Post by mhbruin on Apr 2, 2024 19:06:02 GMT -8
In an annoying side effect of joining the B1G, we now have two teams that go by "UW", Washington and Wisconsin.
CHANGES
====================
Next are the Washington Huskies who finished in tied for 6th in the Pac-12 and finally decided to part ways with Mike Hopkins, which is a nice way of saying they fired him. After winning the Pac-12 in his second season on Montlake, he never finished higher than 5th in the league and never played a post-season game. I think he was lucky to stick around for 7 years.
The new coach is Danny Sprinkle, which not only rhymes with Wayne Tinkle, but sounds like the same thing. One more reason to be happy that Tyler Bilodeau came to UCLA is he didn't have to hear that he went from Tinkle to Sprinkle, which sound like two-thirds of the worst double-play combination ever. Tinkle to Sprinkle to Chance.
Sprinkle got the job after 1 year following Mark Madsen at Utah State, where he inherited a team that had no one on the roster who scored a point for the Aggies the previous season. Somehow he put together a new roster, won the Mountain West (which put 5 other teams into the NCAA tournament), and even won a game in the NCAA tournament before losing to Purdue.
He will have to pull off another miracle in Seattle, since he is losing most of his roster to graduation and the portal.
Sprinkle has added Tony Bland to his staff. Your probably remember him as the USC assistant who was arrested as part of an FBI investigation.
GRADUATING
Washington loses their top four scorers to graduation or to the portal.
Brooks led the team in scoring and rebounding. Wheeler led the team in assists and steals.
IN THE DRAFT OR TURNING PRO
TRANSFERRING OUT
Freshman Wesley Yates didn't play at all this season. He was a 4-star, top 50 player out of high school, but broke his foot before the season. His cousin was Washington assistant Quincy Pondexter, who was fired along with Mike Hopkins.
Koren Johnson had some really good games and I think he has a big upside, which he will pursue in Louisville.
Braxton Meah was a solid center, but with limited offensive skills and the ugliest form on his free throws in the country. He shot 49% from the line.
Nate Calmese never showed that he was a Pac-12 level player.
Also transferring out ar Samuel Ariyibi, who played in 2 games, and Noah Williams who never played after tranferring to UDub from Washington St.
RETURNING
That's all there is returning. These are the only two guys who played in more than six games.
Kepnang is an excellent player if he can stay healthy. In his last two seasons he has been healthy enough to play a total of 18 games.
Breidenbach is a good backup center although at 230 lbs, he has a hard time against a bigger, stronger guy. If Kepnang can play, Breidenbach could make a good stretch four.
Christian King was a redshirt last season. Mike Hopkins beat out Lehigh, Pepperdine, and Rice to sign him.
RECRUITS
(#24 class, #8 in B1G)
After Hopkins was fired, Chavis rasked to be released from his LOI.
Zoom Diallo's real first name is "Vazoumana".
Jase Butler was an Illinois commit, who switched to the Huskies.
TRANSFERRING IN
(#43 class, #12 in B1G)
Mekhi Mason was the second-leading scorer for the Rice Owls, although his shooting numbers weren't great.
KC Ibekwe moves north from Coravllis after two uninspiring seasons for a bad Oregon State team. He was a limited scorer and turned the ball over a lot. He was not one of the top 400 players in the transfer portal.
DJ Davis spent three seasons for UC Irvine, before transferring to Butler, where he was third in scoring and second in steals. He goes from being an Anteater to a Bulldog to a Husky I think he is progressing in the mascot rankings.
CONCLUSION
Rebuilding this roster should be a piece of cake for Sprinkle compared to what he had to do at Utah State. When he got there, not a single player who scored a point remained on the roster. Building a roster from scratch is usually a metaphor. In that case it was what he did. Personally, I think Washington hit a home run with this hire, just as they did with Kalen deBoer in football. For their sake I hope he is that good and they can keep him.
However, at the moment, Washington has only 8 scholarship players, and it doesn't look like very good roster. They have four 4-star players, two of whom are true freshmen. Their best player has been injured more than he has been healthy.
When you have only 8 players, having one be injury prone isn't a great situation. Sprinkle is going to have to find more bodies. The big question is whether he can find some players among them.
Torvick projects Washington as the #82 team in the country and #17 in the B1G. He projects a 17-14 record, with 10-10 in the B1G. I think he is being more than generous.
