Washington has recently announced a coaching change, parting ways with Mike Hopkins at the end of this season. He was hired back in 2017 and had mixed results in seven seasons leading the Huskies, with the team underperforming in recent years.
A native of California, Hopkins has had quite a unique basketball career. Prior to taking the Washington job, he had spent his entire collegiate basketball life at Syracuse. He played in over 100 games under Jm Boeheim mostly in the early 1990’s before a brief international playing career. Hopkins then returned to Syracuse as an assistant coach in 1995, staying with the Orange for more than two decades.
When Boeheim was suspended at the start of the 2015-16 season, Hopkins served as the interim head coach, leading Syracuse through a rough stretch during what would become a Final Four season. He had been named the head coach-designate and was expected to replace Boeheim when he eventually retired, but Hopkins didn’t wait, spurning the Orange for Washington in 2017.
Things started relatively well at Washington for Hopkins, who won 21 games in his first season and then led the Huskies to the regular season Pac-12 title in 2019. Unfortunately, that was not only the high point of his tenure in Seattle but the only time he’d lead the Huskies to the NCAA Tournament, falling in the second round to North Carolina.
The following season, which was shortened by the pandemic, saw the Huskies fall all the way from first to last place in the Pac-12. Hopkins’ last three years would see mediocre results from his squads, who finished in the middle of the pack. His Huskies underperformed and he failed to win more than 17 games in any of his final five seasons.
The announcement to move on was made shortly after an impressive road upset against Washington State in perhaps the Huskies’ final regular game against their in-state rivals. Part of the reason why Washington will be an attractive job is that the school transitions to the Big Ten next season. Change is on the horizon in more ways than one with a fresh start following Hopkins’ dismissal, and the new head coach will have the resources to rebuild a winning program.
While this news is still relatively fresh, we’ll be looking closely at a number of potential candidates who could be intriguing matches for this Huskies program. This is a Big Ten job after all and the Transfer Portal and other resources make this a place where the right coach can win a lot of games. Let’s start running through these names, keeping in mind that Washington could easily hire someone else entirely.