the Fredette-led team of 2011.

With two more wins, BYU would advance to its first Final Four in history, and while it’s not quite outer space, it might feel like it.