Inside The Huskies

Help Is On the Way for Huskies As Serbian Newcomer Arrives

Nikola Dzepina will begin practicing with a UW basketball team that could use more help up front.
Dan Raley|
Nikola Dzepina played in the U19 World Cup against Hannes Steinbach.
Nikola Dzepina played in the U19 World Cup against Hannes Steinbach. | FIBA

Nikola Dzepina doesn't show up on the University of Washington online basketball roster just yet, but he's got a locker in Montlake and will wear No. 33.

The 6-foot-10 Serbian player recently arrived from Europe, providing a reinforcement player for the Huskies who were missing five frontliners for their last game at USC -- 7-footer Mady Traore (foot), 6-foot-11 Christian Nitu (redshirt), 6-foot-8 Jacob Ognacevic (foot), 6-foot-7 Bryson Tucker (ankle) and Dzepina.

The Huskies (6-3 overall, 1-1 Big Ten) will put Dzepina, now enrolled for winter quarter, through their practice paces and see how long it takes to get him ready to play.

"That's what excites me about our team is I know we have another gear to us," UW coach Danny Sprinkle said. "Now how quickly we get everybody on the same page and together, we'll see. Obviously we know Mady's not coming bck, but the rest of them have a chance."

Traore, a JC transfer who once played for Maryland and New Mexico State, is out for the season, and Nitu appears to be in some sort of limbo, but the others are all in various stages of returning to Sprinkle's team.

The Huskies, who trailed by 18 points at halftime before rushing back to beat USC 84-76 on Saturday, were forced to rely on only 6-foot-11 Hannes Steinbach and 6-foot-11 Franck Kepnang to give them an inside presence.

"Seventy-five percent of our size and length was sitting in Seattle while we were playing that game," Sprinkle said.

Now that the Los Angeles schools are out of the way, the UW has a less demanding schedule throughout the end of the year and can gradually add manpower it seems.

The Huskies host Southern Utah (4-7) on Saturday, play Seattle University (7-2) downtown at Climate Pledge Arena on Dec. 19, and host San Diego (3-5) on Dec. 22 and Utah (7-3) on Dec. 29.

Tucker, the Indiana transfer and one of the UW's better outside shooters, has missed six games since spraining an ankle in a 78-69 loss at Baylor and could be getting close to playing again.

"It's been over four weeks," Sprinkle said. "Hopefully, he can continue to make progress this week."

Ognacevic, a Lipscomb transfer and the Atlantic Sun Player of the Year, remains on course to rejoin the team in January.

Dzepina comes to the Huskies after playing in the U19 FIBA World Cup and leading Serbia with 16.4 points and 5.4 rebounds per game, while averaging 2.2 assists per outing.

He and Steinbach know each other and have gone head to head in the U19 competition held this past summer in Switzerland.

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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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