Inside The Huskies

Mady Traore Promises to Bring Energy to Husky Basketball

The previous UW team had trouble at times getting guys to show emotion and really care about the outcomes.

Dan Raley

Mady Traore committed and signed with the UW basketball team.
Mady Traore committed and signed with the UW basketball team. / UW

Mady Traore has vowed to bring energy to Montlake, a commodity that last season's University of Washington basketball team seemed to to be sorely lacking at times.

Maybe it was the physicality of the Big Ten, the harshness of play, that had those guys overly stoic and maybe a little stunned by what went on.

Either way, the wispy 7-foot , 195-pound Traore, who comes to the UW from two-year Frank Phillips College in Texas, won't need any introduction to Big Ten play. It won't be a total shock to his system like it was to others at Alaska Airlines Arena. It's been there before.

He spent the 2023-24 season at Maryland, appearing in 12 games and starting four, before a knee injury curtailed his season. The year before, he played at New Mexico State, though that team was in disarray and had its season end early.

"Washington fans can expect a person that is hard-working, humble and that brings a lot of energy on the court with my versatility," Traore told JUCO Round Up, which is an off shoot of Rivals.com.

While resetting in the JC ranks, Traore appeared in 34 games for a 25-9 Phillips team and averaged 13.2 points, 8.4 rebounds and 1.3 assists, while shooting 53.4 percent from the field. He's not necessarily a 3-point shooter, hitting just 22.2 of his attempts from behind the line.

He told JUCO Round Up he picked the Huskies over Memphis, George Mason and UC Santa Barbara, signing with them on Nov. 24.

"I felt it was the best decision for me because of their great staff," Traore said of Sprinkle's guys. "The staff has a lot of experience at the pro level, such as the NBA. They also had a vision for how they see me impacting the game on both sides."

The big man should arrive on campus by June, if not before, and meet all of his new teammates and the coaches.

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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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