Following a grim second season as head coach of Kentucky, Mark Pope’s assistant coaching staff was shaken up a bit. Alvin Brooks III departed for NC State while Jason Hart accepted an associate head coaching role at SMU.

Since the departure of Brooks III and Hart, Pope filled one of those voids, signing former Jackson State head coach and NBA veteran Mo Williams to the staff, leaving just one assistant coaching spot on the table.

There has been a lot of buzz surrounding Jamal Crawford, a former NBA guard and current AAU coach, as the guy to fill that last role; however, as of Thursday, Kentucky Sports Radio reported that Crawford has turned down the assistant coaching job.

“If this were a different time, there’s no doubt. There’s zero doubt,” Crawford told Kentucky Sports Radio. “I have such respect for Coach Pope, Coach Mo (Williams), but just with everything I’m doing right now, and I’m under contract with NBC, and seeing that through, I think that takes precedent. I can’t do it right now. I just can’t, not with everything I’m doing. But I have no doubt I will be a coach in the future. Zero.”

Pope was asked about the possibility of Crawford joining his staff a couple of weeks back when he served as a guest on KSR’s radio show.

“Jamal’s still got two years left on his NBC contract,” Pope said on KSR. “I’m good friends with Jamal, we’ve been friends for a long time. There might be a time where it’s good for him to jump into coaching, it’s something he would like to do. He’s one of those guys that’s cut from a little bit of a similar cloth like Mo Williams is, where, Mo was — it’s hard to run an AAU program. And there’s a lot of guys that fund an AAU program — Mo was running an AAU program. Jamal is running and coaching an AAU program. When you find guys like that with their background, he could have a great future in college, he could go get a job in the exact right space as a head coach in the NBA maybe, but I think coaching is in his future and he’s got a sweet deal right now and he’s got a couple years left.”

It seems as if Crawford and Pope are both heavily optimistic about the chances of Crawford becoming a college basketball coach in the future, but, like Crawford stated, the timing just didn’t add up, not right now at least.

As of now, if Pope chooses to continue looking, UK will still seek to fill that last assistant coaching role, and if not, the staff will stay as is, consisting of Mark Fox, Cody Fueger, Mikhail McLean and Mo Williams.

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