KEVIN HOPKINS – MUHLENBERG COLLEGE MEN’S BASKETBALL HEAD COACH – EPISODE 856

Website – https://muhlenbergsports.com/sports/mens-basketball

Email – kevinhopkins@muhlenberg.edu

Twitter – @MuhlenbergMBB

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Kevin Hopkins is the Men’s Basketball Head Coach at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania. In his 5 years with the Mules he has led the team to their two highest single season win totals in the last 20 years.

Kevin began his coaching career as an assistant at his alma mater, Amherst College from 2012-2014.  In 2015 he was the coaching coordinator for the Santa Cruz Warriors of the NBA D League before returning to Amherst for the 2016-2017 season.

As a player at Amherst, Hopkins helped lead the program to their first National Championship in 2007 and the played professionally for two seasons in Germany before beginning his coaching career.

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You’ll want to have your notebook handy as you listen to this episode with Kevin Hopkins, Men’s Basketball Head Coach at Muhlenberg College.

What We Discuss with Kevin Hopkins

• Growing up playing basketball in the yard and being coached by his Dad early on in life
• The benefits of being a multi-sport athlete
• “How do we find a path forward and take advantage of the things that are different, but also maybe just by having an awareness of their experience being different, be able to coach them a little bit better and connect with them better.”
• “What wins basketball games, is still who’s playing the hardest and is the most connected and the most competitive, doesn’t turn it over, and takes good shots.”
• “We’ve tried to go more towards using film as a way to show positives and show what we want things to look like.”
• Using film to find solutions rather than just pointing out problems
• “I think when you’re coaching people, people are a little messier. They’re not black and white. A lot of times there’s more gray to it.  So, you got to be able to adapt and have a bit of a feel.”
• Letting your best player know in advance you’re going to get after them during a film session
• The new 8 day rule for D3 and how it helps build player coach relationships
• “We try to find the balance between connecting with guys, helping guys get better, but also not burning them out, making sure they enjoy being in the gym.”
• Getting player input on what’s working and what’s not
• His decision to attend Amherst College and play for Coach Dave Hixon
• The relationships he built with his teammates at Amherst
• His two years playing professionally in Germany, the second year with his college teammate Andrew Olson
• Being drug tested immediately following Amherst’s National Championship win and missing a lot of the celebration
• Learning from Coach Hixon after joining the staff at Amherst
• “I think that everyone makes the best decisions they can based on what they know and then they learn from it.”
• His year with the Santa Cruiz Warriors in the NBA G League
• The decision to return to college coaching and his desire to be a head coach
• “I think any time that you can get to a place where they’re not just trying to get kids to play basketball.  They’re not just trying to get them to do well academically. They’re trying to balance the ideals of division three, where guys have time to be really good students and do cool things in the classroom, but then also compete at a really high level on the basketball court.”
• Trying to understand someone’s “complete story”
• “It’s kind of just like this constant filtering out process of trying to get to who are the right guys that fit basketball wise, academic wise, financially, socially, all these different factors to determine which guys are the right guys.”
• “Committed, Connected, and Competitive”
• Why recruits should watch a practice to see a coach’s style and interactions with players
• “If I’m not fully transparent in the recruiting process with a family, you’re going to end up getting people in the program that have come for the wrong reasons.”
• “The guys that are most successful a lot of times are the guys that are in the gym the most.”
• “Winning is not a secret. It’s usually who does simple better, longer.”
• “Be curious, not judgmental.”
• “If someone else is better at something, the best players find out how they did it.”
• “Focused and intentional”
• Using a pre-practice huddle to improve communication and relationships
• “Don’t coach too many things at the same time.”

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THANKS, KEVIN HOPKINS

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TRANSCRIPT FOR KEVIN HOPKINS – MUHLENBERG COLLEGE MEN’S BASKETBALL HEAD COACH – EPISODE 856

[00:00:00] Mike Klinzing: Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast. It’s Mike Klinzing here with my co-host Jason Sunkle tonight. And we are pleased to be joined by Kevin Hopkins, the head men’s basketball coach at Muhlenberg College. Kevin, welcome to the Hoop Heads Pod.

[00:00:12] Kevin Hopkins: Mike, Jason, thanks for having me. I really enjoy listening to the podcast, hearing you going to coaches and asking questions about their story with basketball, so… lot of fun to listen, looking forward to talking with you guys.

[00:00:25] Mike Klinzing: Well, appreciate the kind words, and it’s always good, like I tell people all the time who say they listen. We appreciate that because sometimes you sit behind the microphone and we can obviously see some of the statistics and we know people are listening, but it’s always nice to hear that from an actual listener, somebody who’s finding value in what we’re doing.

So again, thanks for that. And Kevin, looking forward to diving in with you. Let’s start by going back in time to when you were a kid. Tell me a little bit about some of your first experiences with the game of basketball, what made you fall in love with it?

[00:00:54] Kevin Hopkins: Yeah. Great question. I would say some of my first are just a hoop outside at my house.

We kind of lived out in the country in Greenfield Center in upstate New York, but we had a hoop that was out on the garage and just shooting around with my dad or my brothers. And then when I was little, my dad would coach bitty basketball that we’d go play. And so a lot of times he’d like take all the kids from our town put them on one team rather than worrying about drafting based on talent or stuff. So a lot of it was just around like youth sports and having fun playing, being coached by my dad.

[00:01:27] Mike Klinzing: Did you play other sports besides hoops?

[00:01:29] Kevin Hopkins: Oh, I played a ton of sports. Played soccer, played football, played baseball, tried lacrosse for a summer.

I think I think there’s a lot of value in kids playing a lot of different sports and not just. specializing from such an early age.

[00:01:45] Mike Klinzing: When you think about your experiences as a multi sport athlete and you look back at it, what are some of the things that you look at as being positives for you and your athletic development?

And then maybe we can talk about that from the perspective of a college basketball coach.

[00:02:00] Kevin Hopkins: Yeah, I mean, I think anytime that you have a chance to do something that’s either out of your comfort zone and challenges you a little bit or with a different group of people than you’re usually interacting with.

Or just for sports in general, moving a different way, rather than repeatedly using the same muscles. I think all of it has benefits, a lot of times there’s guys that have played soccer end up seeing the floor and passing the ball differently than guys that haven’t, because they’re used to passing the ball into space versus passing to a person directly.

So I think there’s a lot of transfer that, I mean, I don’t know all the science behind it, but I do think. That the more well rounded the athlete, the more sports they’re exposed to, the more teams they’re exposed to, the more different groups of people and how they interact with each other. The better off they’re going to be as a basketball player, but as a person too.

[00:02:54] Mike Klinzing: It’s interesting because I think back to when I was a kid and I’m significantly older than you, but when I was growing up in the 70s and early 80s, I used to just go out and play and do whatever. I’m playing pickup football in the yard and I’m playing one on one baseball against my friends and I’m riding bikes and running around.

And I remember probably, man, this is probably now 12, 13 years ago when I first saw some people doing like athletic training with like seven to 10 year olds. So working on how to run and how to have good form when you’re moving and all these things. I remember. At that time, I was doing some training and I remember looking over at these guys that were doing this and then looking at the kids and looking at the parents and being like, why would anyone pay for this?

Like, teaching your kid how to run, I’m like, this is completely ridiculous. And then the more you thought about it and the more you saw it, you’re like, and the way I learned to do all those things, the run and jump and throw and do whatever is I was just kind of out in my element running around and trying different sports and doing all these different things.

And kids today, they just don’t, for whatever reason, okay, part of it is just the way we parent, but part of it is also the, the difference in the way that youth sports is put together. Like you described being out with your dad in the backyard and in the neighborhood and playing with kids that are from your own town and all that kind of stuff.

And kids just don’t, they don’t do it that way anymore. And now I always feel like that the athletic development side of it. Which, again, didn’t exist 20 years ago. It’s kind of almost taken the place or made up for the fact that kids aren’t out just running around the neighborhood and picking up their athletic skills in that way by trying all kinds of sports.

Instead, they a lot of times they ended up going to a trainer. But it’s interesting when you think about just how kids develop as athletes and it sounds like You were a kid that developed as an athlete just by trying lots of different things. Is that what you remember?

[00:04:58] Kevin Hopkins: I mean, yeah, there was some of that, but then I also just loved basketball, so I would work on that more than I’d work on other things.

But it wasn’t ever like it was like, Oh, if you’re going to be a basketball player, you have to go train this way. It was kind of just more organically happened. Which I think has benefits, but I mean, even getting into kids now, a lot of our incoming freshmen are so much more skilled as basketball players than even when I played.

I’m not quite as old as you, but still starting to feel like maybe I am getting old compared to some of these guys. Like I mean, but they also have to deal with so many more things, right? Like that they have a computer in their hand at all times. When I was little, you had to dial up internet. So like, you get home from school and it was like, go outside and play until dinner.

