Huskies Have Wasted a Lot of Talent While Going Without Postseason Rewards

Another University of Washington basketball season will come to an unceremonious end on Sunday afternoon with the Huskies finishing up with a fairly meaningless game against Oregon with tipoff at noon at Alaska Airlines Arena.

For the 13th time in 14 seasons -- and now six consecutive -- the UW will go without an NCAA Tournament berth.

In fact, the Huskies (13-17 overall, 4-15 league) won't play a postseason contest of any kind for the first time in 22 years because the Big Ten makes its three worst teams stay home from the conference tournament, whereas the Pac-12 used to invite everyone at the end.

What makes all of this even more of an indictment of program neglect in Montlake is the roll call of accomplished players who never got a whiff of the NCAAs after coming to Seattle with so much optimism.

For new coach Danny Sprinkle, fixing Washington's longstanding postseason absences stretching back three coaches now has to be high on his list of house-keeping responsibilities.

Great Osobor, the 6-foot-8 power forward from England and considered one of the Big Ten's better players, is the latest to go without any UW tourney reward.

He appeared in the NCAA tourney twice with Montana State and again last year for Utah State, but he'll leave the Huskies without coming close to March Madness because he and his teammates will finish last in the conference standings, by as many as two games behind everyone else should they lose to the Ducks (21-8. 11-8).

Before Osobor, the UW brought in 6-foot-7 forward Keion Brooks from Kentucky, where he played in one NCAA Tournament over three seasons only to completely miss out on the Big Dance in his two years with the Huskies. It mattered little that he was a 21.1-point scorer and a first-team All-Pac-12 pick as a senior in Montlake in 2024.

Two years before Brooks' arrival, the UW squandered the talents of 6-foot-8 Isaiah Stewart and 6-foot-9 Jaden McDaniels, who were stuck with an extremely disappointing 15-17 team and no postseason rewards before both became NBA first-round draft picks.

In 2017, the Huskies had the NBA's No. 1 overall draft pick in 6-foot-4 guard Markelle Fultz, a 23.2-point scorer in his only season in Seattle, but a miserable 9-22 season prevented him from enjoying any tourney time.

And the year before that, 6-foot-5 guard Dejounte Murray, then a one-and-done freshman and soon to be a No. 1 draft pick, played for a 19-15 team that appeared in the NIT but was forced to watch the NCAA Tournament only from his couch.

Long gone have been the days that Brandon Roy played in three NCAA events (2004-06), even finding his way to the Sweet 16 on a couple of occasions.

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