Provo • Ten or eleven days after he retired as BYU’s head men’s basketball coach, Dave Rose sat down for lunch with then-prospective Cougar coach Mark Pope in Minneapolis, site of the Final Four, and answered any and all questions about the program that his former assistant would inherit a few days later.
Pope offered few details when he was asked about it at his introductory news conference on April 10, but whatever Rose said didn’t deter Pope from taking the job. He did, however, drag his feet just enough to get BYU officials to pay him more than they originally offered, and got more for his yet-to-be-named assistants, according to sources familiar with the negotiations.