I've been thinking a LOT this year about what we've witnessed in ~5 short months of the new regime of BYU basketball. I like BYU football. But I LOVE BYU hoops. It's always been my passion vs. other BYU sports (and is my #1 overall vs. all teams that I follow).

We - myself included - went from the 'sky is falling in the BYU basketball program with Pope's departure' to, 'whoa, this Kevin Young dude seems like the real deal and WOW, that's some real $$ being thrown at a head BYU basketball coach... this feels different...'

But I like data and thanks to a very generous assist from El Jefe (thank you again, Jefe!), I wanted to QUANTIFY just HOW big of an impact KY has had on the program as measured by YOUR engagement.

Using BYU MENS HOOPS posts for the last 5 years (starting from the Pope announcement as head coach), I wanted to share a very simple / basic analysis about what exactly KY has done for the program / school.

BOTTOM LINE: KY HAS HAD A SIGNIFICANT IMPACT ON BYU HOOPS AS MEASURED BY CB HOOPS ENGAGEMENT DATA VS. THE PRIOR FIVE YEARS. HOW MUCH? Read on.

Quick timeline / context before getting to the data breakdown.

Mark Pope was announced as head coach April 10th, 2019 after Dave Rose announced his retirement in a press conference on March 26th, 2019.

(As a quick side note, kind of interesting to think that KY was announced FIVE DAYS after Pope made his move to Kentucky though it took BYU 3x as long to formally announce Pope as Rose's replacement. Nice work again, Tom Holmoe / Brian Santiago / Shane Reese / BYU BoT / Ryan Smith, others).

Anyway, the day Pope was announced as HC, there were 1,204 men's hoops posts on CB. I think he was generally expected to be the next head coach but still, new guy, new excitement.

From April 10th to Aug 31st, there were 15,141 men's hoops posts

April 10, 2020 - August 31st, 2020: 19,791 men's hoops posts (sad year for many reasons, but I was crushed that March Madness was cancelled - we would have been a 4-6 seed in the tourney, IMO)

April 10, 2021 - August 31st, 2021: 9,812 men's hoops posts

April 10, 2022 - August 31st, 2022: 21,608 men's hoops posts

April 10, 2023 - August 31st, 2023: 16,345 men's hoops posts (this includes July 1st, 2023 when it was officially announced that we'd be moving to the Big 12)

THEN SOMETHING BIG HAPPENED IN 2024 THAT WOULD FOREVER CHANGE THE LANDSCAPE OF BYU SPORTS HISTORY:

Step 1: Mark Pope leaves for Kentucky Job on April 11th, 2024

From April 11 - April 15th (day before KY announcement), there were FIFTEEN THOUSAND men's hoops posts in 5 days. 5 months worth of posts in 5 days. The (basketball) sky had fallen.

BUT THEN something happened.

KY IS ANNOUNCED ON APRIL 16th and a NEW ERA OF MENS HOOPS EXCITEMENT BEGAN:

April 16th, 2024 - KY announced: 7,448 posts - Biggest single post day in this 5 year sample (and 6.2x more CB engagement vs. the Pope announcement in 2019)

April 16th, 2024 - August 31st: 71,000 posts. SEVENTY ONE THOUSAND.

So in short, KY's regime before playing a SINGLE GAME has generated 430% more excitement on CB vs. prior years on average.

LETS GO COUGARS!