Big Ten Tournament on the Line When UW Hosts Rutgers

While University of Washington basketball goes through a painstaking rebuild, the Huskies have drawn fairly decent crowds to Alaska Airlines Arena this season, with the curious coming out to see the various Big Ten teams coming through.

They can count on the competition level to be fairly intense each time out -- knock down, drag out, is the term that comes to mind -- with the officiating crews understanding that overly physical play is a staple rather than the exception for the conference.

On Wednesday night, local basketball followers should note that just about everything comes into play when Danny Sprinkle's team (13-12 overall, 4-10 Big Ten) hosts Rutgers (12-14, 5-10) with a 7:30 p.m. tipoff.

It's the 15th-place entry against No. 16 in the 18-team standings.

What makes that somewhat compelling is Rutgers and the UW currently sit on each side of the cutoff line for those who qualify for the Big Ten Tournament and those who don't. Three conference teams will stay home.

While the Big Ten schedule still has three weeks of games remaining, this particular outing could go a long way to determining the last team that makes it to the March 12-15 postseason event in Indianapolis -- Wednesday's winner in Montlake will hold up the tie-breaker if needed to advance to the tourney.

The Huskies will enter having won three of their past five games, including two coming on the road. And this was a UW team picked by at least one preseason prognosticator to finish dead last.

Even while struggling of late, in losing four of their past five outings, the Scarlet Knights have two of the best freshmen in the country in 6-foot-10 forward Ace Bailey, an 18.6-point scorer who can play all five positions, and 6-foot-6 guard Dylan Harper, who has an 18.5 scoring average.

The UW finally has a healthy Franck Kepnang back after a third knee surgery, with the 6-foot-11 center coming up with a 14-point, 5-block performance to play a huge role in Saturday's 75-73 victory at Penn State.

A few weeks back, the Huskies were in last place all by themselves looking like they might be doing no more than playing out the string of a first season in the Big Ten and an initial year with Sprinkle as coach.

Yet things just got a lot more interesting entering Wednesday night's game with Rutgers coming to town.

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