It's Now a Rebuild: Can Huskies Fix Shooting Deficiencies?
It's hard to tell what sort of athletic competition will be in place because of pandemic concerns, collegiately or professionally, but the next Washington basketball team needs a lot of help.
Isaiah Stewart and Jaden McDaniels will be drawing paychecks in the NBA, if there is one in operation.
Should the Huskies open play next November, they might send the following players onto the floor as starters:
Six-foot-six senior Naz Carter and 6-9 sophomore transfer J'Raan Brooks at forwards, and 6-foot junior Quade Green, 6-3 Marcus Tsohonis and 6-5 sophomore RaeQuan Battle at guards.
In reserve, providing no one leaves, will be 6-9 senior forward Hameir Wright, 6-6 junior Jamal Bey, 6-10 sophomore Nate Roberts, 6-2 junior Elijah Hardy and 7-foot sophomore Bryan Penn-Johnson.
"I think it's really going to be a rebuild," said Matt Muehlebach, a Pac-12 Network basketball analyst and a former Arizona player. "It's going to be an interesting team."
He didn't say a good team.
"We have a lot of guys who know what they have to do so this doesn't happen again," UW coach Mike Hopkins said shortly after his Huskies finished their nightmare 15-17 season.
Knowing and doing are two different things.
There is great hope that Green, the one-time Kentucky transfer, overcomes his aversion to academics and comes back, but plenty of skeptical people out there are hardly convinced he'll play in Seattle again.
With or without him, the Huskies will need to pick up a graduate or junior-college transfer or two or three with the scholarships vacated by departing senior Sam Timmons, Stewart and McDaniels -- and, again, possibly Green.
However it's done, the UW desperately needs some shooters. Average shooters. Anything better than the shooters it had.
The Huskies couldn't take advantage of having a pair of first-round draft picks in the lineup because there no one to take the pressure off them from the perimeter. That's a big reason this was a last-place team.
It was almost comical how bad these guys were from behind the line and still allowed to keep firing, almost at will.
Wright, Bey and Hardy had no business launching as many treys as they did. Their season sample said they won't ever shoot for an acceptable average. They need to bring the ball in closer to give this team a chance.
Like 15-footers, floaters and layins.
Stylistically, Battle has a fundamentally sound shot, but it didn't go in very much. Too often he was so anxious to launch it, he shot off balance. Hopkins needs to square him up at all times. Like the great Tre Simmons.
Brooks won't adequately replace Stewart or McDaniels, but he was good enough to land at USC for a season, so he should have decent offensive skills. Still, he averaged just 2 points per game in 28 outings for the Trojans.
Carter, so streaky, remains a Husky enigma. Blessed with so much athleticism, he still doesn't know how to use his immense skills to his advantage.
He should be driving hard to the basket more than he's not and dunking on anyone who dares get in his way. Yet Carter still fancies himself as a 3-point shooter. Someone needs to tell him that's his secondary shot. It might even be his third option.
Watch him warm up before games, and he's always way beyond the 22-foot 1 3/4-inch line, wearing head phones, jacking them up from out there, whereas Stewart would work his way in and out with his varying shots.
Tsohonis is the only one among the UW returnees who didn't try to do things that he couldn't; instead, he constantly sized up the situation and reacted to it. The Huskies could use about four more of him, in varying sizes.
Hardy is good in short spurts, but he's often way too out of control to draw extended minutes.
Roberts and Penn-Johnson should play a lot off the bench, but their repertoire is limited to dunking and shot-blocking. They don't have jumpers. They'll be used just to change things up.
Right now, without any help, Hopkins is looking at fielding a lower-division team. Find a key pickup or two and keep Green in the fold, and the Huskies might be a middle-of-the pack entry.
Yes, like Muehlebach said, it's a rebuild.
