1.) Barnhart knows absolutely jack shit. When he first got here he even admitted basketball wasn’t his thing. He has a track record of making bad hires and decisions: Joker, Billy, Elzy, the contractual details with Stoops, and Kal’s horrible lifetime contract. The one good hire he made, Cal, he had to be forced into. I’d love nothing more than Pope to work because of who he is but I have next to no confidence in him. Hes just not qualified and if he actually turned down having Antigua on staff then he’s just making it even harder on himself and maybe even less qualified for the job than i thought.
2.) After Drew and Hurley he jumped straight to his safety net. He wanted to get a hire down as quickly as possible and didn’t like the optics of being rejected. The fact that he wouldn’t even look at Beard/Pearl and went right to Pope/Shaka Smart after the top 2 is pathetic on his part. He has no business being the AD at a SEC school. He needs to resign and go be a Sunday school teacher somewhere.