Versus now it’s like they have access to all this information. I mean, they can go watch a YouTube video and learn a new move quicker than I could learn how to teach it to them. So I think there’s pluses and minuses to both. And I think some of it’s just being able to figure out instead of having this debate, which one’s better.

Why? Kind of like, what’s the best of both worlds and kind of how do we find a path forward and take advantage of the things that are different, but also maybe just by having an awareness of their experience being different, be able to coach them a little bit better and connect with them better.

[00:06:21] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. I mean, I don’t think there’s any doubt that the best way to do it is to be able to look at the situation and adapt and figure out, okay, how do we maximize what we have? And I think one of the things that you said there that we’ve talked about with different coaches on the podcast through the years is you mentioned how.

The players today are far more skilled. And I could not agree with you more on that. When I think back to when I was playing or even when I was coaching, I stopped coaching high school basketball, I think in 2012 maybe. And I felt like there were guys that at the end of the bench that really, as far as their skill level, it wasn’t that high.

And now I look at most high school teams and you look at the 11th or 12th player on that team. And if you put them in the gym and just have them doing skill work and you have them shooting the ball, like there’s way, there’s just so many more guys that can shoot the ball and so many more guys that can handle it and do things.

And. I was wondering for you, as you’ve looked at it since you started coaching or maybe comparing it to guys when you played, how do you feel like, is there a marked difference in terms of player IQ? Because I think one of the things that is maybe different is that kids, because they’re not experimenting and playing as much pickup basketball maybe as they did, a long time ago.

Instead, they’re always playing with a coach. And from the time they’re a little kid, they’re, they’re always playing with the scoreboard on. So maybe they don’t have as much time to experiment. How do you feel about the, the skill versus IQ in terms of where players are today compared to maybe when you first got into coaching?

[00:07:59] Kevin Hopkins: I would say it depends like, it drives our guys nuts. I say it depends a lot.

[00:08:05] Mike Klinzing: That’s all right. That’s probably the honest answer.

[00:08:07] Kevin Hopkins: Everything needs context to it, right? Like it depends on what you’re saying with basketball IQ and like, we use hudl for our guys, so all our practices are filmed.

So like guys can go home from the gym. and go back and watch something that happened in practice and learn from it rather than like when you or I played you’re like debating with coach maybe whether or not it even happened And in this case, it’s like no there’s video go back watch it. Let’s talk about it tomorrow So they can learn quicker.

It might not just be the same way that we’re thinking about like Okay. Let’s go play pickup at the park and figure out who’s good at what without anybody really saying anything. But I do think that I mean, we’ve been pretty fortunate at Muhlenberg to have some pretty smart kids and they figured out how to do a lot of things that I might’ve at first thought might be a little too complicated for them.

But again, it changes each generation is going to have the smartest player of that generation. And so the knowledge changes, the game changes, the spacing changes. But like, I mean, if we’re going to be honest, like what wins basketball games, it’s still like who’s playing the hardest and is the most connected and the most competitive, don’t turn it over, take good shots.

What wins basketball hasn’t changed maybe how people go about trying to get there has. So. not really sure if that answers the question for you, but…

[00:09:32] Mike Klinzing: No, it does. I mean, it does. I think when you start looking at it that way and thinking about it, you just express that in a way that I don’t think I’ve ever heard anybody else that we’ve had this discussion with explain it in that way.

But I think you’re definitely. On to something when you start talking about that, the IQ, maybe it’s not the way that I think of basketball IQ being developed because for me, I didn’t develop it watching film because that was in the era of VHS tapes and trying to rewind. I say this story, I’ve said it a few times on the pod where we’re in the locker room trying to watch some play and.

Coach hits rewind and it goes a minute and a half past the play that you were trying to watch. And just then you’re trying to fast forward again. It was just, you think about how inefficient it was back in that time. And so I can honestly say that outside of film sessions that we were doing with our team.

Like I wasn’t watching much film, so I wasn’t developing my IQ the same way that your players are developing it. So I think you’re definitely on the right track. And it’s, it’s so, it’s something that I hadn’t heard expressed exactly in that way. So let’s build on that. When you’re trying to How do you get your players to, to utilize the film and watch practice?

Like, how do you use the film to help the players build their IQ? Just, do you have a formal way of like, okay, we’re going to review this in practice. We’re going to review yesterday’s practice and we’re going to do that the next day or just how do you utilize film, especially the practice film that Can help your players to build that IQ.

[00:11:05] Kevin Hopkins: Well, yes and no. I think each team is different. So you kind of try to get a feel for certain years guys like film more and certain years guys want to do on the court more and try to figure out and have a pulse of your team and see where they’re at. I think. The last couple years we’ve tried to go more towards using film as a way to show positives and show what we want things to look like, more so than as a teaching, here’s the mistake.

Because I do think there is some merit to having guys see themselves be successful and see what they’re striving towards versus this isn’t it, this isn’t it, this isn’t it, this isn’t it type of deal. Like I think it’s, I forget who it was. Maybe it was Rod Olson. There’s an author who talked about like coach.

Oh, no, like anybody can be coach. Oh, now like, Oh no, here he comes. He’s going to tell us everything wrong. It’s like, you didn’t back cut. You didn’t box out. You didn’t take the right shot, anybody can say that. Like, can you come up with a solution? So a lot of times we’re trying to use film to be more solution based or even just showing kind of like, okay, this is what we want to go towards more so than.

This isn’t what we’re doing, but there’s not like a formal necessary. You know, Mondays we do five clips, Tuesdays we do this many type of deal. A lot of it’s more feeling discussions with guys and seeing kind of where they’re at and what they think would be most beneficial for the group.

Is it more individual or more group? We, in the past, have done more group. Moving forward, I would like to do more individual. You know, Division III coaching, staffing becomes an issue sometimes with some of those things. Yeah. If we had bigger staffs, I think the individual film has a lot of value for guys, especially the teaching ones.

Because I have found there’s a lot of guys that are much more receptive to coaching, maybe hard coaching that other people would say. They just don’t want it in front of their peers that if it’s in a one on one setting, they’re pretty good with it. They got eye contact, they’re handling the coaching well but they might not want to be corrected in front of their peers.

And so some of that’s figuring that part out, or if you’re going to use film to go after your best player, you give them a heads up ahead of time and say, Hey this is what we agreed we need to be doing. You’re not doing it. So I’m going to talk to the team about it just so you know, and then kind of have those discussions.

But. Again, I don’t know that there’s a right or a wrong answer. Sometimes I wish I was a little bit more type A. Here’s the calendar. We’re going to stick to the schedule. But I think when you’re coaching people, people are a little messier. They’re not black and white. A lot of times there’s more gray to it.

So, you got to be able to adapt and have a bit of a feel.

[00:13:55] Mike Klinzing: All right. So, I already know the answer to this question is going to be, it depends. But I think it’s going to lead us into. An interesting discussion. So how long… Before when a kid is in your program, so you have a freshman come in, how long does it take you to kind of get a feel for how they like to be coached?

And I know again, it’s going to be different for every kid, but maybe talk more about your process of trying to understand a player rather than the timeframe, but just how long do you feel like it takes for you to get to, get to know those kids and understand what buttons you need to push in order to be able to coach them to their maximum?

[00:14:31] Kevin Hopkins: Yeah. I mean, honestly, I think you try to do it before they’re even committed to coming. As part of the recruiting process and kind of get a feel for how coachable are they, kind of what’s their mentality, how are they with their teammates? All those little things are, are part of the evaluation process so that hopefully by the time they’re getting to you, you already have a little bit of an ideal idea of what type of kid and what type of player.

Also, I know I’ve heard on a few other podcasts, you’ve been talking to coaches about division three, getting the eight additional days which I think is a fantastic rule change just from the standpoint of relationship building with first year students that we have seven freshmen this year. And we used one of our days our league had a rule that four of the days were with a trainer, four without.

So we did one without a trainer, but it was mostly non contact, a little bit of skill stuff, basic spacing and whatnot, like really back basketball wise, but just from being in the gym with guys that you recruit as a student athlete, but a basketball player. That wants to play basketball, you’re the basketball coach.

And now it gives you a chance to get out there and connect with that guy about something that you’re both passionate about, which then gives you a chance to get to know them more, be able to talk to them about class, joke about some things. But I think the new rule change has definitely helped with that piece of the coaching and trying to build those relationships early on and figure out how guys interact with each other. And that kind of thing.

[00:16:09] Mike Klinzing: Have you decided that you, are you using all those days prior to the season? Cause I know we’ve talked to a couple of coaches that are maybe saving some for after the season for a variety of different purposes, but what’s been, what’s been your philosophy as far as when to use those?

[00:16:22] Kevin Hopkins: Well, I was up in the air and then I actually listened to Jeff Juron and he was talking about saving them for the spring. I’m not sure yet, right now. I think we’ve got five, four or five of them that are scheduled and then we’re deciding what to do with the other ones. The other thing is we’re taking our team on a European trip in May.

