Mike Hopkins to Take Over at 'Cuse In About 15 Years or So

By the time Boeheim hangs 'em up, this style will be popular again.
ESPN.com is is reporting that long-time assistant basketball coach, Mike Hopkins, will be named "successor" to Jim Boeheim if and when he chooses to retire at 'Cuse. That makes sense, I guess. For recruiting purposes it's always better to have continuity and familiarity as opposed to a frantic job search. I'm just not 100% sure why Mike Hopkins would agree to this. Boeheim isn't going to retire until he's 100. The Post-Standard wrote a piece about this possibility about 3 weeks ago and in that article Boeheim made it clear that he hasn't even considered retiring. He's only 62 years old and though he's been with the 'Cuse as a player or coach for 45 of those years, he is not the least bit tired of it. If he was going to leave, he probably would have when he had his twins a couple years ago so he could spend more time watching them grow up. He also doesn't really have any incentive to leave. He is past the point of moving on to the NBA or another program, the frickin Court is named after him and he will likely leave the game with the most victories ever and the worldwide representation as the greatest human on earth. The only way he leaves is for health reasons or if he loses all of his limbs (including his head) in a tragic Sea Doo accident (which I guess could be considered a health reason). Boeheim is a basketball junkie. He admits to staying up until 2am watching Pacific play San Diego St. on ESPN 7 and not because either team is on his schedule later in the year but because he LOVES college basketball. So it's not like he wakes up every morning and asks himself why he continues to do this. He can't see himself doing anything else. I mean, what else would he do? Jim Boeheim has been playing and coaching basketball for over 40 years straight; from the day he entered college until today. If he stopped coaching, what would he do with himself? I'm sorry Hopkins, I think you'll be a fine coach, but we may be flying around in Jetson-style spacecraft by the time you get that corner office.