===============================
DANNY SPRINKLE
Profile: Sprinkle, 47, did one of the best coaching jobs in college basketball this season, leading Utah State to 28 wins, the regular season title in the six-bid Mountain West and an NCAA Tournament win over TCU. This came after he and his staff basically recruited a whole new team after arriving at Utah State. He was previously the head coach at Montana State.
Style of Play: Hard to draw any conclusions based on Utah State, because that was a brand-new team assembled via the portal, but that Aggie team really reimagined positional roles, though that might have just been a luxury Great Osobor afforded them.
Recruiting Profile: Wasington will be portal-heavy, especially early, but then typically Pacific Northwest- and West Coast-dependent.
CHANGES
====================
Next are the Washington Huskies who finished in tied for 6th in the Pac-12 and finally decided to part ways with Mike Hopkins, which is a nice way of saying they fired him. After winning the Pac-12 in his second season on Montlake, he never finished higher than 5th in the league and never played a post-season game. I think he was lucky to stick around for 7 years.
The new coach is Danny Sprinkle, which not only rhymes with Wayne Tinkle, but sounds like the same thing. One more reason to be happy that Tyler Bilodeau came to UCLA is he didn't have to hear that he went from Tinkle to Sprinkle, which sound like two-thirds of the worst double-play combination ever. Tinkle to Sprinkle to Chance.
Sprinkle got the job after 1 year following Mark Madsen at Utah State, where he inherited a team that had no one on the roster who scored a point for the Aggies the previous season. Somehow he put together a new roster, won the Mountain West (which put 5 other teams into the NCAA tournament), and even won a game in the NCAA tournament before losing to Purdue.
He will have to pull off another miracle in Seattle, since he is losing most of his roster to graduation and the portal.
Sprinkle has added Tony Bland to his staff. Your probably remember him as the USC assistant who was arrested as part of an FBI investigation.
GRADUATING
| Player | Games | Starts | Minutes | Points | Rebounds | Assists | Notes |
| Keion Brooks Jr. | 32 | 32 | 35 | 21 | 6.8 | 1.4 | |
| Sahvir Wheeler | 31 | 29 | 34 | 14 | 3.5 | 6.1 | |
| Moses Wood | 32 | 32 | 33 | 12 | 4.5 | 0.8 | |
| Paul Mulcahy | 31 | 30 | 25 | 6 | 3.0 | 3.4 | |
| Anthony Holland | 31 | 0 | 12 | 3 | 1.5 | 0.2 |
Washington loses their top four scorers to graduation or to the portal.
Brooks led the team in scoring and rebounding. Wheeler led the team in assists and steals.
IN THE DRAFT OR TURNING PRO
| Player | Games | Starts | Minutes | Points | Rebounds | Assists | Can Return? |
| . | |||||||
TRANSFERRING OUT
| Player | Games | Starts | Minutes | Points | Rebounds | Assists | Notes | Destination |
| Koren Johnson | 31 | 5 | 24 | 11 | 2.2 | 2.7 | Louisville | |
| Braxton Meah | 32 | 16 | 17 | 5 | 5.3 | 0.3 | Led the team in blocks | Nebraska |
| Wesley Yates III | 0 | |||||||
| Nate Calmese | 16 | 0 | 11 | 4 | 0.6 | 0.8 | ||
Freshman Wesley Yates didn't play at all this season. He was a 4-star, top 50 player out of high school, but broke his foot before the season. His cousin was Washington assistant Quincy Pondexter, who was fired along with Mike Hopkins.
Koren Johnson had some really good games and I think he has a big upside, which he will pursue in Louisville.
Braxton Meah was a solid center, but with limited offensive skills and the ugliest form on his free throws in the country. He shot 49% from the line.
Nate Calmese never showed that he was a Pac-12 level player.
Also transferring out ar Samuel Ariyibi, who played in 2 games, and Noah Williams who never played after tranferring to UDub from Washington St.
