Danny Sprinkle’s University of Washington Huskies take on the University of San Diego Toreros Monday, Dec. 22, 2025 at Alaska Airlines Arena, in Seattle. (Dean Rutz / The Seattle Times)
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By
Matt Calkins
Seattle Times columnist
If you’re into the whole blame thing, your index finger may have a hard time making a decision.
The Washington men’s basketball team has no doubt been a disappointment in Year 2 of the Danny Sprinkle era, but it’s difficult to discern whether that’s the result of personnel, performance or pain.
There is nothing to celebrate about a team that is 13-13 overall and 5-10 in the Big Ten with five regular-season games remaining. Nothing to boast about when the Huskies are sitting tied for 12th in the 18-team conference.
This group, however, has been hurt. And not the “every basketball squad suffers some injuries” kind of hurt — but the “we need assistant coaches to scrimmage” kind of hurt.
An excuse? Not necessarily. And we’ll get to the on-court deficiencies in a minute. But the sidelining statistics are jarring.
This season, nine Washington players have missed a total of 87 games due to injury. And these aren’t boost-the-team-GPA walk-ons having to sit out, but the guys at the front of the lineup. Freshman forward and likely lottery pick Hannes Steinbach — UW’s leading scorer — missed three games. Guard Desmond Claude, the Dawgs’ third-leading scorer, officially missed four games before stepping away from the team to focus on his health. Guard Wesley Yates III, the team’s fourth-leading scorer (third with Claude gone), has missed six games. Forward Bryson Tucker — who is sixth in minutes and points — has missed seven.
Then you have Mady Traore missing 26, Jacob Ognacevic missing 16, Jasir Rencher missing 11 and JJ Mandaquit missing four — and it’s not hard to see the problem.
How big is the problem?
Well, college basketball analytics guru Evan Miyakawa recently charted total missed games for all NCAA teams, adjusted for production — meaning absences from stars carry far more weight than those from scrubs. Among the top 100 teams nationally, Washington ranked third in said injury burden. Only USC (7-8 in the Big Ten) and Oregon (2-13) had it worse.
This matters significantly when trying to evaluate this team — but it doesn’t magically wave away the results.
The truth is, UW has only two wins that one might qualify as impressive this season. The first was an eight-point victory at then-No. 24 USC in early December. The second was a seven-point triumph over unranked Ohio State (9-6 in the Big Ten) last month. The Huskies played a lot of good teams relatively close (See: No. 1 Michigan, No. 7 Purdue, No. 10 Illinois) — but even the thinnest margin in those games was eight points.
Steinbach (18.0 points, 11.3 rebounds per game) is a stud. Zoom Diallo (14.7 points, 4.4 assists) has been solid. But collectively? The Huskies have given little reason for their fans to fill Alaska Airlines Arena.
Offensively, they’ve struggled from beyond the arc in a game in which the three-ball rules all. The Huskies’ 32.1% clip from distance ranks tied for 15th in the Big Ten. And they’ve had issues getting stops, with their opponent field-goal percentage of 43.7 ranking 12th in the conference. And though they can rebound the ball (fourth in conference in boards per game), they have trouble taking care of it (13th in turnovers).
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So, coach Sprinkle, what do you see?
“I see a team that we’re on the verge,” Sprinkle said before listing off the injury stats. “It’s been a challenge for our team. You know, different guys are playing different lineups all the time. And like I said, at the end of the day, you can make all the excuses that you want. That’s our record.”
Yet, despite that record, the Huskies aren’t out of the NCAA tournament race quite yet. According to kenpom.com, they have the 46th-best résumé in the country — largely a result of the strength of schedule that comes with playing in the Big Ten. They are also 50th in NET rankings. Doesn’t mean their chances to reach the Dance are good, but if they somehow rattle off five in a row to end the regular season and snag a victory or two in the Big Ten tourney? I’m just saying it’s possible.
But the better question is: What would constitute a step forward for this program? Most reasonable fans would excuse the Huskies finishing last in the conference last season in Sprinkle’s first year. UW has already won one more Big Ten game than last year’s team did, but the expectations were much higher in ’25-26. Would an NIT bid be considered significant progress?
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Sprinkle is no stranger to success. He built Montana State into a back-to-back NCAA tournament participant and led Utah State to the Mountain West title two years ago before finishing 22nd in the final AP Top 25 poll.
But this is different. This is the top conference in the country. This is the biggest stage he has been on by far.
Sprinkle said Tuesday that players who stay in his program tend to get better. But at this point, he has to give them a reason to stay.
The injuries have piled up. At some point, though, the wins are going to have to as well.
Matt Calkins: mcalkins@seattletimes.com. Matt Calkins has been a sports columnist with the Seattle Times since 2015, where he has covered national title games, got a Seahawk to design his apartment and once extracted a two-word quote from Marshawn Lynch.
