The announcement that Mike Hopkins is officially the successor, although not with any specific date in mind, to Jim Boeheim has unleashed, to paraphrase Magneto, "a fury that this world has never witnessed!" Okay, that's a little exorbinant. But reactions have been quick and they have been wide-ranging, from "Duh" to "Relax, Beoheim's not going anywhere" to "Something's rotten in the state of Onondaga County" to "Wait, how is this news again?" to "Hey ESPN, we already said all of this. Dicks" and leave it to Bud Poliquin to pull off the savvy "Duh, relax, this isn't news. Dicks" superfecta.
In my original post, I ventured a guess that Boeheim has about three years left. Before yesterday I would have said the man will continue roaming the sidelines for at least another decade. I've seen what others have had to say about how this doesn't change anything but...I still give pause. Unless this is just an empty gesture meant to placate Mike Hopkins ego (which is may just be), there has to be some kind of internal deadline no matter how soft for Boeheim to bow out. When have you ever heard of such an announcement where the exiting party didn't leave within 2-3 years? Of course usually its a hand-off to a son, which has always seemed very strange to me but what do I know? Seems to work for Georgetown.
Maybe I jumped the gun on Boeheim. Maybe he will be here five, ten, fifteen years from now berating refs and giving the gas face to freshmen. Believe me, I'd personally hope he's here and competitive for many years to come. There's certainly enough information out there to say he will be. But I can tell you this, if Beoheim is still here ten years from now, Hopkins won't be. All the loyalty and orange blood in the world isn't gonna keep a guy who's seemingly ready to be a head coach now as an assistant for another decade. I'm just sayin'.