Husky Basketball Has Been Confounding and Exhilarating

The current state of University of Washington basketball is nothing short of disturbing, exhilarating, entertaining and confusing, a decided mix of emotions coming at you all at once.

On Wednesday night, the Huskies lost to the 17th-ranked Purdue Boilermakers 69-58 at Alaska Airlines Arena to drop into a last-place tie with Minnesota in the cavernous Big Ten standings that seem to go on forever.

That's rock bottom. Seventeen deep. Sharing a Gopher hole.

Yet at the same time, the Huskies (10-8 overall, 1-6 conference) played in a most electric atmosphere before a crowd of 7,789, including a good number of Purdue fans, that continually let out a cascading roar as the home team built a 10-point advantage at its peak and an eight-point edge at halftime before falling back. This came after they showed up for well-attended home games against Maryland and Illinois.

Clearly, there are basketball-starved, eager ticket-buying customers residing in the area.

While people could readily say that Danny Sprinkle's team is building for the future, reality is eight of the 13 players on scholarship are seniors, and give or take a medical redshirt, are staring at the final 14 games or so of their college careers.

Led by Luis Kortright (12), the Huskies take flight against Illinois. | Skylar Lin Visuals

Unfortunately for the first-year coach, he shared his Husky bench during Wednesday's game with 6-foot-11 senior center Franck Kepnang, 6-foot-9 senior forward Chris Conway, 6-foot-8 freshman forwawrd Dominique Diomande and 6-foot-1 senior guard DJ Davis.

Together, those four rightfully would form the basis for a fairly competitive lineup for anyone to deal with. However, Conway is out for the season with knee issues, unable to play in any games at all since transferring in from Oakland. Kepnang hasn't been able to play beyond December in any of his three UW seasons because of his own knee problems. Diomande just showed up as from France and is getting acclimated on the fly to a new team and a new country. Davis, the team's best outside shooter, has a lingering ankle injury.

As for the rest of the guys, they must be more than a little weary after spending six days in Michigan last week in order to play two games. Those previous Pac-12 conference schedules sure look good right now.

Mekhi Mason gets rejected on his dunk attempt against Illinois. | Skylar Lin Visuals

He won't admit it, but the hard-driving Danny Sprinkle looks a little spent as he tries to navigate the increasing losses with a patched-together team, the unavailable personnel sitting next to him on the bench and dealing with Big Ten travel that will greatly inflate everyone's frequent flyer accounts while dwarfing any other team's road miles.

Great Osobor, the Huskies' 6-foot-8 senior power forward, leads this team in scoring at 15.1 points per game and in rebounding with 8.6 an outing. He's shown himself to be a force at times inside and even as a 3-point shooter against Purdue, but he curiously lacks a mid-range jumper, which would make him a guaranteed NBA player. Without it, he's likely an overseas pro. He could probably stand to get in a little better shape, too, if he wants to collect a bigger paycheck than his $2 million NIL deal in Montlake.

In terms of that all-important program future, this team will be built around Vazoumana "Zoom" Diallo, the 6-foot-4 freshman guard from Tacoma, Washington, who looks made to order for the Big Ten Conference with his physical style of play. He's the Huskies' third-leading scorer at 10.6 ppg and top playmaker at nearly 3 assists per outing. He's the local hero the fans want to get behind.

For now, the Huskies likely will play out the string, with road games at Oregon next week, Minnesota maybe in a battle for last place, Ohio State, Penn State, Iowa, Wisconsin and USC, and six home games topped by a March 1 visit by Indiana, plus at least one game in the Big Ten Tournament. A sub-.500 record looks possible.

Then it will be time to rest up, reconstruct the lineup and start all over in putting together a new team next year.

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