So you’ll also get practices for that as well. One thing I’m trying to be conscious of with our guys is. Basketball is a really long season. It’s like the longest college sport there is. It’s like five or six months. So trying to find the balance between connecting with guys, helping guys get better, but also not burning them out, making sure they enjoy being in the gym, like it should be fun.

To get out there and compete with each other. So we’re trying to just make sure we have those discussions with guys on our team and see where they’re at and see if they want more practices, less practices try to get their input a little bit also.

[00:17:25] Mike Klinzing: What’s the feedback that you get when you ask guys those questions?  And again, I know the answer is it depends, but what are those, what are those conversations sound like? Because I guess whenever I talk to a division three coach. I think about the experience that players and coaches have at the Division I level and the way the rules are written today, where those coaches have access to their players for the vast majority of not just the school year, but the And I always say that when I played, my season ended and I got handed a two page ditto be like, here’s your workout.

Do this over the summer. We’ll see you back here in August. And to me as a kid that I wanted to go out and get better and I knew I was going to work at it and whatever, I didn’t, I would not have wanted to hear my same coaching staff In my ear for the entire summer, I was just looking forward to getting out and being able to go play some pickup basketball and being able to work on my game and do other things that I wanted to do.

And I couldn’t have imagined I would have gotten burnt out over four years if I had had my coaching staff on me for. 50 out of the 52 weeks of the year, that would have driven me crazy and I’m not sure I could have done it. And so whenever I hear you talking about, okay, I’m having conversations with my players about how much do they want?

How much do they not want? What are those conversations sound like when you’re talking with your players?

[00:18:54] Kevin Hopkins: Yeah. And I also think two division one staffs, a lot of times the ones I’ve talked to, at least the guys I know there’s kind of an ebb and flow to the year. So they’re not burning guys out like It might be for, for this portion of the year, the assistants have a louder voice and maybe the head coach takes a step back and maybe it’s more individual skill during this time.

And then it’s more team based during this time. And so. I think those staffs that do a good job with that, usually, I think it benefits the kids, but I can see both sides of it where you’re not intentional about whose voice are they hearing and what are you covering. Like I guess that’s one thing.

We probably won’t be able to guard anybody this year because we haven’t done any defense on either of our two days other than talking about, like, hey, pressure the ball and contest shots and go actively rebound. But no, like, specifics yet. But I do think that’s part of it. So, but what was the question originally?  Sorry. I got a little…

[00:19:54] Mike Klinzing: No, just about talking to your guys. And what are the conversations like? So when you’re going and you’re asking, Hey, what do you need? What do you want? How much do you want? What does that sound like on your end? What are you asking them? And what are you hearing back from them as far as feedback?

[00:20:08] Kevin Hopkins: Yeah. I mean, like I said, we gave them some basic transition stuff and one or two little actions to kind of play pick up with. And then like the day we went live, we really kind of just played pick up with it and coached them as we were going. Just to see like what guys are naturally doing. I think it was like I watched the clinic the other day.

It was Ben McCollum, I think the Northwest Missouri state guy. He was talking about how like for the first few months that they have guys, they just play pickup. They don’t even really give them. structure and they kind of see like what guys naturally do and how they figure out spacing and stuff like that.

So we’ve probably been close to that. And then just talking to guys, like, Hey, what do you think out there? Like we have a really good point guard, this kid Giovanni Rubino in scoring last year, but you know, Hey, what do you think? Oh, the spacing feels a little clogged at the rim or something. Cause we like changed some of the spacing from last year.

And then it’s just a discussion like, okay, who are you playing with? Oh, you’re playing with a bunch of the freshmen. They haven’t figured out spacing with you yet versus when you play with the upperclassmen, you all kind of know each other’s games. So like, okay, Mike’s got the ball in the way and he’s probably going to shoot it.

So I’m going to go rebound, but that’s just cause you have that connection because you play together. So I think a lot of it right now is around stuff like that. And then just trying to reinforce I was joking, like the defensive side of the ball there guys without doing this is back line or no middle, just kind of talking about making the ball handler uncomfortable or really trying to contest shots.

We’re really trying to go rebound. But I mean, our guys are great with all that stuff and they’re smart kids and they’re smart players. So it’s fun to have the back and forth and kind of see.

[00:21:54] Mike Klinzing: How does that level of input compare to the level of input that you had when you were playing both as a high school player, and then obviously, as you know, we had coach Hickson on and playing for a hall of fame coach special experience. I’m sure we’re going to talk a little bit about that. But in terms of.

You as a player giving input to the coaches that you played for. How does the experience that your players are having with you compare to the experience that you had as a player with your coaches?

[00:22:24] Kevin Hopkins: I don’t think I was a smart enough player.

[00:22:35] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. I think it’s interesting when I think back to again, When I was playing, it was just completely, completely different. I mean, there would have been no thought. It just was not, it was not even on the radar of, hey, I’m seeing this, let me share that with. It just, I don’t remember ever being asked my opinion, my thoughts.

I don’t remember ever even having a moment where I thought, oh. Maybe I should share this  with the coaching staff.

[00:23:00] Kevin Hopkins: The game was so different though, too. It was, you had your set plays you were going to run. If there was a ball screen, you were going to hard hedge it and put two guys on the ball.

And like, most teams were not going to shoot enough threes to hurt you with it. Versus like, now when our guys play, if we just come down and run a drag screen in league play, like, someone’s going to trap it, someone’s going to switch it, someone will ice it, someone will help with the low guy, someone will help with the na like, there’s so many different ways that basketball is played and coached now that guys have to have.

I don’t know that you can just be like, oh, they’re trapping, now run play two, because that’s our trapping play. But that used to be kind of like how it was.

[00:23:50] Mike Klinzing: I think you’re right in the sense that you didn’t have the variance within styles of play. And so, because of that, I don’t want to say the coaches necessarily had more control over the action, but I think in some ways that probably was true.

And as a player, you’re not dealing with as many, as you said, the variances of the game today and the way things can be different. I think there’s much more on good teams. I think there’s much more player decision making and not just decision making of, okay, like who do I pass the ball to? Or in this situation, where am I supposed to be?

But just reacting to all the different schemes and things that other teams are throwing at you. There’s just no way as a coach that you can be. preparing a team for that specific instance. It’s more like the player has to be able to read and react to whatever is happening, both offensively and defensively.

And I think you’re 100 percent right that that’s one of the ways that the game has definitely evolved, which you would expect it to, right? I mean, the game coaches are smart, players are smart. And so you have the different ways that the game’s being played forces you as a coach to give your players opportunities to be in situations where they can learn as opposed to you programming them from the sideline.

For sure. All right, let’s go back to your time as a player and tell us a little bit about what it was like playing for Coach Hickson at Amherst and why you made the decision to go to Amherst in the first place.

[00:25:27] Kevin Hopkins: Yeah, I mean, coming out of high school. So my, my dad, who I mentioned earlier, actually passed away when I was 15.

So going into my sophomore year of high school. And the varsity coach asked me if I would play or try out for varsity, I guess. And I actually decided not to and to play JV because there was a group of guys that I was pretty close with, but then also our football coach was the JV basketball coach.

And so I thought as a tall skinny guy, I also needed some time in the weight room before I could guard big guys. And I think I got moved up at the end of the year for like sectional playoffs or something like that. But and then I only played one year of AAU. So my recruiting was a little bit different.

And even when I was coming out of high school AAU wasn’t quite what it has grown into. Even the prospect camps, like I think there was Eastern Invitational maybe, but like five star camp was still big. There was a big guy camp. That was out in Syracuse, I think it was, that I went to.

I was like overnight, go play for the week, get exhausted. I don’t know why I did it. But, I’m pretty sure Coach Hixon actually saw me at a Williams prospect camp. Which is ironic, because that was Amherst’s rival. But I was looking at Amherst, Rochester some low division ones, or like, Ivies wanted me to prep or something.

I didn’t know anything about prepping. And I think a lot of it was the luck that I ended up at Amherst, to be honest, but it was the best decision that I’ve made both as a player, as a person and for my coaching to be able to go play and work for Coach Hixon. And I don’t think any of us realized at the time that we were playing for the first division three guy, Hall of Famer coach, but it was definitely a great experience. And that was made really special by the classmates that I had there. We had a really good class, all of us in my class that graduated ended up playing professionally in Germany for at least a year played with a two time national player of the year, point guard, Andrew Olsen is the shooting coach for the Cavs and other great guys.

And we met a lot of great people. And so you know, I think I was very fortunate with my. Basketball, I think a lot of it was just luck that I ended up at Amherst, but the people I was around and not just the basketball team, right? Like the other students there, the faculty, the staff we have a kid that’s on our team partially because he was out of prep school up in New England and I knew someone that had worked at Amherst when I was there.

