Husky Basketball Deals With Considerable Coaching Turnover

Danny Sprinkle has had three of his six staff members move on this offseason.

Danny Sprinkle is shown last season, surrounded by his Husky assistant coaches. | Dave Sizer photo

Somewhat lost in the shuffle of all of the offseason player movement surrounding the University of Washington basketball team has been a considerable amount of turnover for Danny Sprinkle's coaching staff, as well.

Since the season ended, three of his six assistants -- two full-time coaches and a special assistant -- have exited the program.

Jerry Hobbie, the special assistant to Sprinkle, took an assistant coaching job at TCU to join Jamie Dixon's staff; assistant DeMarlo Slocum, who was name-dropped for the Weber State head-coaching vacancy but didn't get it, left without a designated destination; and assistant Tommy Connor retired from coaching.

Each came to the UW with Sprinkle when the coaching change took place following the firing of Mike Hopkins.

Holdover coaches still part of the Husky staff are assistant head coach Andy Hill and assistants Quincy Pondexter and Abdul Gaddy, with the latter two doubling as former UW basketball players.

Meantime, Sprinkle has hired just one replacement assistant coach so far in DeAndre Haynes, who comes to the Huskies following five seasons at Marquette. Haynes previously coached for Toledo, Kent State, Maryland and Michigan.

Sprinkle is expected to add one or two more coaches.

New UW assistant Deandre Haynes is shown coaching at Marquette in 2022. | Jeff Hanisch-Imagn Images

Coaching turnover at an accelerated rate across the college basketball landscape is expected to be a given moving forward.

No better example of this is head coach Dusty May leaving Michigan this week after winning a national championship to lead the Dallas Mavericks. College basketball simply became less appealing to him in its current state.

The game has become far more complicated with no clear-cut rules in place to guide schools as they pay players and deal with nonstop roster movement, all while trying to prevent outsiders from raiding their players.

Two of last season's Husky starters, guard Zoom Diallo and center Franck Kepnang, both ended up together at Kentucky. Sprinkle's prized point guard, JJ Mandaquit, left for Arizona and the UW's other freshman guard, Courtland Muldrew, transferred to Georgia Tech.

Meantime, the UW basketball coaching jobs have become even more demanding if not exhausting, if that's possible.

To try and rebuild a competitive team in a hurry, Sprinkle directed his assistant coaches to concentrate on signing international players as roster replacements.

To date, the Huskies have pulled commitments from 6-foot-9 forward Wini Silva-Braga from Brazil, 6-foot-4 shooting guard Tristan Devers from Australia and just last week 6-foot-9 forward Boris Tisma from Croatia.

Sprinkle's staff still has to add at least one more player in order to reach the 15-man roster limit.