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Inside The Huskies

Huskies Hire New Basketball Radio Voice

California native Jeff Koop comes to Montlake from UCLA.
Dan Raley|
Nick Koop comes from UCLA to be the UW men's basketball radio broadcaster.
Nick Koop comes from UCLA to be the UW men's basketball radio broadcaster. | Nick Koop

With the season getting close, the University of Washington basketball team had just about everything it needed in terms of new players and assistant coaches for Danny Sprinkle's program. Everything except a play-by-play radio announcer.

On Tuesday, the UW filled that void by announcing Nick Koop as the new voice of the Huskies, with him coming to Montlake following a decade at UCLA, where he called basketball, football and wide range of other sports including softball, soccer and baseball.

“Washington has been blessed with great radio voices, and I’m grateful to follow in their footsteps," he said in prepared statement. "I’m excited to work with Coach Sprinkle and the men’s basketball program and share stories from all across UW Athletics."

Koop will call his first Husky basketball game over KJR radio on Sunday when the team hosts Washington State in an exhibition game at Alaska Airlines Arena.

A native of Roseville, California, Koop replaces Tony Castricone, who left as the UW football and basketball radio presence to join the NFL's Tampa Bay Buccaneers broadcast team this past summer.

Elise Woodward, formally the Husky sideline reporter, replaced Castricone as the lead football broadcaster.

A 2014 graduate of Boston University, Koop began his sports broadcasting career at Harvard on the Ivy League Network and NESN.

Two years later, he returned to the West Coast and worked for Loyola Marymount and UCLA. He has a diverse resume, having hosted the Bruin Insider Show and handling play-by-play duties on the Big Ten Network, the Pac-12 Network and FOX Sports.

He also called UCLA women's basketball games as well as the men.

"Nick brings extensive experience across college athletics, understands the responsibility that comes with this role, and will be a great addition as we continue to connect our fans with the people and programs that make Washington special,” UW athletic director Pat Chun said in a prepared statement.

The Husky men's basketball regular season opens on Monday, Nov. 2, against Colgate at Alaska Airlines Arena. Sprinkle's third team is coming off a 15-17 season with a roster that is two-thirds new.

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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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