Mark Pope's energy for Kentucky job might be borderline alarming

If this offseason's college basketball coaching carousel was a real merry-go-round, there would be children flying off of its hand-painted horses at warp speed. Lawsuits would be filed. Funnel cake would be everywhere. Chaos would ensue.

As it stands, the rapid fall of coaching dominoes has provided plenty enough excitement for college basketball fans. Nobody could have predicted the wild twists and turns that would have been set in motion when SMU decided to fire Rob Lanier, but let's go over them quickly. The Mustangs hired Andy Enfield away from USC to replace Lanier, then USC lured Eric Musselman from Arkansas. This led to the megaton bomb of the Razorbacks poaching John Calipari from Kentucky, leaving a vacancy at one of the most high-profile jobs in the game.

Kentucky's coaching search saw the Wildcats pursue Dan Hurley and Scott Drew, but both UConn's and Baylor's coaches turned them down to remain at the programs they have built. This led Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart to the door of former Wildcat and current BYU head coach Mark Pope.

Pope's hiring was made official today, and it has been met with a mixed reception among Wildcats supporters. Pope bleeds Kentucky blue, as he was a captain on the 1996 national championship team. He's been a head coach for nine years, first at Utah Valley for four years, then at BYU for the past five.

Pope's Cougars were one of the most surprising teams in college basketball this year. Picked by most to finish near the bottom of the Big 12 in their first year in the conference, Pope instead led BYU to a 23-11 overall record and a tie for fifth in the conference with perennial powerhouse Kansas. BYU earned a 6-seed in the tournament but was upset in the first round by Duquesne.

That loss dropped Pope to 0-2 in the NCAA Tournament, a stat that has troubled many Wildcats supporters. One thing Big Blue Nation doesn't have to worry about, though, is Pope's passion and energy for his new job.

Mark Pope might be a little too excited to be Kentucky's new head coach

Please do yourself a favor and go back and watch that video another two, three, or a hundred times. Personally, I can't stop clicking play to bask in its over-the-top ridiculousness. From Pope ripping his suit off like Clark Kent coming out of a phone booth, to his full-throated C-A-T-S Cats Cats Cats cheer, to the incredible detail that he is doing this in BYU's gym with the BYU Basketball logo in the background, I can't get enough of this. I like to picture a BYU janitor just off-camera with a single tear rolling down his face as he watches Pope point at the camera. Seriously, this is like if you made a video professing your love for a new girlfriend from the living room of the girl you just broke up with.

Wildcats fans may not be ready for Pope's energy, but I'm here for it. It's like the college basketball equivalent of Tom Cruise jumping on Oprah's couch. Will he be able to recruit top players to Lexington as well as John Calipari did in his 15 years in charge? Almost certainly not, but the Kentucky brand will do most of the work there. Pope's lack of NCAA Tournament success is a bit of a red flag, but he's also never been in a place with the resources and commitment to basketball that Kentucky possesses.

Pope's unbridled enthusiasm will take some getting used to for Wildcats fans who have been accustomed to Calipari's mafia don persona, but if he can win, they'll quickly get on board. To be fair, it can't get much worse than how it was in these last few years under Calipari, as UK has won only one NCAA Tournament game in five years.

Pope's up-tempo offensive system places an emphasis on passing the ball and shooting lots of threes, and it could really fit well with the kinds of athletes that he can land at Kentucky. The pressure is on now, though. We'll see if Pope is still this enthusiastic once the weight of following in the footsteps of Adolph Rupp, Rick Pitino, and Calipari sinks in, or if the coaching carousel will spin out of control once again.