Former Syracuse basketball guard and longtime 'Cuse assistant coach Mike Hopkins will not become the next head coach at Siena, as some recent media reports had indicated was expected to occur.
That stinks. I was hoping to see Hop as the new boss of the Saints, replacing another SU alum, Gerry McNamara, who last week was named the next head coach of Syracuse basketball.
According to Mark Singelais of the Times Union in the Albany, N.Y. area, Hopkins is no longer a candidate for the Siena head coaching position. Citing a source, Singelais reported that Hopkins "expressed that he wasn’t fully committed to taking the Siena job at this time."
Siena offered former Syracuse assistant and Washington head coach Mike Hopkins the job over the weekend but Hopkins turned it down on Sunday. As of Monday morning Vermont head coach John Becker and Marquette assistant Nevada Smith are the two leading candidates.
— Rodger Wyland (@RodgerWyland) March 30, 2026
Rodger Wyland, the sports director at WNYT NewsChannel 13 in the Albany market, also noted in a post on X that Hopkins was offered the Siena head coaching position over the weekend, but he turned it down on Sunday.
Singelais reports that current Siena candidates include John Becker, the head coach at Vermont, along with Nevada Smith, an assistant coach at Marquette out of the Big East Conference. Whether other candidates are in the mix for the Saints' opening is unclear at this juncture.
Mike Hopkins will not lead Siena this coming campaign.
Heading into this past weekend, it sounded like Hopkins could end up as the Saints' next head coach, but these sorts of things are always fairly fluid. Hopkins is currently an assistant coach with the NBA's New Orleans Pelicans.
Under GMac in the 2025-26 season, Siena won the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference ("MAAC") Tournament to land an invite to this spring's NCAA Tournament as a No. 16 seed. The Saints almost stunned No. 1 seed Duke in the first round, and Siena finished this past term at 23-12 overall.
Roughly a week ago, SU Athletics announced the hiring of McNamara as the Orange's next head coach, replacing yet another Syracuse basketball alum, Adrian Autry, at the program's helm. GMac, later on Monday afternoon, is holding his first official press conference.
Hopkins was on Hall of Famer Jim Boeheim's staff at the 'Cuse for more than 20 years. He was named the team's head coach-designate in 2015. But in 2017, Hop joined Washington as its head coach.
In seven seasons guiding the Huskies, Hopkins went 118-106 overall, reaching the 2019 NCAA Tournament and twice being named the Pac-12 Conference coach of the year. It would be awesome if, someday, Coach Hop did return to the college level.