Inside The Huskies

Going Coast to Coast, UW Adds Rhode Island Basketball Guard

Luis Kortright becomes fifth new backcourt player for coach Danny Sprinkle.

Dan Raley

Luis Kortright will join the UW after leaving Rhode Island.
Luis Kortright will join the UW after leaving Rhode Island. / David DelPoio/USA TODAY Sports

The University of Washington basketball team is hoping you can take the tough-minded guard out of New York by way of Connecticut and Rhode Island, but you can't take that East Coast chip on the shoulder out of the backcourt player.

On Friday, the Huskies received a commitment from Luis Kortright, a 6-foot-3, 200-pound senior combo guard who previously played at Bronx high school powerhouse St. Raymond's before taking his game to Quinnipiac for three years and to Rhode Island this past season.

He is the seventh new addition -- and fifth guard -- for UW coach Danny Sprinkle, who is giving the Husky basketball roster a near total makeover after replacing the fired Mike Hopkins in late March.

Last season, Kortright started 31 of 32 games for Rhode Island and averaged 10 points, 4 rebounds and 3.7 assists per game for a 12-20 Rams team that tailed off badly, losing eight of its final nine outings. He had a season-high 26 points against Davidson.

He also managed to get a taste of the Northwest basketball scene last November when he played against Washington State in the Basketball Hall of Fame Tipoff tournament and scored 13 points in a 78-57 loss to the Cougars in Uncasville, Connecticut.

A first-team New York all-state guard, Kortright played three seasons for Quinnipiac, a MAAC school in Hamden, Connecticut, appearing in 71 games and starting 12. He averaged 10.3 points per game as both a freshman and a junior, and missed a third of his sophomore season with a severe ankle injury.

Following the 2022-23 campaign, he switched schools after leading Quinnipiac to a season-opening 67-62 victory over Rhode Island, his future destination, after coming off the bench to score a team-high 15 points on the road.

Kortright will join fellow UW newcomers in 6-foot-1 senior guard DJ Davis from Butler, 6-foot-5 junior guard Mekhi Mason from Rice, 6-foot-10 junior forward KC Ibekwe from Oregon State, 6-foot-4 freshman guard Zoom Diallo from Tacoma, Washington, 6-foot-4 freshman guard Jase Butler from Point Reyes Station, California, and 6-foot-9 senior forward Chris Conway from Oakland.

For the latest UW basketball and football news, go to si.com/college/washington

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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.