He was the Dean of Admissions at the kid’s school and best friends with his coach. And now the kid’s playing for me all because of something that happened. Back at Amherst being a big part of the relationship side of it. So you know, I can’t speak highly enough about my experience playing for coach Hixon and then obviously getting the chance to go back and work for him after playing in Germany for a couple of years was a great experience.

Kind of welcomed me back, got to go to grad school, get my master’s and figure out what I was trying to do. Fell in love with coaching and then went out, spent a year in the G League coaching Santa Cruz with Casey Hill. And then decided I wanted to be back in college and coach Hixon took me back.

I guess that would be the third time once as a player and coach. Which is kind of where I spent two more years before ending up down here at Muhlenberg.

[00:28:53] Mike Klinzing: All right. So when you go to college, what’s your thought process as far as what you thought you might want to do? For a career as an 18 or 19 year old, was coaching something that you were thinking about already?

Or was you thinking about something else as you, as you entered college in your first year or two?

[00:29:07] Kevin Hopkins: I had no idea. I think that was part of the draw of the liberal arts education was I had no idea. I don’t know if I had any idea when I graduated what I was trying to do. I was kind of trying to play and avoid the real world for a little bit more.

I was a psychology major undergrad. When I was playing, I thought about maybe going back to school and getting a master’s or a PhD in psychology, but… Didn’t end up doing that. And then I was interested in sports a little bit too. So, I mean, when I ended up playing, I was actually doing the sport management program at UMass which I kind of thought I knew some guys that had connections to the NBA and professional sports at different capacities, and so it was kind of curious about maybe staying involved in sports, but in a different capacity. But then once I started coaching and then I had also done an internship with the New York Knicks, with their field marketing and fan development department and kind of realized unless I was on the team side, I probably didn’t want to work in sports long hours.

And for me, just personally, I like being around the guys is the best part of it for me.

[00:30:17] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. It’s funny that you say that about professional sports because. I actually know a guy who he works for the Cavs and he’s kind of in charge of their youth sports division, for lack of a better way of saying it.

And at one point there was a position that opened up to be like the youth basketball development director and I’ve been running camps. Here in Cleveland for a long time. And so I had built a relationship with this guy and he called me up and he’s like, Hey would you be interested? And I’m like, yeah I might I might be interested in it.

And then as you got to talking about it, basically, he said the same exact thing that you just said, which is, Mike Klinzing. You know, if you’re going to work in professional sports and you’re going to be on the business side of it or however you want to look at it where you’re not, obviously there’s long hours if you’re coaching on the, at the professional level too, but if you’re working in sports, there’s so many people that think that it’s a super glamorous job and in some ways I guess it could be.

But it’s not. It’s like you’re working a lot of hours, putting a lot of time in and you’re oftentimes working behind the scenes. So it’s like, yeah, I, I’ve, I’ve had the experience that you described where you’re just. Working in professional sports seems like it’s glamorous, but there’s a lot of people that are trying to get to those glamorous jobs, putting in a lot of time working jobs that probably aren’t considered to be all that glamorous.

So I can, I can completely relate. Tell me a little bit about your experience. playing over in Germany, what that was like. I know that we talked to Matt Goldsmith and we actually had Andrew Olson on. He, his episode is actually going live tonight. But we talked to Andrew a little bit about the experience playing over there and how you guys got together one night when all five of you were able to connect over there in Germany.

But just tell me a little bit about your experience.

[00:32:05] Kevin Hopkins: Yeah, I mean, like I said, it was awesome. We got a chance. I mean, so obviously we’re playing basketball. You don’t get a chance to study abroad or anything like that which I think some of us kind of used it with the mentality of like, oh, this is our study abroad opportunity.

Let’s go live in another country. You know, get paid just enough money to live and travel a little bit and figure out what we’re doing. But you know, it was really cool to be able to be close to each other and see each other play professional games after going through four years of college together.

And then I mean, it was really special the second year, but Andrew and I had used the same agent and decided let’s try to get on the same team. So ended up getting to play with one of my best friends from college, who’s a pass first point guard and I’m a Tall, big guy that likes to run the floor and he just bombed three quarter court alley oops to me.

It was fantastic. They’re all really good people. You know, everyone that’s been married so far, we’ve all been in each other’s weddings. And so I think the basketball part was cool, but I think that the relationship. Piece of it was even more special. That not only do we get to see each other play a little bit you know, like Andrew and I at one point drove down and saw our other roommate Fletcher play a game in Luxembourg.

But just being able to connect with those guys that for the rest of your lives. You’re going to be a part of each other’s lives is something that’s really special.

[00:33:33] Mike Klinzing: How much of a role did Coach Hixon play in those relationships in terms of putting together the kind of culture that fostered togetherness?

Because it’s not a given that on every college team and every college program that guys are going to bond the way that you guys clearly did. And obviously you had a tremendous amount of success and won a national championship while you were there. So winning always helps. But just… Talk a little bit about Coach Hickson’s role in building the right culture.

[00:34:05] Kevin Hopkins: Yeah, I mean, he talked about it some, I think, when he was with you guys, of his weed and feed type of deal, that that was one thing as a player Coach was always, when you walked in the gym, he was probably, before practice, he’s sitting over on the table waiting to talk to somebody and tell them a story or tell them a joke or see what’s going on.

And you probably don’t realize it as much when you’re playing. Maybe I started to see a lot more when I was coaching with them. I’m just, he’s always got a pulse of the team and like where they’re at and what they need. And usually at least once a year, there’s probably going to be an important discussion that needs to be facilitated between some people on the team, if they’re going to go as far as they can go as a group.

He was pretty good at figuring out which button to push and which guys to have come in the office and talk about things and how to direct the conversation. I think that’s a lot of the relationship stuff is just knowing those things, like which guys are mad at each other today. I think sometimes coaches want like a secret thing and I think a lot of it’s just he was always there and he was always present and he was always…

Seeing what was going on and figuring out who needed what, and then just from a collective standpoint, like we had a pretty big class and I remember as freshmen getting there and the older guys having us play pickup together until we beat them. And then we wanted to play together and they started to break us up because they didn’t want all the young guys because we were all competitive like most of You know, we’d sneak it and then they’d remind us they’re three years older and stuff, but I don’t know how that happened.

I honestly think Andrew played a big role in that. He’s a connector person and a lot of people gravitate to him. He’s also competitive. So, I mean, I think our group was at a great balance between like being hyper competitive and really liking each other and liking hanging out with each other. So like we could go to practice.

And Matt and I could go after it. And then as soon as practice is over, it’s like, okay, let’s go to the dining hall, what movie are we watching tonight? Let’s go hang out. So I think that’s the best teams is when you can have both sides of that, people that are really competitive and driven and want to push each other and see how good they can be, but then also can let it go sometimes and hang out and have fun.

[00:36:45] Mike Klinzing: Did you guys know right away? When you guys hooked up in your freshman year, that there was going to be a special group. I mean, how long did it take for you? Like, man, these guys are great.

[00:36:54] Kevin Hopkins: I mean, I guess in hindsight you’d say that, right? But I’m sure there was a lot of awkward figuring out young guys.

Going through things you’re away from home, whatever happens. So but we definitely were connected fairly early and that stayed strong throughout.

[00:37:15] Mike Klinzing: What’s your favorite memory from the national championship?

[00:37:19] Kevin Hopkins: Oh, great question. I think the confetti going off was so loud. It was cool. They had like the confetti comes down from the ceiling and we knew we were going to win.

So we’re kind of just dribbling out the clock. But I actually missed a good portion of the celebration because they do random drug testing. You got picked? Are you serious? I got drug tested afterwards. I was dehydrated.

[00:37:45] Mike Klinzing: You got picked? Are you serious?

[00:37:46] Kevin Hopkins: You were just sitting in a locker room. I was just like trying to I missed a good portion of it.

But no, it was an incredible experience. Just, it’s surreal. Cause you know, everyone else for the most part if you’re a playoff team, your season doesn’t end on a win. So to be able to go through that especially with that group of people was something that never forget for the rest of your life.

[00:38:15] Mike Klinzing: All right, let’s make the transition to coaching. You get done playing in Germany, you come back home. You get an opportunity to work with coach Hickson. What was it like to go from the player coach relationship to now you’re a colleague and how long did it take you to sort of feel comfortable? I don’t know if speaking your mind, but just feeling more like you were on a similar level as opposed to just that coach player relationship.

[00:38:46] Kevin Hopkins: I mean, I don’t know. It still goes back and forth sometimes. When I see him, he’s still a coach. Whether he’s a colleague or a mentor. He’s always been someone I could go to. I mean, I still call him and ask for advice sometimes. A lot of times.

