Tag: Washington Huskies Basketball

Washington adds projected Top 50 NBA draft pick to 2024 roster

The Washington Huskies made a surprising late addition to the roster from overseas.

It seemed like Danny Sprinkle had already filled out his roster, but he made an exciting late addition on Wednesday when Dominique Diomande announced that he would be joining the Huskies for the 2024 season.

Standing at 6-foot-7, Diomande is an extremely intriguing 19-year-old prospect who was born in Ivory Coast, Africa, and has played professionally in France for the last three seasons. He averaged 16 points per game with Blois in the country’s ProA U21 league and displayed all the makings of a strong wing player.

Diomande is a very good athlete and has shown that he is a strong defender and rebounder, even against professionals. Those traits have also put him on the radar of NBA scouts and he’s projected as the No. 48 pick in the 2025 draft by NBADraft.net.

An extremely efficient scorer in the paint, Diomande made a jaw-dropping 71.8 percent of his two-point field goal attempts. However, when he steps outside the three-point line, that number drops all the way to 30.5 percent.

If he can improve as a three-point shooter under Sprinkle, he has a chance to turn into a complete player. Alongside Portland transfer Tyler Harris, Diomande gives the Huskies another long, athletic player on the wing that could help turn them into one of the best teams in the Big Ten.

Moses Wood joining Atlanta Hawks for NBA Summer League

Former Washington Huskies forward Moses Wood signed a summer league contract with the Atlanta Hawks on Saturday.

Former Washington forward Moses Wood signed a summer league deal with the Atlanta Hawks on Saturday, joining forward Keion Brooks Jr. as the second member of the 2023-24 Huskies squad to make the NBA. Brooks signed a two-way contract with the New Orleans Pelicans on Friday.

Coincidentally, the two NBA franchises to add a Husky this weekend are also the two sides of the trade that sent former Washington star Dejounte Murray to the Pelicans on Friday.

Wood started all 32 games in his lone season on Montlake, averaging 11.9 points, 4.5 rebounds, and shooting 39.6 percent from three on roughly six attempts per game. A career 40.4 percent shooter from deep, Wood is an especially adept shooter on the move, a skill that could prove valuable to an NBA franchise.

Washington was Wood’s fourth school in six years, as he also played for Tulane, UNLV, and Portland before finishing out with the Huskies. His points per game averages increased every season across those three schools before taking a small dip with Washington, whose offense primarily ran through Brooks.

Wood should have a decent shot at turning the summer league opportunity into a contract with Atlanta, who is rebuilding after trading Murray and could still move star point guard Trae Young as part of that initiative. Atlanta also took French forward Zaccharie Risacher with the No. 1 pick in this year’s NBA Draft.

NBA summer league runs from July 12 to July 22 in Las Vegas.

Danny Sprinkle locks in visit with No. 3 player in 2025 class

Five star combo guard Darryn Peterson will take an official visit to Washington this summer as he narrows down his recruitment.

The Huskies are already starting to feel the effects of Danny Sprinkle’s ability on the recruiting trail.

As Sprinkle turns the page to the 2025 recruiting class, he wants to continue the momentum he picked up in his first offseason on Montlake and is looking to make a big splash. It may be coming in the form of guard Darryn Peterson, the No. 3 player in the country and the top combo guard in 247Sports’ Composite rankings.

Sprinkle’s staff has already proven itself as recruiters after convincing four-star point guard Zoom Diallo to stick to his Washington commitment in April. The Huskies also brought in the No. 18 ranked recruiting class according to 247Sports. That included the No. 8 transfer class, featuring Utah State big man Great Osobor, who agreed to the largest known NIL deal in college basketball.

Peterson, who plays his high school basketball for Huntington Prep in Huntington, West Virginia, announced via his father that he will take a visit to Washington in August or September. Originally from Canton, Ohio, Peterson is also planning to visit Kentucky, Louisville, and USC.

The 6-foot-5, 195-pound five-star prospect will also visit Ohio State on August 1 and recently completed a visit at Kansas. Arkansas, home of former Kentucky head coach John Calipari, is also in the mix after Calipari reaffirmed Peterson’s offer at his new school.

Peterson is already an elite offensive creator and finisher with a developing jump shot, but his 6-foot-10 wingspan in a 6-foot-5 frame creates mismatches on the perimeter that will be appealing to any school.

Danny Sprinkle adds Washington alum Abdul Gaddy to coaching staff

The Washington Huskies added a former star to their coaching staff.

After losing two alumni in assistant coaches Will Conroy and Quincy Pondexter, who weren’t retained by Washington and instead headed to USC following Mike Hopkins’ firing, coach Danny Sprinkle found another former Husky star to add to the bench.

