Getting to know Mike Hopkins UW's new head basketball Coach
After a 6 year NCAA tournament drought that finished with a 9-22 season this year, and an up and down 15 years in which they made the tournament 6 times in 8 years from 2003-2011, the University of Washington decided earlier this week to fire Lorenzo Romar. That move in and of it's self is not a surprise to those who follow the program or college basketball closely, but what is a surprise is how poorly they played given all the talent on the roster including the potential number one overall pick in the NBA draft this year. It didn't take long to find a replacement however for Romar. Enter Mike Hopkins, Syracuse coach in waiting.
For those who don't know of Mike Hopkins there is one thing to get familiar with, the man can recruit. This is massively important because UW is going to need all the recruits it can get if the report that 3 players already on the roster, and potentially 3 incoming recruits are going to seek to transfer/play elsewhere turns out to be true. Coach Hopkins was instrumental in the recruitment of Gerry McNamara, the outstanding Syracuse guard, Dion Waiters, Hakeem Warrick, and Michael Carter-Williams, Johnny Flynn, and Rakeem Christmas. Per ESPN's Jeff Goodman poll of 200 college coaches he is the second most feared Recruiter among College Coaches. This speaks volumes to the type of talent he can get to UW, a school that is already attracting 5 star recruits before a recruiter like him gets there.
Hopkins played basketball at Syracuse, and then professionally over in Europe in the Netherlands and Turkey. When he was not working on recruiting or at Syracuse on the sidelines he was the Team USA court coach in 1998,2000,2001,2010 and 2012. In 2015 he was named Syracuse's Coach in Waiting to take over for whenever Jim Boehim decided to hang it up. In 2014 he was almost lured way by Oregon state and USC in 2014 and 2013 before they went in other directions.
Fans of UW basketball should not expect miracles during the 2017-2018 season. This is going to be a rebuilding job, in a tough conference that had 3 top 10 teams this year. However, if he can manage to keep on getting 5 star talent to the school it won't be long before the basketball team did what the football team did this year and put a stamp on the Pac-12.
