Year 6 of the friendliest, most engaging head coach in the Pacific Northwest.
Year 6 of the last man to lead the Huskies to the NCAA men’s basketball tournament and Pac-12 title.
Year 6 of the man you hate being critical of because he’s an unrivaled container of effervescence and childlike bliss.
But, let’s be honest … it’s Year 6 of a man who has yet to show he can push this program to prominence.
The subject, of course, is Washington men’s basketball coach Mike Hopkins, the longtime Syracuse assistant who, to the surprise of many, came to Montlake in March 2017. What was perhaps more surprising, however, is how much success he enjoyed in his first two years at UW.
In his debut season, he led the Huskies to 21 wins and a trip to the NIT while earning Pac-12 Coach of the Year honors. In his second season, he led the Huskies to 27 wins, their first NCAA tournament appearance in eight years and a Pac-12 title while doubling up on his conference coach of the year honors.
It was an impressive extraction of production from the players he inherited — and re-recruited, in a sense — from his predecessor, Lorenzo Romar. So impressive that he received a six-year, $17.5 million extension in March 2019. But … they were Romar’s recruits. Hopkins’ track record with his own guys? One in which mediocrity marks the best of times.
After landing Isaiah Stewart and Jaden McDaniels — two of the top 10 recruits in the country — in 2019, Washington went 5-13 in the Pac-12 and finished last. The next year was even worse — a “disaster,” as Hopkins put it — when the Huskies won just five games total while going 4-16 in the Pac-12 and finishing 11th.
So when last year came along, and UW finished 17-15 overall and 11-9 in the conference, it looked like a Corvette of a season by comparison but was closer to a Corolla: Nothing to brag about or scoff at. And now we’re at Year 6, where the Huskies are picked by the media to finish … ninth in the Pac-12.
There’s a quote in “The Wire” by Idris Elba’s character, Stringer Bell, in which he tells his underlings that they’re bringing him “nothing but 40-degree days.” His point was that 50 degrees will get people smiling, 60 will break out the barbecues and 20 will get folks moaning and groaning — but nobody remembers a 40-degree day.
Ninth place after finishing in a three-way tie for fifth in the conference the year before? That would feel like a couple of 40s.
Of course, the season hasn’t started yet, and nobody really knows what’s going to transpire. Last year at this time, the Huskies were picked to finish 11th in the conference before placing six spots higher — much in part because of the ascension of Terrell Brown Jr., the Garfield High grad/Arizona transfer who led the Pac-12 in scoring at 21.7 points per game — practically tripling his point production from his previous season in Tucson.
But with Brown’s departure (as well as the departure of 2021-22 starters Emmitt Matthews Jr., Daejon Davis and Nate Roberts), can Huskies fans expect a similar surprise this year?
Well, this is where the guesswork comes in, and most of the media has guessed “no.”
The Huskies have restocked with seven new players, including transfers Noah Williams (Washington State), Keion Brooks (Kentucky), Franck Kepnang (Oregon) and Braxton Meah (Fresno State). And they return fourth-year starter Jamal Bey. Bey was joined by Brooks at Pac-12 media day Wednesday, where Keion said what you’d expect an optimistic transfer to say less than two weeks before the Huskies’ 2022-23 debut.
“People might be underestimating us and think we might do this or that, but I believe in the group that we got,” Brooks said. “We play extremely hard, and we play really well. That’s what I’m looking forward to and trying to get that story out.”
That story won’t need any help getting out if it comes to fruition. Seattle has proved itself as a basketball-crazed city, and will show up in droves if the Huskies start winning. Big “if” at this point, though.
I have no idea whether Hopkins’ job will be in jeopardy if UW doesn’t produce on the court this year. He’s a guy you root for, and if history across all sports has taught us, it’s that affable coaches tend to get more grace from the brass and media than the hostile ones.
But this is a result-driven business, and as successful as Hopkins was as inheriting a program, he’s proven little when it comes to building one.
The Huskies have to move forward this year. Staying still will feel like stepping backward.