On Thursday, during an interview with KJR’s Dave Mahler, Sprinkle announced that the Huskies have added former Washington guard Abdul Gaddy to the team’s coaching staff, joining assistants Tony Bland, Demarlo Slocum, Andy Hill, and Jerry Hobbie.

Gaddy started his career at Bellarmine Prep in Tacoma and was ranked as the top recruit in the state and the No. 11 prospect in the country when he signed with coach Lorenzo Romar in 2009. He went on to play four years with the Huskies, averaging 7.7 points and 4 rebounds per game during his career.

The local product finished his career with 469 assists, good for the second-most in school history and played internationally for several years before signing with the Oklahoma City Thunder in 2018. However, he never appeared in a game and was waived shortly before the start of the season.

The 32-year-old could end up as a valuable recruiter and as a promising coach while working with the impressive staff that Sprinkle has assembled ahead of the school’s first year in the Big Ten.

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Mekhi Mason could be an All-Big-Ten Player with Washington

The Washington Huskies have an exciting scorer in Rice transfer Mekhi Mason who can earn all-conference honors.

When Mekhi Mason became the first player to commit to Danny Sprinkle and the Washington Huskies out of the transfer portal, he brought a strong scoring option to Montlake that could fit very nicely into the new head coach’s offensive game plan.

Now that the roster is complete, he could be Washington’s second option offensively, and a very strong one at that. With forward Great Osobor drawing plenty of attention from opposing defenses, Mason is going to have a lot of space to operate on the floor in a role he’s very familiar with.

Mason finished second with the Rice Owls last season in scoring, averaging 14 points per game while shooting 39.3 percent from the floor on 12.1 attempts per contest. He could end up seeing a slightly decreased workload since Osobor averaged 10.9 shots per game at Utah State as Sprinkle’s primary option in an offense that is based on efficient shot selection.

The Rice transfer excels at getting to the hoop and thrives in the midrange thanks to his long 6-foot-5 frame, and as he continues to improve at finishing in traffic around the rim, he could be an elite slashing threat in the Big Ten.

Mason is also a career 36.3 percent shooter from three and should be able to continue his success from long range, especially with some of the other talented marksmen on the roster who should allow them to space the floor effectively.

At the end of the season, Mason’s stat line could end up looking a lot like Utah State’s Ian Martinez last season. Sprinkle’s scheme helped him average 13.1 points, 3.6 rebounds, 1.8 assists, and just shy of 1 block and 1 steal per game while shooting 47.4 percent from the field.

If Mason, who may be able to score at an even higher clip, can post a similar stat line to Martinez in his first year with the Huskies, he should at the very least be in contention for an All-Big-Ten Honorable Mention by the end of the season.

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Danny Sprinkle has made sure Washington is lethal from three-point range

The Huskies should be more than reliable from three-point range in 2024.

The Washington Huskies have seen more than their fair share of struggles on offense over their last few seasons under Mike Hopkins. In his first year at the helm, not only is Danny Sprinkle expected to bring a much better game plan to the table, but he’s also stockpiled his roster with the proper players to run it effectively.

Over his three years as a head coach, Sprinkle’s teams have made 268, 216, and 226 three-pointers. While those numbers aren’t eye-popping from a national perspective, it’s a significant average improvement over Washington’s last three seasons, where the Huskies drained 198, 209, and 258.

Sprinkle has added a few exciting three-point shooters to the roster, namely Butler transfer DJ Davis, a career 36.8 percent shooter from deep, and Tyler Harris, who converted on 35.8 percent of his three-point attempts during his one year at Portland.

Incoming four-star freshman Jase Butler is also a promising shooter and could become a solid shooter from deep during his first year on campus.

The biggest question mark is Washington’s top transfer, forward Great Osobor, who Sprinkle claimed has been working tirelessly to add a three-point shot to arsenal in an effort to become a stretch forward.

“One thing that he’s really been working on is his perimeter jump shot,” Sprinkle said on the Field of 68 podcast. “He shot a couple at Utah State, but that’s something he’s really been working on because he’s going to need that at the next level too and I think he’ll surprise people with how much better he’s gotten.”

With two talented big men on the floor in Osobor and center Franck Kepnang, Washington’s talented shooters should have plenty of space to knock down threes, which are crucial to success in this era of college basketball.

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Ex-Washington coach Mike Hopkins lands with Suns

Mike Hopkins gets a new job.

The coaching carousel continues to shift in the wild offseason with the former Pac-12 Conference teams.