But I’d be curious to hear his take on the transition. Retroactively, I think it was fairly smooth. I mean, he does a great job of giving his assistants a lot of autonomy. That kind of, right when you come back, you get thrown in the fire a little bit and you find a way to figure it out. Maybe not necessarily having any idea what you’re doing, but you start calling it AAU events or when I first started, a lot of the recruiting was through working like Ivy League prospect camps.

So you go to a prospect camp and you meet other young assistants and you meet other people and kind of figure it out that way and then he’s got you doing scouting reports and you’re doing personnel and you’re given the scouting. You know, he’s rewriting it on a yellow legal pad, but I thought it was a pretty smooth transition.

He’d probably have a different story maybe, but for me, I think a lot of it too, you don’t even realize in the moment how much you’re learning or picking up just by being, so like the setup was you share for however many assistants and coach Hixon all shared one office. And, coach’s desk was there and he was one of the senior coaches in the athletic department.

So the women’s basketball coach would come in and they’d talk about whatever and then the men’s soccer coach would come in and so all these different coaches would come in and he’d be coaching coaches because when he first started, like he was coaching soccer and other sports and so it was more the human coaching motivation side a lot of times than necessarily tactics or whatever, but you got to hear those conversations.

And then also every time an alum came back, And you saw how coach would drop anything and focus on the alum and he had stacks of stuff all over his office. And I remember he’d have all these pictures and like someone would walk in and be like, coach, you probably don’t remember me. He’d be like, actually, I think I got a picture of your team from whatever year.

Like 10 down in this stack and they pull out the picture and they give it to somebody. Well, to me, that was the part of coaching that was had the biggest draw was like, yeah, the basketball part was fun. The X’s and O’s are fun, but seeing the relationships that he built with people and then seeing people come back, bring their kids back Hey coach, you might not remember me, but I want to introduce my kids to you. It was pretty cool to see. And then you realize, like, a lot of that was just from his genuine curiosity and interest in people. And so when I left, a lot of people wanted to know what he’s so good at. Is it plays? Is it whatever?

And I was like, he’s good at people. He’s good at relationships and reading the room. I think that’s what draws so many people to team sports a lot of times anyways. When you find teams that have that type of connection and camaraderie and whatever, and people that are able to build that, there’s something that draws people into that.

[00:42:11] Mike Klinzing: I don’t think there’s any doubt that the best teams have those kinds of relationships. I suppose there’s probably some anomalies out there of Of teams that weren’t connected that had success on the court, but I’m guessing that those are few and far between the best teams I’ve ever been involved with as a player or a coach or teams that were super connected and the teams that struggled were definitely teams that were not as connected in that relationship side of it.

So I can completely relate to what you’re expressing there. When you think back to your start as a coach, what’s something that when you think about yourself in that first year, something that you were not so good at that you’ve really improved over the course of your career? Can you point to, there’s probably a couple, but can you point to one thing they were like, Ooh, that was a little bit of a struggle at first and now I feel like I have a better handle on it.

[00:43:10] Kevin Hopkins: There’s a lot of them. Oh. Oh. I probably struggled a little bit my first year adjusting to, so over the pandemic, the head of our counseling center talked to our guys, but he talked about people having incomplete stories of each other, right? So we all have an incomplete story of each other. Those guys I coached my first year had an incomplete story of me and my background, and I had an incomplete story of them and their background.

And I think there was a little bit more of a disconnect. There would be if I was coaching that same group under the circumstances now having coached a bit longer and probably being a little bit more patient in some areas. And I think when you coach a lot of times early on, at least for me, when I first started as a coach, like there’s still some, unknown insecurity.

Like, can I even do this? Do I know what I’m doing? Cause I’ve never done it. Yeah, absolutely. And so you want to do everything the right way. And a lot of times I think you get caught up in some things that the next year you’re like, yeah, that’s not really as important or worth worrying about. And then each year it grows and evolves and kind of, you figure out what are the battles worth fighting that maybe you’re really on it.

I tried to fight too many of those battles, but I don’t know, because I also think that everyone makes the best decisions they can based on what they know and then they learn something new and now the decision changes so retroactively they’re like, Oh, I shouldn’t have done it. It’s like, well, if you knew differently, you wouldn’t have.

So, and you might not have learned the new way if you didn’t do it quote unquote wrong the first time. So I mean, the thing that stood out to me with my first year is there was five seniors on the class and three of them have gotten married so far. And all of them, I was at their wedding because they invited me and wanted me to be there for that day.

So to me that was the biggest win from that first year’s group was to be able to connect with them and have them want me there on that day. More than winning or losing or a drill or whatever on the court.

[00:45:22] Mike Klinzing: Yeah, you did something right. Tell me about the year in Santa Cruz, why you took that opportunity and what you were looking for, what you got out of it, and then why ultimately you decided that you wanted to go back to the college level. I know you talked a little bit about just the time commitment and that kind of thing, but just tell me what the experience was like.

[00:45:44] Kevin Hopkins: The experience was awesome. I mean, the coaching staff and the front office staff and Santa Cruz and Golden State when I was out there were top-notch. It was a great learning experience to do that much basketball. I had actually kind of started to go through the process with them the year prior when I was still at Amherst and our other assistant on staff had left kind of late in the cycle and I ended up Telling the Santa Cruz guys, you know what I’m working with the guy that I played for and gave him my first job in coaching.

And like, our other assistant just left. I don’t think it’s the right time for me to leave him for whatever reason. So then the following year they followed up again and it worked out for whatever reason to go out there. And so I was always curious, kind of professional basketball versus division three.

Obviously different level of athlete, different whatever and so I was kind of curious to learn more about it and had a great time out there. You know, actually at that time the G League or D League or whatever was kind of like Division Three. There was days where I was driving a van, doing laundry.

I was a practice player. I was doing a scouting report. I was driving a team to the airport. Like, it was all hands on deck. And but again, it was a lot of really good people and got to be a part of it was cool. We actually ended up winning the G League championship and it was the same year that Golden State won their first championship.

And so it was the first time that they had ever had the NBA and the G League. team from the same organization win it in the same year. And so it was cool to be able to see at the professional level, what goes into being a championship caliber, not only G League team, but NBA team. So championship caliber organization top to bottom which was great.

But I also missed the aspect of small college basketball where you get to coach guys on and off the court for four years versus there’s a lot of turnover in professional basketball, like I think I forgot what the roster was, it was either like 10 active and two inactive players at a time, so maybe 12, but we had like 20 or 30 guys throughout the year because Some guys get a call up, some guys go to Europe, some guys whatever, and so the roster is constantly in flux versus college a lot of times, at least at the small college level you have a similar group of guys and people that you get to work with and be around for four years, which is something that’s pretty special.

[00:48:25] Mike Klinzing: Was it a hard decision to come back to college or was it pretty clear cut that you felt like after having this experience that you knew it just sort of solidified that college basketball is where you wanted to be?

[00:48:37] Kevin Hopkins: I mean, that experience at that time definitely solidified that my next step was to go back to college. Part of it was honestly wanting a chance at being a head coach. And I wasn’t sure in professional basketball if I saw a path towards that. Versus I thought if I went back to Amherst with the experience that I had had as a player with that group of guys I was playing with, and then as an assistant, and then going out to Santa Cruz, and then if I went back to Amherst again that that would probably put me on a little bit more of a fast track towards having a chance at getting a shot to be a head coach at the division three level, which I think Jeff Juron kind of touched on it.

Like a lot of it has to do with luck, like right place, right time. You get a chance to be a head coach, which was something that. When I made that decision was, was also a part of going back to a small college basketball.

[00:49:32] Mike Klinzing: So how does the Muhlenberg opportunity come to you?

[00:49:35] Kevin Hopkins: I actually just applied.  I didn’t really have a connection. I didn’t find out until later that the president at the time who was not involved in the process to my knowledge, but was an Amherst guy that actually lived on Coach Hixon’s Hall freshman year at Amherst. But when I originally interviewed, I actually wasn’t even a finalist.

I think they did a call in a Zoom maybe. I remember actually being really sick for a Zoom and the AD called right before the final four and said they were going to go another direction and bring some other people to campus. And then ended up going out to the final four and They changed their mind and decided to bring me to campus.

So I actually ended up interviewing her. I only remember this cause before that, every other interview I was on I had the coach’s packet. I was wearing a suit. I was prepared. I’d watched film on the teams. This one, I didn’t have a laptop. I didn’t have a suit. So I interviewed in some Lululemon khakis and some Allbird shoes and a polo.

Those were the nicest clothes I had for the final four.

[00:50:44] Mike Klinzing: And you were just ahead of your time. Kevin, you would already call it, you’d already switched over to the casual look.

[00:50:48] Kevin Hopkins: look. Well, I’m 6’10 So I couldn’t borrow the suit of the athletic director who offered at the time, I was like, Oh, I don’t think it’s going to fit.