RETURNING
| Player | Games | Starts | Minutes | Points | Rebounds | Assists | FG% | 3-Pt% | A/TO | Class | Recruiting Stars | Recruiting Rank |
| Franck Kepnang | 10 | 7 | 19 | 8 | 6 | 0.2 | 59% | -- | 0.3 | Sr | 4 | 36 |
| Wilhelm Breidenbach | 32 | 9 | 15 | 5 | 3 | 0.2 | 57% | 33% | 0.3 | Sr | 4 | 105 |
| Christian King | 0 | Rs Fr | Unranked | |||||||||
| . | ||||||||||||
| . | ||||||||||||
| . | ||||||||||||
| . |
That's all there is returning. These are the only two guys who played in more than six games.
Kepnang is an excellent player if he can stay healthy. In his last two seasons he has been healthy enough to play a total of 18 games.
Breidenbach is a good backup center although at 230 lbs, he has a hard time against a bigger, stronger guy. If Kepnang can play, Breidenbach could make a good stretch four.
Christian King was a redshirt last season. Mike Hopkins beat out Lehigh, Pepperdine, and Rice to sign him.
RECRUITS
(#24 class, #8 in B1G)
| Player | Size | Position | Recruiting Stars | Recruiting Rank | Offers |
| Zoom Diallo | 6-4 190 | CG | 4 | 35 | Arizona, Gonzaga, USC |
| Jase Butler | 6-4 180 | CG | 4 | 108 | Illinois, Colorado St, Loyola Marymount |
| . | |||||
| . | |||||
| . |
After Hopkins was fired, Chavis rasked to be released from his LOI.
Zoom Diallo's real first name is "Vazoumana".
Jase Butler was an Illinois commit, who switched to the Huskies.
TRANSFERRING IN
(#43 class, #12 in B1G)
| Player | Size | Games | Starts | Minutes | Points | Rebounds | Assists | FG % | 3-Pt % | A/TO | From | Class | Recruiting Stars | Recruiting Rank | Transfer Rank | Notes |
| Mekhi Mason | 6-5 195 | 32 | 32 | 31 | 14 | 4.0 | 2.8 | 41% | 36% | 1.0 | Rice | Jr | 3 | 89 | 68 | |
| KC Ibekwe | 6-10 287 | 32 | 22 | 18 | 5 | 4.0 | 0.5 | 52% | 0.3 | Oregon St | Jr | Unranked | Unranked | |||
| DJ Davis | 6-1 175 | 33 | 33 | 29 | 14 | 3.2 | 2.6 | 43% | 35% | 1.6 | Butler | Sr 5 | 3 | 372 | 102 |
Mekhi Mason was the second-leading scorer for the Rice Owls, although his shooting numbers weren't great.
KC Ibekwe moves north from Coravllis after two uninspiring seasons for a bad Oregon State team. He was a limited scorer and turned the ball over a lot. He was not one of the top 400 players in the transfer portal.
DJ Davis spent three seasons for UC Irvine, before transferring to Butler, where he was third in scoring and second in steals. He goes from being an Anteater to a Bulldog to a Husky I think he is progressing in the mascot rankings.
CONCLUSION
Rebuilding this roster should be a piece of cake for Sprinkle compared to what he had to do at Utah State. When he got there, not a single player who scored a point remained on the roster. Building a roster from scratch is usually a metaphor. In that case it was what he did. Personally, I think Washington hit a home run with this hire, just as they did with Kalen deBoer in football. For their sake I hope he is that good and they can keep him.
However, at the moment, Washington has only 8 scholarship players, and it doesn't look like very good roster. They have four 4-star players, two of whom are true freshmen. Their best player has been injured more than he has been healthy.
When you have only 8 players, having one be injury prone isn't a great situation. Sprinkle is going to have to find more bodies. The big question is whether he can find some players among them.
Torvick projects Washington as the #82 team in the country and #17 in the B1G. He projects a 17-14 record, with 10-10 in the B1G. I think he is being more than generous.
===============================
DANNY SPRINKLE
Profile: Sprinkle, 47, did one of the best coaching jobs in college basketball this season, leading Utah State to 28 wins, the regular season title in the six-bid Mountain West and an NCAA Tournament win over TCU. This came after he and his staff basically recruited a whole new team after arriving at Utah State. He was previously the head coach at Montana State.
Style of Play: Hard to draw any conclusions based on Utah State, because that was a brand-new team assembled via the portal, but that Aggie team really reimagined positional roles, though that might have just been a luxury Great Osobor afforded them.
Recruiting Profile: Wasington will be portal-heavy, especially early, but then typically Pacific Northwest- and West Coast-dependent.