First week on the job for Bopp represents The Grind Behind UAB’s Basketball Rebuild

By Steve Irvine

BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA - April 21, 2026

Jesse Bopp didn’t see his new surroundings much during his first week of employment as an assistant coach with Andy Kennedy’s UAB basketball program.

Perhaps another way to put it is his first week went as expected for a college basketball coach this time of year, particularly in a time where many programs are doing complete – or nearly complete – rebuilds yearly. For the record, Bopp, who spent the last eight seasons as an assistant coach at FIU, checked in at UAB last Monday and left for a week-long recruiting trip on Tuesday.

Getting to know a new city had to wait.

“I think we take a workmanlike approach, an old school approach to visiting with kids, visiting with families, evaluating kids in person,” Bopp said. “I think Coach Kennedy is really big on getting our hands on guys and spending as much time with them as we possibly can, as opposed to just looking at transfer lists and making cold calls and not depending and relying on relationships that already exist. So, I think we're old school in that approach and something that Coach really emphasizes and wants to see take place.”

Only one scholarship player – true freshman Salim London – is returning for UAB from last year’s roster. The staff has been working on filling out the roster without former assistant coach Ryan Cross, who left to become the head coach at Louisiana Monroe. Heading into this week, the Blazers have three signees in center Shah Hall from Shelton State and guards Jakobi Sharp of Gadsden City High and Korie Corbett of Oak Hill Academy.

Kennedy searched for an assistant coach while also trying to find players.

FIU head coach Jeremy Ballard was let go after the season, ending his eight-year tenure at the school, and was hired as an assistant coach at Marquette. Bopp served as the interim head coach in the transition while also looking for his next stop.

“Well, Ryan Cross is very good at his job, so he was able to become a head coach which he deserved,” Bopp said. “He earned that opportunity for a long standing period of time as an assistant. Ryan and I became close and obviously because he was so big in his job, he moved on. He connected me with Coach Kennedy and it kind of went from there. I had a lot of points of familiarity with Coach Kennedy and those people really went to bat and helped me kind of infiltrate Coach Kennedy's web.”

Bopp began his coaching career as a grad assistant serving as a grad assistant under Billy Donovan at the University of Florida and followed that with a year in the same role under Shaka Smart at VCU.

“I went from being a Division III player at Plymouth State University to working for Billy Donovan, two-time national championship head coach,” Bopp said. “So my world changed pretty quickly in basketball. That's how I began to think about being a coach. That set the tone for everything I wanted to be in the game of basketball. At the time that I was a graduate assistant for Coach Donovan, Shaka Smart was coming on as an assistant. Then I followed Coach Smart to VCU and began working with him and helping him build his program. So Coach Donovan and Coach Smart are, I would say, my two biggest mentors in the game. I've worked for four first-time head coaches, and those guys (Smart, Ballard, Matt McCall, Paul Weir) all gave me opportunities. Those guys are our mentors as well.”

Bopp also served as a prep school head coach at Vermont Academy and was the head coach at IMG Academy for a year. He was the associate head coach at FIU for his final five years there and also was the program’s recruiting coordinator.

“I took those two years of experience with Coach Donovan and Coach Smart and was really able to kind of create my own program (at Vermont Academy) and put my experiences around those guys to use,” Bopp said. “That was really fulfilling. I went back to VCU to work for Coach Smart and then I've worked all over the place since then. I've had a variety of experiences and the growth hopefully has been significant. Hopefully my players that I've coached would say that and the coaches that I've worked for would say the same thing. But really I think the more things change, the less they really should change because it comes back to relationships with players, understanding where they're at, meeting them where they're at and helping them move forward is really the name of the game. I think that's something that Coach Kennedy keeps at the forefront and something that I really value myself.”

One thing that Bopp has not done in basketball is run a social media site under the alias Trilly Donovan. College basketball fans and insiders have tried for the past few years to figure out the identity of the Trilly Donovan X account, which has unwavering accuracy in delivering breaking news and behind-the-scenes information in the college basketball world. Nearly 100,000 people follow Trilly Donovan on X. A 2024 story on flteams.com reported that Bopp was the college basketball insider using the name Trilly Donovan. On the day that UAB announced Bopp’s addition to Kennedy’s staff, Trilly Donovan posted “Some personal news... I'm moving to Alabama.”

Bopp laughed when hearing the question about his connection to the site.

“I get Trilly Donovan a lot,” Bopp said. “I can say unequivocally that I am not Trilly Donovan. I wish I could be Trilly Donovan. The access to information that he has and the rate that he puts out work is tremendous. But I unequivocally am not Trilly Donovan.”

He is a fan, though.

“I follow Trilly Donovan very closely,” Bopp said. “I think he's a great source of information and we're an information-seeking business, information-gathering business. I think finding information via Twitter or any sort of outlet is critical.”

Right now, though, his focus is on helping fill out a roster.