LaVell of course had done this w Football, but the same vision was never applied to bball (largely, I think — cuz the prevailing attitude was we could build a national program from primarily on our own recruiting base).

It's unfortunate that the idea of selling BYU as a University to outsiders (& a dang good university is what we got) was never a primary aim of our basketball program.

That said, let's not give KY & his staff too much credit for being the impetus to this. We'd had a staff the last five years toiling to do the same — & without a modicum of funding to back them — compared to the current staff.

So call me pleased that Mark Pope's vision & drive to build BYU into a national brand — got recognized by at least some prominent people at UK.

I would say it's also pretty clear given our Program's frantic & robust efforts since Pope's departure — to turn a new leaf — that Mark's efforts also had an effect within our Ath Dept & among our Admins & financiers. Even if they didn't decide to come fully alive until their Program suddenly found itself on life support just seven weeks ago.