Bryce Hopkins knows what it at stake for him this season as a member of the St. John’s basketball team.
He’s not looking at his final year of college basketball through the lens of pressure to succeed, but rather with a new perspective for the game and the appreciation to get back to what he loves doing after having his last two seasons significantly cut short due to injuries.
Hopkins said on Wednesday at St. John’s launch event for its new partnership with adidas that he is 100-percent healthy and has been feeling good on the court during summer workouts.
“I actually feel like I’m a little bit better now,” he explained of how he views the evolution of his game prior to his injury to the present day. “Obviously, I didn’t want to go through [injuries], but I feel like it was a growing moment for me, and I feel like I looked at the game from a different aspect.”
He added that he was able to listen to the messages from the coaching staff on how they wanted his teammates to attack the game. It was a side of basketball that he never got to experience before.
The ability to take a broader view of the game has made him a more patient player but Hopkins extremely eager to finally get back on the floor and show the country that he is still the same player that averaged 15.8 points per game, and was named to the First Team All-Big East, for Providence as a sophomore in his last full season.
“I can’t wait…It’s been a while since I’ve played a full season,” he detailed. “It’s going to be a little different playing for a new university, but I’m looking forward to it.”
The time away from the court has made him enjoy every little moment along his rehab and he’s hoping it translates to success on the floor with St. John’s.
“That was one of the things I was looking at when I was out, just not taking [the game] for granted. I can’t look at everybody else’s path, everybody has their own path and just growing deeper into God and The Word that He’s saying,” Hopkins explained.
“I feel like I went through [the knee injuries] for a reason and I just tried to take positives from it…I do look at it from a different aspect now.”
An area of his game that he has been working on a lot since joining St. John’s is shooting jump shots, which has been a rollercoaster during his college career. As a lifetime 30-percent 3-point shooter, Hopkins made 40-percent of his attempts in just three games last season but only 18.9-percent in 14 games the year prior.
During his freshman season at Kentucky, he connected on 31.1-percent of his triples and 36.4-percent as a sophomore with Providence.
There is no running from the expectations for Bryce Hopkins or St. John’s entering this season, but one thing is for sure, he is taking things day-by-day and enjoying his new process in Queens.