Will Hornseth woke up March 30 to a text message from his parents that included a screen shot they saw on social media.
That’s how the former De Pere basketball star learned that Ben Jacobson, his coach for the past two seasons at Northern Iowa, was leaving to take the Utah State job.
“I was pretty confused,” Hornseth said. “He has been here for 20 years as a head coach, so it’s not something you think about that is going to happen. It was definitely surprising, and I was a little bit in denial for probably that day. I was like, is this really happening?”
The news leaked before Jacobson could meet with his team later that day, but it was true.
He was going out west after winning 397 games and leading the Panthers to the NCAA Tournament five times since being hired in 2006.
Jacobson always will have a connection to the Green Bay area after he recruited the Ashwaubenon duo of Adam Koch and Jake Koch in his first years on the job before eventually landing their younger brother, Bennett.
Adam and Jake were part of UNI’s best run in the NCAAs in March 2010 when it reached its only Sweet 16 after a memorable upset over top-seeded Kansas that made the brothers rock stars in Cedar Falls.
The Jacobson era lasted so long that it’s no wonder Hornseth never pondered the possibility he’d depart during his collegiate career.
It left the 6-foot-8, 230-pound forward with more questions than answers in the short time after the announcement.
Would Jacobson want his big man to follow him to Utah State? Did he even have his spot at UNI with a new coach in Kyle Green coming in? Is he going to end up at some school other than one of those two?
“I was really in a place where I didn’t know what was going to happen,” Hornseth said.
It was somewhat like being thrown back into the recruiting mix in high school, when he had several offers but had to figure out what place was best for him.
“Kind of similar and kind of different,” Hornseth said. “At first, it felt very similar. A really hard decision. Don’t know what I’m going to do. As I kind of worked my way through it, I realized that I was probably going to have a good spot no matter where I went.
“Once I was able to talk to Coach Jacobson and he was able to say that he wanted me to follow him to Utah State, and once I was able to talk to KG here, the new head coach, and they said they’d love to have me stay, I was like, alright, I’ve got two really great options here and I know either way I’m going to be in a good spot.”
When Hornseth entered his name in the portal, he also put a "do not contact" tag on it. It prevents coaches from initiating contact and often suggests a player already knows where they are going.
Indeed, Hornseth was confident he was headed to Utah State.
There was a moment when he pondered the possibilities of returning closer to home, perhaps playing at a school like Wisconsin.
“I love my family, I love De Pere, I love Wisconsin in general,” Hornseth said. “It would have been cool. There is a split second there, and then I realized, I can’t. I have got to do my own thing and stick with either the school or my coach. Obviously, I chose my coach.”
In the NIL world of college basketball, there are other factors that must be considered before committing.
Hornseth doesn’t have an agent or attorney to do his negotiating, which he admits is probably an interesting decision. It’s just the way he has rolled since entering college and it’s worked out well.