The Washington Huskies made their Mike Hopkins replacement official on Monday, hiring Utah State basketball coach Danny Sprinkle less than 24 hours after the Aggies lost to Purdue in the second round of the NCAA tournament.
Sprinkle is a West Coast coach through and through, one that comes with Husky bloodlines. His father, Bill, played football on Montlake in the 1960s. Sprinkle grew up in Washington State Cougar country in Pullman before playing basketball in Montana, first at Helena High School and then at Montana State. He went directly into coaching, with stints as an assistant at Cal State Northridge, Montana State, and Cal State Fullerton.
Huskies Wire reached out to Patrick Mayhorn of The Aggship, an independent Utah State outlet, to get a better idea of what to expect from Sprinkle on Montlake.
Hopkins’ tenure was defined by the ability to recruit – the Huskies signed two five-star recruits and were always active in the transfer portal – with a faltering ability to turn those high-profile recruits into wins.
Naturally, Husky fans would prefer on-court success, as Washington last made the NCAA tournament in 2019. So what are the Huskies getting from Sprinkle as a coach on the floor?
His in-game coaching is a little bit of a work in progress, specifically when it comes to substitutions, but the player development and game scouting were consistently terrific all season. The offense was a little glitchy at times but extremely dangerous when it was working, and the defense was very impressive for [a team in] year one – it’s much harder to install a great defense than it is a great offense.
Mayhorn pointed out the strides Aggie players made in singular year under Sprinkle, further reinforcing his skills as a developer.
Pretty much every player in the rotation improved significantly during the year, including a couple of guys (Mason Falslev, Javon Jackson, Isaac Johnson, and Josh Uduje specifically) who were basically brand new to his system.
That sort of on-the-fly installation can often be attributed to coaching, both from Sprinkle and his assistants. Can Washington expect to bring a number of Sprinkle’s assistant coaches from Logan?
Sprinkle has a very good eye for assistant coaching talent, and I think the staff he had this season was terrific. I’d expect he takes at least a few of those guys with him, though big man specialist Chris Haslam is a candidate for some head coaching jobs. Defensive coordinator Andy Hill is a real option [to replace Sprinkle] for Utah State, which could keep the guards coach, Eric Brown, in town as well.
Basketball is a much more transitory collegiate sport than football, where it can sometimes take multiple years to get a sense of how strong of a recruiter a coach is. Mayhorn assured Huskies Wire that Sprinkle will continue to build Washington’s recruiting footprint based on what he was able to do in his year as an Aggie.
Well, he recruited all but two players on this team. It’s strong. He hasn’t been at a power conference school before, so there has to be a little bit of projection for what that will look like, but the high school class he had signed was very impressive, and his work in the portal speaks for itself. He’s very good at identifying elite traits and players who fit in his program.
While this year’s high school class was mostly developmental players for the Aggies, Sprinkle did sign Kalifa Sakho, an unranked forward recruit in the 247Sports Composite rankings. Sakho ended up cracking the end of the rotation, averaging just over 10 minutes a game for Utah State this season.
In the portal, Utah State grabbed big man Great Osobor, who followed Sprinkle to Logan from Montana State. Osobor won Mountain West Player of the Year and Newcomer of the Year, averaging 17.7 points and 9 rebounds in 35 games.
Ian Martinez joined the Aggies from Maryland and was named an All-Mountain West honorable mention after putting up 13.3 points and shooting 38 percent from beyond the three-point line. Coastal Carolina transfer Josh Uduje was named Co-Sixth Man of the Year in the conference.
Sprinkle is a newer head coach, but not a new one. He has five years of experience at the helm of a program – one at Utah State this season and four seasons at Big Sky contender Montana State, his alma mater. While he’s made three straight NCAA tournaments between the two schools, Washington is entering the Big Ten next basketball season, leaving a big, looming question: is Sprinkle ready for the big time?
I do think so. He’s a really, really good ball coach. Hard-nosed and expects a lot of his players, but he’s been extremely well-liked by his guys during every step of his career. He’s a grinder who has done more with less for a very long time, and I don’t expect that he’ll have any issue translating that into a job with more resources.