So you kind of had to send some emails. Can you explain why this joker was… That’s funny. It’s not a suit to people, but yeah, I got lucky is kind of what it came down to I think. And, and also being around the right people and in the right programs, I had a pretty good resume at the time and was able to take advantage of an opportunity that came up and, it’s been one of the best decisions I’ve made.

[00:51:25] Mike Klinzing: What attracted you to the Muhlenberg job? What about the school? What about the program? What about the potential that you saw? What did you like about it as you were going into the process?

[00:51:35] Kevin Hopkins: To be honest, a lot of it was, it reminded me of Amherst a little bit in that it was a high academic school in a really good basketball conference in division three that competes against other schools where there’s a lot of. One, there’s a lot of really good coaches in our league that are fun and challenge you as a coach every game. But there’s also really good players and good kids. Like, it’s not just like, oh, he’s talented, but he’s a jerk. Like, there’s a lot of good kids and good players, and it’s fun to compete with each other.

And so but as I was going through the interview process, too, they had a bunch of alums that were involved and it seemed like they really cared about the future of the program and what was going to happen. And so, I think any time that you can get to a place where they’re not just trying to get kids to play basketball.

They’re not just trying to get them to do well academically. They’re trying to balance kind of the, the ideals of division three, where guys have time to, to be really good students and do cool things in the classroom, but then also compete at a really high level on the basketball court. And then also participate in the rest of the campus community. And then after the ball stops bouncing, go on and do some, some cool things after college. So to me, it was kind of just it offered a lot of positives.

[00:53:00] Mike Klinzing: What were some questions that you had for them? As part of the interview process, I always think it’s interesting to sort of flip it around and clearly they’re asking you lots of questions and trying to get a feel for you.

But what were some of the things that you wanted to know from them just to make sure and confirm that what you were seeing from the outside was, was really what was there and that it was going to be a great opportunity.

[00:53:19] Kevin Hopkins: When could I start? No, to be honest, even though I didn’t have a laptop or anything, I’d still part of the pre interviews had done research on other coaches in the department.

And, you know our women’s program had been really successful and our football team had things kind of going. And so some of it was talking to those coaches and saying like you guys, you guys have shown you can win at the school. Like, what’s the secret? Like, how do you do it?

Is it recruiting? Is it financial aid? Is it you’re a magic coach? You know, so some of that was just having a feel and seeing like, okay, what programs are successful here. Let me see what those coaches say. Like let’s ask financial aid or the admissions guy, what does it look like for, what does a successful hire look like from your guys perspective?

I’m just trying to get a feel for kind of what different people’s expectations were for a new basketball coach. And kind of what ways, as the new coach, you could add value to the other people on campus.

[00:54:29] Mike Klinzing: If you could give one piece of advice to somebody getting their first head coaching job at the college level, thinking back to those first couple of weeks, months on the job, what’s the best piece of advice you could give somebody for that transition from being an assistant coach to being a head coach?

[00:54:50] Kevin Hopkins: You watch Ted Lasso? You know, the dark scene, the be curious, not judgmental one? I think that might be it. Like with yourself and other people because there’s 900 decisions you have to make now, and you probably get a lot of them wrong. And if you waste time judging yourself for it, it’s like you didn’t know any better.

If you knew better, you wouldn’t have done it. So like, just learn from it and kind of move on. But also with people too, like be curious about people not judgmental of them if a kid shows up late to practice. Do you just ream him because he’s late or do you put your arm around him and say, hey, is everything all right?

But I think kind of going back again to that incomplete stories idea that the more complete story you have of someone and where they’re at, including yourself. The better off you are trying to make progress and keep getting better. Because at the end of the day, like that’s the other thing. Coach Hixson was always so curious, like to the last day I worked for him, he’s always trying to learn new ideas and learn something new about people or new play or new wrinkle or that I do think that dart scene was one of my favorites from that show.

It was just being curious, not judgmental. And a lot of times if people are being judgmental, it has nothing to do with the person they’re judging.

[00:56:10] Mike Klinzing: You mentioned earlier about starting that process of getting to know someone’s story during recruiting. Tell me a little bit about your process at Muhlenberg for, how do you put together your list of guys you want to consider and then as you slowly start to narrow down that list, what does the recruiting process look like?

What are some of the things that you’re looking for in a player? I mean, beyond the obvious skill level that a player has to have to be able to play division three college basketball, but maybe some of the intangible. So your process and then the intangible things that you’re looking for.

[00:56:43] Kevin Hopkins: Yeah. Process wise, I was actually just talking to our wrestling coach about this the other day for some reasons, but it’s kind of like, there’s a big funnel and at the top you got all the players and you kind of try to pick the ones that intrigue you.

That you see whether that is a relationship, someone sends you a highlight or an email, or a recruiting service, or an AAU tournament. You know, there’s tons of different ways that you see or find out about guys, especially since there’s like, everybody has a highlight tape now. Bad players have good highlight tapes right now.

Yeah, that is true. You’re kind of going through that, but then you’re also kind of have a vision for, okay, where’s our roster at? And kind of what’s our style of play, who fits what we’re trying to do from a stylistic style of play standpoint. So you’re filtering from a basketball standpoint, but then you’re also filtering from the academic standpoint of who’s admissible who might be eligible for merit money, who’s the right fit academically, who do our admissions people like, who do we like, that kind of thing.

There’s also the financial aid piece of it who can afford Muhlenberg? What does it make sense financially with their family? Who might it not make sense for? So a lot of the early stuff, I think you’re actually getting to more no’s than yeses because you’re information gathering. And then you’re kind of reaching out to people and texting or calling or setting up calls and seeing who might be interested in coming to check out campus or…

Fill out our questionnaire that we have online. And so again, you’re kind of just narrowing the funnel and then you get guys to campus. And I think it’s a two way street. Like you’re showing them campus and they’re getting a feel for campus and you’re talking with them, but you also get to meet them, probably their parents, see how they interact.

You can ask questions, they ask questions, they meet your team, see what your guys think about them. So it’s kind of just like this constant filtering out process of trying to get to who are the right guys that fit Basketball wise, academic wise, financially, socially, all these different factors which guys are the right guys, so to speak.

And for us, like last year, we talked to our guys about being committed, connected, and competitive, like. That probably sounds more like it’s up on a wall than it was for any of our guys. I don’t even know if they could spit those out, but they were like themes that we would come back to, right? Like if you’re committed to our guys here at all the time, I’ll say like, you should go to class, be early, sit in the front, participate.

Ask for help if you need it. Like, if you do those things, you’re going to be good. It’s the same thing at practice. Like, show up, be committed. If you say you’re going to do it, be here. Do it as well as you can. Like, be connected. Make, we, this was one, we said, make a positive impact on someone else. Or, do the next right thing.

Like, mistakes happen. What are you doing next? So, like, there’s a lot of different things that within our program that I’m not super type A, so it’s not like they’re up on a wall or our guys could, it’s not like what was it?

[00:59:59] Mike Klinzing: You’re not having a weekly quiz on the quote of the week now.

[01:00:03] Kevin Hopkins: Play like a champion, like that’s not happening, but our guys would probably say a lot of the similar things. And maybe I should be better with terminology and stuff. But I do think, again, because so much of it’s relationship driven that a lot of it’s organic versus. Like I’m not the there’s a lot of coaches that I have a lot of respect for that are super high energy and they’ve got every slogan and everything sounds like a tagline and it’s great.

And I wish I could do that, but that’s also, I’m more introverted as a person.  That’s one thing I talk to our recruits about is like, try to go watch a practice and see how the coach interacts with the team and what their teaching style is or what their playing style is or how guys interact with each other because that’s all part of the process, right?

Like, and I give the example because I mean you’ve had Matt. Matt is super high energy and extroverted and I’m more even keeled introverted. I think Matt’s fantastic with how he coaches his guys because that’s who he is. Like it fits. him. He’s being authentic to himself. I also think how we do things with our guys is good because I’m being authentic to who I am that part of that filtering out is figuring out like coaching style wise do you want the coach that’s you know juiced up and clapping and right there with you or do you want the guys Quietly asking a question on the side cause different people coach different ways.

And I think, again, that’s not to attach a judgment to any of it. I think a lot of it works as long as it’s true to who that coach is. And they’re not just trying to be some other coach. Like if I tried to coach like Matt, I couldn’t do it. I’d be exhausted.

[01:01:45] Mike Klinzing: It’s so true. I mean, it’s funny when you talk about different coaching styles.

And I guess when I hear the description of how Matt coaches and how you coach, I would probably say that people who have played for me, whether it’s AAU or back when I was coaching in high school, I think most people would probably describe me to be more along the lines of the way you would coach. I’m more quiet and calm and laid back and look at it and try to approach it in that particular way.

But I don’t know if I could do it the other way. And conversely, there’s people who are more high energy and more rah rah and more of that side of it probably would look at my coaching style and be like, man, what’s this guy doing? Like, it just doesn’t seem like he’s getting he’s not, it’s just a different way, right?

