BJ Roy Plays Against Minnesota, Symbolizes Husky Past

Three was the magic number for Brandon Roy Jr. on Saturday night.

Wearing his dad's No. 3 jersey, which hangs retired from the rafters and is available only to him on game day now, the son of a University of Washington basketball legend, made his third appearance of the season in the Huskies' 69-57 victory over Minnesota.

He even fired up a 3-pointer that had nice form to it but bounced off.

Three, three and three.

At the UW, this 6-foot-2 freshman guard from Garfield High School, again his father's alma mater, represents a connection to Husky glory yet also a dying breed -- he's the only walk-on who turns up on Danny Sprinkle's roster this season.

Whereas Mike Hopkins' 2021-22 Husky team made accommodations for seven non-scholarship players, who included the coach's son Griff, Roy is it.

By all accounts, this player known as "BJ" is a confident and decent basketball player, someone who can hold own in teasing and trading barbs with his mostly older and certainly well-traveled teammates.

He stands four inches shorter than his father, who is regarded as the greatest Husky basketball player of all time and as NBA elite.

As a senior in 2006, Brandon Roy received consensus first-team All-America honors, was named Pac-10 Player of the Year, led the Huskies to a second consecutive Sweet 16 appearance in the NCAA Tournament and was the sixth overall pick of the NBA Draft.

The son doesn't have his father's clever footwork and feints in getting to the basket, but no one does.

The younger Roy seems content in spending the winter as the last guy on the bench with this Big Ten basketball team, which is preparing to make its fifth cross country trip of the season and is known to get dumped into places such as Missoula, Montana, with its wayward travel.

His father, who coached him at Garfield, helped BJ move into his campus dorm room and occasionally makes game-night appearances.

The younger Roy previously played in December in blowout victories over Southern Utah and San Diego. He took the only other shot of his yearling career against the Utah team, also a 3-pointer that didn't go down.

While this legacy player goes about his basketball business, the UW understands that having him, another Roy, on the team does nothing but enhance the program, which prefers to stay deeply connected to its past.

BJ Roy got on the floor against Minnesota, which seemed only apropos, because his father played his last basketball for that city, for the NBA's Timberwolves.

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