Inside The Huskies

Huskies Among Final 5 Teams for Former Nevada Standout

The 6-foot-10 Nick Davidson is a familiar face for Danny Sprinkle, both at the UW and Utah State.
Dan Raley|
Nevada’s Nick Davidson looks to shoot against Boise State.
Nevada’s Nick Davidson looks to shoot against Boise State. | Jason Bean/RGJ / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Late in the season, Danny Sprinkle questioned his University of Washington basketball team's overall toughness as the Huskies let a bunch of games slip away late and were relegated to a last-place finish in the Big Ten.

Nick Davidson, a player the coach is very familiar with, would go a long way to rectifying that shortcoming in Montlake.

Currently, there's a one in five chance of those two combining forces with the 6-foot-10, 238-pound Davidson formerly of Nevada narrowing his choices in the transfer portal to Clemson, Notre Dame, Texas, Virginia and Washington.

He comes off a junior season in which he averaged 15.8 points and 6.5 rebounds per game, shot 50 percent from the field and 37.1 from 3-point range, and was made a second-team All-Mountain West selection.

Davidson is 2-0 against Sprinkle -- and 2-0 against the UW guided by two different coaches.

In Sprinkle's second game as the Husky coach, Davidson had 14 points and 9 rebounds in helping Nevada beat the UW 63-53 in Reno.

The year before, the big man supplied 25 points and 10 rebounds as he led the Wolf Pack to a 77-63 victory over Sprinkle's Utah State team in Logan, Utah, that would finish 28-7 and in the NCAA Tournament.

Earlier that same season, Davidson had a 13-point, 4-rebound outing when Nevada came into Alaska Airlines Arena and beat Mike Hopkins' Huskies 83-76 on the way to a 26-8 season and an NCAA berth.

Sprinkle doesn't need much convincing that Davidson, originally from Mission Viejo, California, is a must-have player for turning things around at the UW next winter.

Davidson similarly could use a re-energized basketball situation after watching his Steve Alford-coached Nevada team tail off and lose six of its final eight games this season to finish 17-16.

Coming out of Mater Dei High School, Davidson was a well recruited player who chose Nevada in part because his father, Kirk, played there as a 6-foot-10 center in 1992 and 1993 and his mother, Kelly, was a Wolf Pack volleyball player.

It's no doubt time now for Nick Davidson to branch out on his own and better showcase his talents in a tougher league in order to advance his NBA interests.

To get 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.

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