Huskies Call Bluff, Leave With Winning Hand in Opener

The University of 'Washington basketball team began its new season with a turnover, with old Husky turned USC transfer turned new Husky Wesley Yates III throwing the ball away 16 seconds into the opener.

Apparently he needed a moment on Monday night to get his bearings at a less than half-full Alaska Airlines Arena on game night, as did nearly all of his teammates.

Yet once everyone settled in, these reassembled Huskies treated this first game like the mismatch it was supposed to be all along, never trailing and sending Arkansas-Pine Bluff back home to the Ozarks state with a 94-50 beating.

Not surprisingly, Hannes Steinbach, the UW's overly talented 6-foot-11 freshman from Germany, scored the first four points of the game.

Seventy seconds into his debut, Der Auffallen (Google it) dropped in a fall-away baseline jumper for his original American points.

Fourteen seconds later, Steinbach accepted a pass on a fast break, got bumped hard, bounced the ball once and laid it in.

"He gets us going because he's such a mismatch," UW coach Danny Sprinkle said.

Steinbach had 15 points of his game-high 21 by halftime, even while Sprinkle continually subbed out eight players who were available to him from the outset. The Huskies led 41-18 at the break.

Playing 29 minutes, the always well-rounded big man also came up with 7 rebounds and 6 assists.

"It was a good game for me and for the team, as well," said the European kid, always with an understatement.

Arkansas-Pine Bluff was coming off a 6-25 season and looked like a similarly inept team again, so it was hard to gauge just how effective the UW firepower can be. Yet everyone got a good sweat going.

Sprinkle went with a starting lineup of 6-foot-11 holdover center Franck Kepnang, Indiana transfer forward Bryson Tucker, freshman point guard JJ Mandaquit, Yates and Steinbach.

Those were the first college starts for Steinbach, Mandaquit and even Tucker, who was a 23-game reserve at Indiana as a freshman.

The UW's 3-point shooting looked like it might be more formidable going forward than in previous seasons.

On this night, they began going in from long range from East Tennessee State transfer guard Quimari Peterson, who entered the game at the 17:22 mark and 24 seconds later he sent a rainbow rippling hard through the net from behind the line.

The reigning Southern Conference Player of the Year came off the bench and launched only shot 3-pointers, hitting 4 of 8, and he finished with 13 points. He's coming back from a hamstring injury that made him inactive for a month. He'll be hard to keep out of the starting lineup.

"He's a tough kid, a great player a great shooter," Sprinkle said. "He hasn't played in four weeks, fellahs. He hasn't been able to run. He just came back two days ago. ... That's why he started cramping up out there."

Tucker and Yates also supplied a pair of 3-pointers with Yates getting his first one off a kick-out pass from Steinbach.

Speaking of Steinbach, he took one to the corner early in the second half and drained it to show he has range behind the line, as well.

Diallo and Yates each finished with 14 points while Tucker came up with a dozen points a game-high 10 rebounds.

While Sprinkle's well-utilized nine players -- freshman guard Jasir Rencher suited up but didn't play -- took care of business and did what was needed to push the Huskies out to a 42-point lead, an all-star cast watched from the bench in sweats and some in protective boots.

USC transfer guard Desmond Claude, Florida State transfer forward Christian Nitu and freshman guard Courtland Mandaquit -- the latter an Arkansas product -- didn't play for the Huskies after dealing with an ankle injury, toe injury and illness, respectively.

Sprinkle said the 6-foot-11 Nitu, in fact, has decided to redshirt, though he's no longer injured, without offering an explanation.

Lipscomb transfer forward Jacob Ognacevic and JC transfer center Mady Traore are dealing with long-term foot injuries, with Traore out for the season and Ognacevic not expected back until January.

The Huskies have three days to catch their breath after this late-night Montlake run before hosting Denver on Thursday at 7 p.m.

On Sunday, things get real and the UW will need as many healthy players as it can find when it heads for Texas and plays at Baylor in a nationally televised game.

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