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Inside The Huskies

Ex-Husky Point Guard Mandaquit Finds New Team

The 6-foot-1 floor leader played in 22 games for the Huskies before a foot injury ended his season.
Dan Raley|
Danny Sprinkle and JJ Mandaquit confer during the Seattle U game.
Danny Sprinkle and JJ Mandaquit confer during the Seattle U game. | Dave Sizer photo

The inclination for University of Washington basketball followers and even some media types is to downgrade a player once he leaves the program and transfers elsewhere.

In the case of JJ Mandaquit, one such observer noted how the freshman point guard was damaged goods following surgery to minimize him leaving the Huskies.

Well, Arizona has no such concerns.

On Monday, the former UW playmaker revealed he will join the Wildcats, who are coming off their Final Four appearance in Indianapolis, according to On3.

Even with a few freshman struggles that took him out of the UW starting lineup, plus that foot surgery that ended his season early, Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd had no qualms about coaxing Mandaquit to come play for him in the desert for his powerhouse program.

Mandaquit was a highly regarded player coming into the UW and an equally touted player going out of Montlake.

Of the six players in the transfer portal from this past season's Husky team, the 6-foot-1 guard from Hilo, Hawaii, has to be considered one of coach Danny Sprinkle's biggest personnel losses, along with shooting guard Zoom Diallo, based on the amount of investment he put into those players.

Few guys these days are considered pure point guards, which is pass-first instead of looking to shoot or drive, whereas Mandaquit fit that description perfectly.

It's not clear why he felt compelled to leave the UW unless his removal from the starting lineup five games into the schedule after he struggled some didn't sit well with him.

He appeared in 22 games and opened just once more before he was shut down by his foot injury.

He averaged 5.2 points and 3.1 assists per outings, while committing just 1.2 turnovers each game. He shot 43.6 percent from the field, though just 28.2 from behind the 3-point line.

While player movement shouldn't surprise anyone these days, the fact the Huskies had two players leave the team during the season in Desmond Claude and Christian Nitu, and now Mandaquit exit the program after so much was made of him running the team is disconcerting.

The only way college teams stay together anymore is foremost by winning but also by having strong player-coach relationships, where both sides feel obligated to each other over and above a monetary amount.

Mandaquit will likely do well in Arizona and maybe go to the Final Four at some point. He probably had to wonder if that was ever going to be possible for a continually rebuilding UW program going on seven years now.

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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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