KEVIN HOPKINS RISING IN THE COACHING RANKS
Former Blue Streak player, coach returns as Muhlenberg head coach
SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. >> After being on the road for what may feel like a very long time, former Saratoga Springs boys basketball standout and varsity coach, Kevin Hopkins, finally had a chance to see familiar faces and spend some time with his family.
Hopkins is entering his second year as the head coach at Division III Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa. and brought his Mules squad to the Skidmore College campus Saturday afternoon to take on the Thoroughbreds for the 20182019 opener for both teams.
“Skidmore is a really good program, they’ve been very competitive in the Liberty League, (Ed) Rupkus) is a great player, so I thought it was good early challenge for us and a good program for us to play against it,” Matt Hopkins said Saturday night. “Then obviously being able to come home.
“My family’s here, (Muhlenberg freshman) Nick (Chudy’s) family is here, my high school
coaches that coached me when I was a player in the area are all here, so it is a great atmosphere, a great crowd tonight. I really, really enjoyed competing in this.”
Skidmore spoiled the homecoming for the second-year coach and his former Blue Streak and current freshman, 75-69, but were never fully out of Saturday’s women’s/men’s doubleheader.
“I thought early on we played a lot of younger guys and they’ll just kind of made young mistakes,” Hopkins said. “Whether it was nervous to shoot the ball, not being aggressive enough offensively or defensively gambling, trying to make a oneon-one play instead of playing within the team concept, which is natural for young guys.
“They want to get out of what they can do so they gamble for a steel or try to block a shot instead of just no contesting at the rim and playing solid defense. I thought the second half eventually actually won the second half and we were fouling at the end trying to get back into it.”
With a tight contest Saturday, it didn’t create a window for Chudy to make his collegiate debut coming off the bench for the Mules, but was in his coach’s plans.
“If it had turned into a blowout, Nick probably would have been one of the first guys off the bench for us because he is from there and his family is here and all that stuff, which is important,” Hopkins said. “But at the end of the day I think our whole group is on board with trying to win as many games as possible and do whatever it takes for the team.
“If that means Nick has to sit there on the bench and be positive, vocal and cheering on other guys, he’s doing that. I thought he did a pretty good job of that for us to tonight.”
Hopkins spent five years as an assistant coach at Amherst College, reaching the Division III Final Four three times and capturing the NCAA national championship in 2013. Hopkins played at Amherst and was part of another successful group, reaching the national semifinals three times and earning his own national championship title as a player in 2007.
After five years at Amherst the opportunity presented itself at Muhlenberg.
“Unfortunately coaching is not like other jobs where there are new jobs being developed all the time and you can pick and choose where you want to live,” Hopkins said. “It’s kind of take a look around, see what jobs are open to get go from there.”
Just as he had moved up in playing levels, at Muhlenberg he was now at the next level of coaching.
You go from being an assistant and making suggestions and then you become the head coach, now you’re the decision maker and it’s also just the number of decisions that you’re making on a day-to-day basis.”
“When I first took the job we actually didn’t even have practice gear and I hadn’t thought about it either,” Hopkins said. “I assume that there was practice gear down in our equipment room until about a month before the season. I thought, you know, I better go check on that.
“I realized that the old coach was planning to order new gear, so he had given away all the old practice gear and so I had to scramble and figure it out and get new practice gear for our team.”
Those decisions also include the Mules type of offense which set a new school record last year three-point shots made, sinking 231 treys. The previous Muhlenberg mark was 48.
“We were a little bit undersized for the league that we played in and so we tried to space the floor out a little bit more and take advantage of the three-point-line and I think that’s the direction basketball is going,” Hopkins said. “If you watch any level guys, are shooting more threes.
“That’s something we prioritize in our recruiting is the ability to shoot the ball. If you can shoot the ball, it just opens things up on the court for you, creates a lot more spacing. It gives you a lot more options of what you can do offensively.”