Bernard Anthony Hopkins White (born January 13, 1973) is an American-Spanish retired professional basketball player. Hopkins is a 6'6", 235-pound

power forward The power forward (PF), also known as the four, is one of the five traditional Basketball positions, positions in a regulation basketball game. Traditionally, power forwards have played a role similar to center (basketball), centers. When on Of ...

. He played college ball at

Hagerstown Community College Hagerstown Community College (HCC) is a public community college in Hagerstown, Maryland. It was founded in 1946 as Maryland’s first community college. The campus encompassed eighteen buildings on .. The college hosts a business incubator, ...

for two seasons before transferring to

Virginia Commonwealth University Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) is a public research university in Richmond, Virginia. VCU was founded in 1838 as the medical department of Hampden–Sydney College, becoming the Medical College of Virginia in 1854. In 1968, the Virgini ...

(VCU) for his final two. As a

senior Senior (shortened as Sr.) means "the elder" in Latin and is often used as a suffix for the elder of two or more people in the same family with the same given name, usually a parent or grandparent. It may also refer to: * Senior (name), a surname ...

in 1995–96, Hopkins was named the 1996 CAA men's basketball tournament MVP as well as the

Colonial Athletic Association Men's Basketball Player of the Year The Colonial Athletic Association Men's Basketball Player of the Year is a basketball award given to the Colonial Athletic Association's most outstanding player. The award was first given following the 1982–83 season, when the conference was kno ...

College career

Hopkins, a native of

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

, was a standout basketball player in high school and graduated in 1992. He spent his first two seasons playing approximately one hour away in nearby Hagerstown at its

community college A community college is a type of educational institution. The term can have different meanings in different countries: many community colleges have an "open enrollment" for students who have graduated from high school (also known as senior sec ...

. He then transferred to VCU to play for the

Rams In engineering, RAMS (reliability, availability, maintainability and safety)junior Junior or Juniors may refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * ''Junior'' (Junior Mance album), 1959 * ''Junior'' (Röyksopp album), 2009 * ''Junior'' (Kaki King album), 2010 * ''Junior'' (LaFontaines album), 2019 Films * ''Junior'' (1994 ...

season, Hopkins shot 58.5% from the field and finished with the 25th best shooting percentage in the country. He then broke out during his senior year when he scored 538 points, grabbed 333 rebounds (third highest ever at VCU), compiled 19

double-double In basketball, a double-double is a single-game performance in which a player accumulates ten or more in two of the following five statistical categories: points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocked shots. The first "double" in the term ...

s and guided the Rams to both the conference regular season and tournament championships. In the first round of the

1996 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament The 1996 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament involved 64 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball. It began on March 14, 1996, and ended with the championsh ...

, which the Rams would lose to

Mississippi State Mississippi State University for Agriculture and Applied Science, commonly known as Mississippi State University (MSU), is a public land-grant research university adjacent to Starkville, Mississippi. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Univers ...

by seven, Hopkins was named the CBS Chevrolet Player of the Game. Also as a senior, he became the CAA's first player to record 500+ points, 300+ rebounds, 70+ assists and shoot better than 50% from the field in a single season. He was named the CAA Tournament MVP as well as the CAA Player of the Year. For his career, Hopkins scored 950 career points.

Professional career

Hopkins was invited to the

Portsmouth Invitational Tournament The Portsmouth Invitational Tournament, (PIT), is the oldest amateur basketball tournament in the United States and the only postseason camp restricted to college basketball seniors. The Portsmouth Invitational is the first of two NBA pre-draft ...

following his senior season, the only postseason camp conducted for just the top

NCAA The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...

seniors. It is a chance to impress

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United S ...

(NBA) scouts to possibly get drafted in that respective year's NBA draft. Hopkins was named the MVP of the tournament yet failed to get drafted a month later. Instead, the

Continental Basketball Association The Continental Basketball Association (CBA) (originally known as the Eastern Pennsylvania Basketball League, and later as the Eastern Professional Basketball League and the Eastern Basketball Association) was a men's professional basketball m ...

Yakima Sun Kings The Yakima SunKings are a basketball team located in Yakima, Washington, covering the central Washington sports market of Yakima, Tri-Cities, and Ellensburg and plays at the Yakima SunDome. The team competed in the Continental Basketball Associa ...

selected him third overall in their draft. He played for the Sun Kings for one season where he was named the Rookie of the Year and got selected to the all-rookie and all-league teams. Since 1998–99 he has played for various teams, all in Spain, and became a naturalized citizen of that country. His career highlights include being named a

Liga ACB The Liga ACB, known as Liga Endesa for sponsorship reasons, is the top professional basketball division of the Spanish basketball league system. Administrated by the Asociación de Clubs de Baloncesto (ACB), Liga ACB is contested by 18 teams, wi ...

All-Star in 1999 and 2001, a five-time Player of the Month and a 24-time Player of the Week. On November 6, 2012, Blu:sens Monbús, his last team in Spain, announced it will retire his number 4 at the end of the 2012–13 season.Robbie Hummel por Bernard Hopkins: el `4´de Baltimore deja paso al `4´de Indianápolis
Obradoiro CAB website. November 6, 2012]

Personal

Hopkins became a

naturalized Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-citizen of a country may acquire citizenship or nationality of that country. It may be done automatically by a statute, i.e., without any effort on the part of the in ...

citizen of Spain during his time playing in that country.

References

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External links

Liga ACB
profile {{DEFAULTSORT:Hopkins, Bernard 1973 births Living people American expatriate basketball people in Spain Basketball players from Baltimore CB Gran Canaria players CB Valladolid players Gipuzkoa Basket players Junior college men's basketball players in the United States Liga ACB players Naturalised citizens of Spain Obradoiro CAB players Power forwards (basketball) Spanish men's basketball players Tenerife CB players Valencia Basket players VCU Rams men's basketball players Yakima Sun Kings players American men's basketball players