You have to be, you have to be who you are. And to your point, I love what you said about if you’re a recruit, go and watch a practice and go and see what it’s like when a player is interacting with a coach, what’s the coaching style and it’s been interesting. So, my son’s going to be a senior or he is a senior this year.

So, he’s got a senior season coming up and he’s going to probably be a division three player. And so, we’ve been going and visiting some schools and you go and you talk to coaches and we sit in on some practices and then you go back and you talk. And we have these conversations of, well, what’d you like about that?

Or what, what was different? Or what’d you like about the players? And all those kinds of things. And so it’s just interesting to hear one, that my perspective isn’t always the same as his perspective, because again, I have a certain way of doing things or the way that I would want to be coached. And he has a, maybe a different way or just a different perspective on it.

And so it’s always, to me, You just realize it goes back to your answer from the very beginning of the podcast, right? It depends. Like it depends on what you want as a player. It depends on the type of player you want as a coach. It depends on how that player’s personality is going to fit in with the guys that you already have on the roster, how all that works.

How much do you, when a recruit comes on and whether they are hanging out with the guys overnight or they come and they play some pickup basketball with your guys, how much of that conversation, what does it sound like when you’re talking with your players after a recruit comes in? What are some of the things that they’re asking, that you’re asking them or that they’re bringing to you after they have a guy that is around them for a little bit that they kind of get a feel for in terms of, Hey, this is a guy we want, or, Hey, this is a guy that I’m not sure he’s the right fit for what we’re trying to do.

What are those conversations like?

[01:04:11] Kevin Hopkins:  Usually I just ask them what they thought, to be honest, and try to make it as open ended and see what they say. And a lot of times they’ll be like, yeah, he’s all right.

[01:04:28] Mike Klinzing: Same answer. My kids give me,

[01:04:31] Kevin Hopkins: Depending on the kid in the relationship, I might be like, oh, that’s great. Like, thanks for the feedback. That helps. It’d be sarcastic if I, like we had that relationship or maybe I’ll be like. I don’t know the kid that well yet, so it’ll be like, oh, like, what do you mean? Like, what’s all right?

And try to get them to talk about it, and a lot of times it’s not even basketball stuff, it’s more how they interacted personality wise and stuff, but pick-up, and if it’s not a ball dominant scorer, they’re probably not going to think the kid’s very good anyways. Like he’s a spot up shooter and lives off his teammates creating for him, but he’s a knockdown shooter.

He’s 6’5 Like if our guys don’t know that and don’t give him the ball and don’t see him shoot it, like they’re probably like, Oh, he’s okay.

[01:05:26] Mike Klinzing: Right. Exactly. A lot of it’s not trying to get basketball evals. It’s more how their personality fits and things like that.

[01:05:29] Kevin Hopkins: So, but there, again, there’s no like direct formula.

A lot of it’s Organic or knowing like which guys on our team are more likely to have gone and connected with the person or which guys maybe they didn’t. And so I think it’s always changing. You’re trying to figure out I joke about it. Like we all want to think we figured out the division three recruiting model and we went to this open gym and we watched how many high fives this kid gave out or something.

And it’s like the NBA draft happens. And they spend millions or billions of dollars of these people with PhDs and things and they get it wrong half the time.

[01:06:17] Mike Klinzing: So true, man. And

[01:06:20] Kevin Hopkins: You try to be as intentional and thorough in the process as you can. And at the end of the day, like a lot of, a lot of Division 3 recruiting is luck.

Like. Yeah, you evaluated the kid, but a lot of times the really good kids are even better than you thought they were going to be. Or some kid you didn’t think would be good gets better, or a kid you thought was going to be really good doesn’t end up being that good. Like a lot of it’s circumstance, right?

Like we just graduated a kid Dan Gaines. Who started for us for four years and he’s top 10 in points, top 10 in steals, top 10 in assists. I think at Muhlenberg, but like part of that was he started since his freshman year, he was all conference for four years. Like, but part of that was the roster we had that maybe if we had an older, more experienced team at that point, maybe he doesn’t start right away, but I mean, probably because he was rookie of the year and second team all week, so it’d be pretty silly not to buy him. But, I think a lot of it just comes down to you’re trying to get as much information as you can and then provide families with as much information as you can, so that it is a good fit on both sides that if.

If I’m not fully transparent in the recruiting process with a family, you’re going to end up getting people in the program that have come for the wrong reasons. If you’re fully transparent and say, this is what we’re about. This is how we do things. It’s not for everybody. We’ll be, I’ll tell recruits that’s okay.

Like I would prefer you leave the visit and decide Muhlenberg’s not for you and you just tell me that and I’ll say good luck. Look forward to following you. I think it’s got to go both ways. The more transparent you are with people in the recruiting process that the long term you get more of the quote unquote right people on the bus.

[01:08:23] Mike Klinzing: Alright, let me ask you this. So this is not something that you can predict beforehand, as we just talked about, but retrospectively, looking back over a player’s career, you can maybe pinpoint something or some things that led to that player’s success. So if you had to boil it down to one or maybe two things, I’m talking about intangible traits that players who have had success in the programs that you’ve been a part of, what are those one or two most important intangible traits that those players have that enable them to have had the success that they had?

[01:09:09] Kevin Hopkins:  I mean, honestly, that’s where the committed, connected, competitive ideas came from. It was, I think, the guys that are most successful a lot of times are the guys that are in the gym the most. That are in the gym, but like, intentionally working on their games and have a plan. Like, they’re committed to their daily habits or routines of doing monotonous things.

Like, winning is not a secret. It’s usually who does simple better longer. Like, who doesn’t get bored of making a simple play? Like, usually winning and losing is who gets bored of doing simple first and beats themselves. And so, maybe it’s the psych background, but we did stuff with our team and talked about be curious, not judgmental.

Like, if someone else is better at something, the best players find out how they did it. Like Kobe Bryant, right? Like, he’s super curious and committed to learning new things and competitive about being the best at it. I don’t know how to do a front pivot yet. Okay, that person does it the best. Let me watch their film, let me talk to them, let me learn from them, let me figure it out, let me go work on it on my own, let me go use it.

Like, the best people you always find out when you learn their stories, that usually they were in the gym a lot more than most other people. And when they were in the gym, they were also a lot more focused and intentional about what they were doing and, and how often they were doing it and what their standards were for themselves.

And I think a lot of times that competitiveness is actually not even necessarily always with other people, but a lot of times it’s with themselves and how good they can be like, okay, there’s a difference between I went and made a hundred threes today. And I made 2 3s from the five spots that I get shots in games, and I didn’t miss two in a row.

It’s like, okay, now you’ve set the bar a little higher, and then hopefully you keep pushing it higher. But to me, that’s, all the best players I’ve been around have been hyper competitive about improving and getting better and figuring out a way to try to improve.

[01:11:30] Mike Klinzing: It’s really well said and the answer doesn’t surprise me in any way, when you think about the best players that I’ve ever been around, both as a player, when I think about teammates or guys that I played against, or I think about players that I coached over the years, the ones that ultimately end up having the most success are the ones that are putting the time in because look, some kids are more talented than others.

And so. There’s these guys that, especially at lower levels, that you can float and kind of rely on your athleticism and you can get in the game and you can do stuff. But you and I both know that as you climb levels. That gets harder and harder to get away with is to just coast on your athleticism or your talent or whatever it might be.

And ultimately, the players who work at it are the ones are going to ultimately have that kind of success that you’re describing where you can look back at it and say, yeah, the reason why they were successful is because they were just willing to put more time in. And the other important thing that you said is the time is focused.

We all know that player who. Hey, man, I was in the gym for an hour and a half today. And if you watch what they did during that hour and a half, they’re walking around, they’re talking to people, they’re getting a drink, they’re looking at their phone. And really, they might have spent 10 minutes of that hour and a half actually working on their game.

And so I think that’s one of the things that when I talk to players, when I try to you. Get the message across to my own kids. It’s always like, look, you have to put time in and you have to be intentional about what you do. And I think if you do that, then you’re going to be able to have success.

And obviously you’ve had a tremendous amount of success there at Muhlenberg. So when you talk about getting players on campus and now you’ve got them there and now it’s time to go to work and put together a team, what’s your philosophy on practice planning and practice design. Do you have a set formula that you follow for practice?

Does it go sort of based off of where your team is and what they need in a given moment? How do you go about designing and putting together a practice plan?

[01:13:31] Kevin Hopkins: Yeah, we’ve changed quite a bit year to year. I, Again, a lot of times I wish I was maybe a little bit more type A on some of these things, but it’s seemed to work for our guys and have done things.

Now, with that being said, there usually is a flow to practice where there’s certain drills at certain times. Like, I actually think one of the things that we do a pretty good job of with our guys is we have It’s probably 10 to 15 minutes of individual skill development stuff. That’s like, quote unquote, pre practice work or vitamins.

