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Inside The Huskies

Huskies Finally Have Player Announce Basketball Return

As it stands, the UW has five scholarship players still connected to the team.
Dan Raley|
Lathan Sommerville was dealing with a knee injury that wasn't as bad as first feared.
Lathan Sommerville was dealing with a knee injury that wasn't as bad as first feared. | Dave Sizer photo

In today's continually rotating college basketball turnstile, it's big news whenever someone, no matter how many points or minutes he averages, decides to return to his team rather than go treasure-hunting.

Last year for the University of Washington, just two players retraced their steps and came back in Zoom Diallo and Franck Kepnang.

Consider 6-foot-10 junior forward Lathan Sommerville a trend-setter for the next Huskies team moving forward .

On Thursday, he became the first of Danny Sprinkle's veteran players to publicly declare his return, doing so in a social-media posting.

Lathan Sommerville lets out a yell against Southern.
Lathan Sommerville lets out a yell against Southern. | Dave Sizer photo

For the moment, Sommerville has offset the mass departure of eight UW teammates for the transfer portal or the NBA Draft, plus two others who used up their eligibility.

The Huskies retain a big man who appeared in 22 games and started seven times while dealing with a December knee injury. He averaged 4.3 points and 2.6 rebounds an outing.

Sommerville, originally from Peoria, Illinois, came to the UW a year ago after spending his freshman season at Rutgers, when he actually played against the Huskies in 2025 and shared in an 89-85 overtime victory with his team in Montlake.

He was a 15-game starter in 32 games for the Scarlet Knights and averaged 8.2 points and 4.1 rebounds.

Sommerville just never seemed to quite get untracked with the UW this past winter, sitting out nine games after suffering his knee injury in practice a day after the Huskies lost to Seattle U.

He had season highs of 11 points against Denver and 8 rebounds against Nevada.

Rutgers made him part of a splashy freshmen class that included lottery picks Dylan Harper and Ace Bailey, who were selected second and fifth overall last June by the San Antonio Spurs and Utah Jazz, respectively, as the highest players drafted in school history.

A month after this season ended at the Big Ten Tournament, the Huskies currently have five veteran players still on the roster in junior guard Wesley Yates III, junior center Mady Traore, sophomore guard Jasir Rencher, sophomore forward Nikola Dzepina and Sommerville.

The 6-foot-4 Yates, a returning starter and a 12.7 scorer, presumably will be the team centerpiece if he stays put.

Traore, a one-time Maryland and New Mexico State player who goes 6-foot-11, is coming off foot surgery that forced him to miss the entire season.

The 6-foot-5 Rencher is dealing with a heart issue that required a corrective procedure and ended his season early.

Dzepina, a 6-foot-10 forward from Serbia, played in 14 games as a freshman after joining the Huskies at midseason.

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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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