BYU's Mark Pope is reportedly on the verge of landing one of the most high-profile jobs in all of college sports.

According to ESPN's Pete Thamel and Jeff Borzello, Kentucky is finalizing a five-year deal to hire Pope as the school's next men's basketball coach.

Matt Norlander of CBS Sports previously reported the Wildcats were "set to hire" Pope.

The Kentucky job was open because John Calipari shockingly left to take over as the head coach of Arkansas in early April. It was the biggest domino in a chain of events that saw Andy Enfield leave USC for SMU, Eric Musselman leave Arkansas for USC and Calipari take over the Razorbacks.

Thamel and Borzello reported on April 7 that Calipari's base salary was expected to be slightly less than the $8.5 million he made at Kentucky, although it would feature incentives that would allow him to surpass that mark at Arkansas.

While Arkansas is not on the same level as Kentucky when it comes to a history of men's basketball success, things had grown somewhat stale between Calipari and the program.

Kentucky hasn't been to a Sweet 16 since the 2018-19 campaign and lost to 15th-seeded Saint Peter's in the first round of the 2022 NCAA tournament and 14th-seeded Oakland in the first round of the 2024 Big Dance.

The Wildcats also haven't won an SEC regular-season crown since 2019-20 and haven't won the conference tournament since the 2017-18 season.

That may not be an especially long stretch for most programs, but Kentucky is different. This is one of the gold standards of the sport and played accordingly early in Calipari's tenure when he reached four Final Fours and won a national championship during his first six seasons.

He also won the SEC regular-season title in five of his first eight years and the SEC tournament crown in six of his first nine years.

Returning to that standard is the goal for Pope, and Kentucky fans will surely accept nothing less.

Fortunately for the Wildcats, he knows what it takes to succeed at this program better than most. He was a senior center for the 1995-96 Wildcats team that won the national championship.

He has also found some success as a coach and went 110-52 the past five seasons leading BYU. The Cougars made two NCAA tournaments during his tenure and would have made a third if the 2020 edition wasn't canceled because of COVID-19, although they struggled in the Big Dance.

They lost in the first round in 2021 to 11th-seeded UCLA and the first round again this past season to 11th-seeded Duquesne.

That won't cut it at Kentucky, but he will have no shortage of resources and the ability to attract the nation's best prospects at his alma mater. That should help him keep the program near the top of the sport even with a head-turning coaching change.