Some people would call them that guys are expected if they have time on the court and they’re not in class that they’re getting there early and they’re focused about what they’re doing with some basic ball handling some kind of form shooting type of deal, but with certain standards.

And we actually do one drill, a range builder where one guy’s shooting and if he makes it, you take a big step back. And if you miss, you get a second chance. If you make that one, you keep going back. You miss two in a row, you’re done. But like we’ve had guys get to half court doing that just because they’ve done it every day.

And so like we have certain skills we think are really important to basketball and probably cover a lot of those with pre practice stuff. And so we have that before practice and then. A lot of times we’ll huddle up and either talk about whatever it is that needs to be talked about. It could be a current event.

It could be a volunteer opportunity. It might just be touching base. It might be seeing where guys are at, getting a feel for things. You know, there’s all kinds of information that might go in there. And then we have a dynamic warmup that we’re very fortunate. We have a really good strength coach, Jared, that works with our guys. AndI had kind of sat down and talked with him and he designed different dynamic warmups based on how many days until the next game. So we have like three days before, two days before one day type of deal where we cover different exercises to get guys loose.

And then last year we would do some type of closeouts or one on one Maybe some shell stuff. Shoot. Maybe some transition. We, honestly, we tried to play a lot of 5 on 5. So, and teach through 5 on 5 whether it’s constraints or whatever term that people are using now. But year to year it evolves and changes as you learn new things and tweak things and hopefully make it better than it was last year.

[01:16:14] Mike Klinzing: What do your guys like about the five on five? I know that when you start talking about being able to just get up and down and play and then how do you balance out how much you stop play versus how much you’re interjecting coaching wisdom into the practice. I know that’s one of the things that I like to talk about coaches with is just the balance between keeping the flow of practice versus the instructional side.

How do you think about that? How do you approach it?

[01:16:42] Kevin Hopkins: Yeah, we try to be very intentional with what point of the season we’re in and how much we’re letting them go. Early on, a lot of times it’ll just be if you’re teaching something, maybe you just go down and there’s no defense and guys get a little bit of a feel and then maybe you add defense or maybe you go down and back.

Like the other day when we scrimmaged with our trainers there, we were doing three trips. So you started half court, worked on an action, make or miss your transitioning, and then make or miss you’re coming back, and then you’re stopping. And now you can coach in between those things. But trying to be intentional about not coaching too many things at the same time, that I think that’s really hard for guys.

You know, this time you stop and say we’re not pressuring the ball, and then the next time you say we’re not contesting, and then the next time you say we’re not boxing out, and then the next time you say we’re not in a gap, and Guys are sitting there like, well, it’s a lot of stuff to do at the same time.

And whenever you tell me something, I do it. And then you change, it’s like a moving target. So the other day when we were playing, we just told guys, we want you to focus on impacting the ball whenever your guy touches it. We want you to make them uncomfortable and interpret that how you want, right?

Then it’s easier that if you’re going to show clips because we had a new assistant, Andrew, who’s done a great job for us so far, but we hired him like two weeks ago. He’s been watching film and going through and watching games. We’ve impacted the ball, contested shots and rebound and what that does for winning or losing.

But I asked him to put together some clips that he thought were good and bad. Well, we said the best ones and then teaching ones and tried to do it more positive than negative. So three plus positives for each teaching. And he did a great job, but he was kind of all over the map with all the different things we had talked about as coaches that we hadn’t told players.

And I just asked him, I go what we tell guys was most important on defense. And he’s like impacting the ball. I was like, okay. So I think if we’re going to show them film, it should probably be from impacting the ball because that’s what we were asking them to do. That it would be unfair to say, the only thing we want you to focus on is impacting the ball.

And then when we show you film, we’re going to critique your lack of a closeout or whatever other thing there is. It’s kind of a long, long answer to a short question.

[01:19:14] Mike Klinzing: No, but that’s really difficult to do as a coach, especially if you’re a coach that’s inexperienced. I’ve told this story on the podcast before my first day. As a coach, I was the JV coach at a high school, had 12 guys show up for practice and started doing drills.

And in the first five minutes of the first practice, the first drill, I just remember thinking to myself, Oh my God, there was just 500 things that were wrong. How am I ever going to fix all this? And literally driving myself crazy for that entire first season, just trying to do everything. And looking back realizing, man, I was a terrible coach.

I really had no idea what I was doing. And you obviously learn over time that you just can’t, as you said, you can’t try to teach 14 different things at once and expect your players to be able to process it all and make the necessary improvements or changes that you’re talking about. I mean, you really do have to narrow it down.

And to your point, in order for you to do that, it has to be. intentional. And you have to really think about it beforehand and think about what’s important. And obviously your team their performance in games and what they’ve done. You watch them in practice all the time. So you’re able to figure out, okay, here’s what they’re good at.

Here’s what we need to work on all those types of things. And it really is a process of being intentional about what you coach and what you don’t. And then I love what you said about following up that, Hey, if we’re talking about, we’re going to hold you accountable for this. We can’t then turn around and have a, gotcha, well, you weren’t you weren’t doing this other thing, even though we told you, you should be focusing on that.

So I think it’s a really good way to approach it. We are approaching right now an hour and a half.

[01:21:02] Kevin Hopkins: Before you get there. We still screw that up. All the time. Yeah. Oh, absolutely.

[01:21:08] Mike Klinzing: There’s no question. I think every coach does. That sounds great. Right?

[01:21:12] Kevin Hopkins: It’s a lot messier in practice than how you just eloquently recap and make it appear.

[01:21:19] Mike Klinzing: Yeah. If only it was that, if only it was that easy that we could just encapsulate that into that. 45 second soundbite and miraculously have every coach be able to do that. No, it is still extremely difficult to be able to do that. But I think if you’re intentional about it and you’re thinking about it, you’re already at least 50 percent of the way there of, of making it better if you’re thinking about it.

And that’s, I think the point that I was trying to get across, but you’re a hundred percent right. I don’t think anybody has that, has that mastered because in the moment as a coach. There’s obviously just like me on that first day of practice, you’re seeing the things that are out there. You just can’t possibly fix every single one and every single moment.

So, you got to dial in on what’s most important. So, all right. Two part question to wrap us up. When you think about the year two. That you have ahead of you. What’s your biggest challenge? And then second part of your question is what’s your biggest joy when you think about what you get to do every day, get up in the morning, get out of bed.

What brings you the most joy about your job? So your biggest challenge and your biggest joy.

[01:22:25] Kevin Hopkins: I think the biggest challenge for me a lot of times is I know a lot of people talk about like work life balance. I don’t know that that’s really a thing for people that coach. I think there’s more of a work life rhythm to where it kind of ebbs and flows that early season practices are maybe longer and more intense and more teaching, but as the year goes, they get shorter. And so I think finding a better work life rhythm is always a challenge, especially between personal and professional life that coaching, you’re very fortunate and get to be around this team of 18 and 22 year old guys who are awesome people, but then there’s also a life outside of that and being able to better balance the rhythm of those two things sometimes has not always been a strength of mine, but the thing I’m most looking forward to is that challenge and the guys that we have within our program and the families we have within our program that we’re very fortunate right now that all the guys we have and all the families are, are great people on and off the court.

We’ve got moms that are putting together email lists to welcome the new parents and set up some events so that they can do a barbecue at a football game and other things like that. And so, the greatest joy is being able to get paid somehow to be a small part of that whole process and ending up getting invited to guys weddings or things along those lines are always the things that hold the most meaning.

[01:24:11] Mike Klinzing: Good stuff. And I think it sticks to the theme of what we’ve talked about throughout the entire podcast. Before we get out, I want to give you a chance to share how people can connect with you. Do you want to share email, website, social media? And then after you do that, I will jump back in and wrap things up.

[01:24:29] Kevin Hopkins: The Muhlenberg men’s basketball webpage is probably the easiest way, or, I mean, some of you guys, I’m comfortable giving out my cell phone people think it’s crazy sometimes, but like, recruiting wise, I give my cell phone number to anybody that wants it, so, I’m happy to share my cell phone, it’s 518-441-4197.

Again, that’s 518-441-4197. If anybody wants to connect, feel free to shoot me a text. If you call, I’ll probably send it to voicemail. If I don’t have it saved, and if I don’t get back to you, then just follow up because people joke about moving over that one seat, how many decisions you’re making on a day to day basis that sometimes I get so many decisions and lose track of texts and stuff.

So if I don’t get back to somebody and there’s something they want to connect about, shoot me a text or give me a call or go on our webpage and my email’s on there, just kevinhopkins@muhlenberg.edu and reach out, happy to connect.

[01:25:37] Mike Klinzing: Perfect. Kevin, cannot thank you enough for taking the time out of your schedule tonight to jump on with us.

Really appreciate it. And to everyone out there, thanks for listening and we will catch you on our next episode. Thanks.