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Inside The Huskies

Behind Yates, This Is Only Other Sure UW Basketball Starter

Ryan Beasley comes to the UW after three seasons at San Francisco, where he was an all-conference guard.
Dan Raley|
San Francisco guard Ryan Beasley, in Spokane to play Gonzaga, has joined the UW.
San Francisco guard Ryan Beasley, in Spokane to play Gonzaga, has joined the UW. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

The biggest thing surrounding the latest University of Washington basketball players is almost no one across the city knows them.

One starter returns in Wesley Yates III.

That's it.

Everyone else on the roster either got injured and sat out all or parts of last season, or transferred in at midseason or at the beginning of this summer -- with many coming from overseas.

So who the heck are these guys?

For the time being, it will be left up to the athletic department video personnel to introduce them to the public, especially with the general media typically not invited out for interviews until October and fall practice.

First up is Ryan Beasley, the team's most natural point guard from the University of San Francisco -- the late Bill Russell's alma mater -- who stands as the one of the most decorated player on the roster after earning second-team All-West Coast Conference honors this past season.

From the first sound bite, the 5-foot-11 senior from San Ramon, California, comes across as a laid-back personality. Somewhat stoically, he explained how he got what he was looking for in the Huskies.

"I chose UW because Seattle is a great city to live in, the Big Ten is one of the best conferences in the country and just play-style and fit overall," Beasley said in a UW video. "Everything made sense for me to come here."

While Yates is the only Husky starter back as everyone gets acquainted in offseason workouts, Beasley would seem to be another guaranteed first-teamer because there's no other true floor leader in the house to lean on.

For USF last season, he not only averaged 13.6 points per game but dished out 4 assists each outing.

The UW players who brought the ball up the floor last season, Zoom Diallo and JJ Mandaquit, have relocated to Kentucky and Arizona, respectively.

Beasley appears to be a similar assist man to Diallo, who averaged 4.5 a game, and more productive overall than Mandaquit, who averaged 5.1 points and 3.2 assists as a freshman over 22 games.

Other guard candidates besides Yates and Beasley are 6-foot-4 Davidson transfer Parker Friedrichsen, who's primarily a 3-point shooter; 6-foot-4 Australian transfer Tristan Devers, who's more of a combo guard; and 6-foot-5 redshirt freshman returnee Jasir Rencher, who's coming off a season shortened by heart issues.

Which means Beasley will be vital to the kind of season the Huskies can expect. Likely pencil him in as a second starter to Yates and the go build a front line.

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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