Washington will not bring back head men’s basketball coach Mike Hopkins next season.

The school announced on Friday that Hopkins will coach the Huskies through the Pac-12 Tournament and any postseason games they might play in, but he will not return for the final year on his deal in 2024-25. Hopkins will be owed nearly $3.1 million, according to a report from ESPN’s Pete Thamel.

“Mike has led the program with great integrity during his seven years at Washington, and remains a highly respected coach and one of the great gentlemen in the game,” athletic director Troy Dannen said in a release. “Everyone at the university is grateful for his service, his commitment to the experience of our student-athletes and his leadership within the department. We wish Mike, Trisha and their children the very best in the future.”

Hopkins enters the Pac-12 Tournament with a 118-105 overall record in his 7 years with the school. He won a Pac-12 title and made the NCAA Tournament in 2018-19, and has twice been named the Pac-12 Coach of the Year. But Hopkins is just 62-72 in conference play.

After consecutive 20-win seasons to begin his tenure, UW has failed to produce a 20-win campaign in the five years since. During the 2020-21 season, Washington labored through a 5-21 record, the second-worst season by a Husky team in its Pac-12 history.

UW is 17-14 (9-11 in league play) ahead of the conference tournament, but it does enter with some momentum, having won 2 of its final 3, including a 74-68 win over No. 18 Washington State on Thursday.

“I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to serve as the Head Basketball Coach at the University of Washington the last 7 years,” Hopkins said in a statement. “Thank you to my players, staff, administration, fans, and alumni that have made this experience special and an awesome place for my family and me. The relationships we’ve made will last a lifetime.”

Hopkins came to UW in 2017 after serving on Jim Boeheim’s staff at Syracuse. While on Montlake, he made a habit of bringing top-notch talent to town.

In each of the last 2 offseasons, Hopkins has added transfer commitments from former Kentucky players Sahvir Wheeler and Keion Brooks Jr. Brooks is currently the Pac-12’s leading scorer at 21.3 points per game while Wheeler is second on the team with 14.1 points a night to go with 6.0 assists.

Washington also signed 5-stars Isaiah Stewart and Jaden McDaniels in the 2019 class, both of whom went to the NBA as first-round draft picks. Matisse Thybulle was also a first-round pick in the 2019 NBA Draft.

Dannen will begin a national search immediately — his second high-profile hire to be made within his first year on the job.

In January, Dannen moved quickly to replace head football coach Kalen DeBoer with Arizona’s Jedd Fisch after the former left to take the Alabama job. Washington’s move to the Big Ten afforded the athletic department the ability to make DeBoer a competitive offer, and it certainly played a role in Fisch’s decision to leave an Arizona program that looked set up for immediate success in the Big 12.

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UW associate head coach Will Conroy has been speculated by some as a potential candidate for the job. According to Thamel’s reporting, UW is expected to “put a premium on head-coaching experience.”

Two names that have quickly and frequently been bandied about are Danny Sprinkle at Utah State and Kyle Smith at Washington State.

Sprinkle, 47, is in his first season as the Aggies’ head coach after spending 4 years at Montana State. Utah State is 25-5. In Sprinkle’s last 2 years in the Big Sky, his Montana State teams won consecutive conference tournament titles and made NCAA Tournament appearances.

There’s also a UW connection. Sprinkle’s father, Bill, was a defensive back for the Huskies from 1966-68.

Smith, 54, has been at Washington State since 2019 but could become another casualty of conference realignment. With the breakup of the Pac-12, Washington State will play its basketball in the WCC beginning next season. Would Smith prefer to coach in the Big Ten, where the security and resources would be far more appealing?

However, Smith has been a head coach at 3 different schools since the 2010-11 season and is set to make just his first-ever appearance in the NCAA Tournament this season.

According to DawgMan’s Chris Fetters, McNeese State’s Will Wade could also be a name worth monitoring for the position.

Wade coached at LSU from 2017-22 before being fired for cause in March 2022. Wade received a 2-year show-cause order and a 10-game suspension at the beginning of the 2023-24 season for allegations of recruiting violations. After 2 successful seasons at VCU, Wade went 105-51 at LSU with a regular-season SEC championship in 2018-19 and 3 NCAA Tournament appearances.

Dannen, who served as the AD at Tulane from 2015-23 before coming to Washington, would presumably be quite familiar with Wade and his situation.