Former Washington Huskies head basketball coach Mike Hopkins has joined the Phoenix Suns coaching staff alongside new coach Mike Budenholzer, as Adrian Wojnarowski reported.

Budenholzer came to the Suns this offseason to become the new head coach. Hopkins left the Huskies at the end of the 2023-2024 season as they shifted and hired Danny Sprinkle amid their move to the Big Ten Conference.

However, it didn’t take long for Hopkins to land a new deal and he now heads for the NBA to coach Kevin Durant and Devin Booker.

Hopkins compiled a 122-110 record during his days with the Huskies, but it felt best for both sides to change it up amid the flurry of Big Ten Conference additions.

The Suns staff gets a veteran face alongside Budenholzer as they try and make an NBA Finals run after a disappointing year.

Franck Kepnang is the key to Danny Sprinkle’s first season at Washington

The Washington Huskies should rely heavily on fifth-year center Franck Kepnang.

The Washington Huskies could be one of the nation’s biggest surprises in 2024 as they head into the Big Ten with Danny Sprinkle at the helm.

The former Utah State head coach and his new staff have put together an impressive roster headlined by forward Great Osobor, but the former Mountain West Player of the Year will need some help in the paint and could get some center Franck Kepnang.

After transferring to Washington from Oregon in 2022, Kepnang has played in just 18 games over his two seasons in Seattle due to various knee injuries. Still, he’s extremely effective whenever he’s on the court, averaging 8.6 points, 6.1 rebounds, and 1.7 blocks per game.

“We’ve just got to keep him healthy. It’s too bad for coach Hopkins,” Sprinkle said on the Field of 68 Podcast. “Franck only played one game in the last two years in conference. He was kind of a game-changer. They would have won a lot more games with Franck on the floor. Hopefully, we can get him back to 100 percent and keep him healthy during conference because I think he and Great can really play well off each other.”

Sprinkle couldn’t be more spot on. Osobor’s offensive skillset can draw a lot of attention and with Kepnang’s high-intensity play style, he should be a reliable option in the paint when opposing defenses choose to key in on the Utah State transfer.

On the other side of the ball, the seven-footer has the talent, athleticism, effort level, and length to be one of the best defenders in the Big Ten.

The Huskies have put together an exciting combination of guards and wings to space the floor, but if Kepnang can stay healthy, he could help Washington be one of the best teams in the Big Ten in the 2024-25 season.

Former Washington basketball coach signs with Phoenix Suns

Former Washington Huskies head coach Mike Hopkins has found an assistant role with the Phoenix Suns.

Former Washington Huskies men’s basketball head coach Mike Hopkins has signed on as an assistant coach with the Phoenix Suns joining newly named head coach Mike Budenholzer.

Hopkins spent seven years on Montlake leading the Husky men and took away the prestige honor of Pac-12 coach of the year in his first two seasons.

Hopkins led the Huskies to a 122-110 record during his time at Washington. His 2019 team won the Pac-12 championship and gained a NCAA tournament bid.

During his time on Montlake he coached notable NBA first-round picks like Minnesota Timberwolves forward Jaden McDaniels, Portland Trailblazers guard Matisse Thybulle, and Detroit Pistons forward Isaiah Stewart.

The San Mateo, California native played four years at guard at Syracuse and then went on to spend the next 22 seasons as a coach for the university under Jim Boehiem. He also acted as an assistant for 9 different Team USA rosters and won 6 championships during his time with the national team.

Four-star small forward sets official visit with Washington

The Washington Huskies set an official visit with four-star forward Jasir Rencher on Tuesday afternoon.

On Tuesday, On3’s Joe Tipton reported that four-star small forward Jasir Rencher of Archbishop Riordan High School in San Francisco set three official visits for this fall.

The nation’s No. 9 prospect in California and No. 88 player in the nation according to 247Sports holds 22 offers and is set to visit Oklahoma on September 7, Washington on October 5, and LSU on October 12.

According to On3’s recruiting prediction machine, coach Danny Sprinkle the Huskies are the favorites to secure the 6-foot-5, 195-pound Rencher’s services and will be getting him on campus at the right time. Washington football will be preparing to host the Michigan Wolverines in a national championship rematch that day, which should provide the necessary atmosphere for his visit.

Rencher isn’t the only product of Archbishop Riordan the Washington program is recruiting either, as coach Jedd Fisch and the football team are also hot on the trail of four-star wide receiver Chris Lawson.

Early in his tenure, Sprinkle has done an impressive job on the recruiting trail, retaining four-star guard Zoom Diallo and flipping four-star guard Jase Butler from Illinois. With a lot of players in their final year of eligibility on the 2024 roster, he could rely heavily on the high school ranks going forward.