NEW YORK – Madison Square Garden was always a Mecca of basketball for transplanted Californian Mike Hopkins.
First for four years as a player and then the next 22 as an assistant coach, Hopkins regularly sat alongside Jim Boeheim with the Syracuse Orange and enjoyed plenty of Garden moments.
On Thursday night, Hopkins will be back at the World’s Most Famous Arena. This time his team will be wearing purple and gold, not orange. But the new coach of the Washington Huskies can’t wait.
“The Garden is a special, special place to me,” Hopkins said, “so it’ll be a special moment.