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Inside The Huskies

Muldrew Becomes First Husky Headed for Transfer Portal

The guard from Arkansas played in 20 games as a UW freshman.
Dan Raley|
Courtland Muldrew confers with UW coach Danny Sprinkle.
Courtland Muldrew confers with UW coach Danny Sprinkle. | Dave Sizer photo

Courtland Muldrew, the freshman guard from Arkansas, on Tuesday became the first player to leave the latest University of Washington basketball team and head for the transfer portal.

In this day and age of nonstop roster jumping across the college game, the only real surprise here is that it took 19 days from the end of the Huskies' season for someone to make a move.

The 6-foot-3 Muldrew, who reposted the news below reporting his departure, exits Montlake after appearing in 20 games and starting once for a 16-17 team.

His strengths were clearly his quickness and athleticism, which could be highly disruptive for opposing teams, and coach Danny Sprinkle repeatedly complimented him for it.

Oddly enough, though, Muldrew came to the Huskies as Arkansas' all-time leading high school scorer and he seemed limited offensively at the college level.

He didn't have a reliable outside shot, which was a team-wide shortcoming, hitting just 4 of 19 attempts from 3-point range.

Muldrew was one of five freshmen Sprinkle brought in this season, teaming with forward Hannes Steinbach, guard JJ Mandaquit, forward Nikola Dzepina and swingman Jaris Rencher.

Of that group, Steinbach is expected to enter the NBA Draft, Rencher is recovering from heart issues and Mandaquit is coming off foot surgery.

Courtland Muldrew drives to the basket against USC.
Courtland Muldrew drives to the basket against USC. | Dave Sizer photo

In the preseason, Muldrew met with the media and explained why he left his home state and the heavy recruitment of Arkansas and coach John Calipari behind to come to the UW.

"Sprinkle has been loyal to me," Muldrew said in October. "I was the first commit here. Me being the first commit, I felt it was big time. I just wanted to stay loyal."

Well, not anymore.

He sat out 13 of the first 25 games as he found himself well down rotation with a bunch of older guards.

Yet with injuries piling up and the roster down to eight players at the end, Muldrew got his chance and drew significant minutes over the final eight games, and seemed to flourish.

He matched his season-high 9 points on three occasions coming down the stretch.

Courtland Muldrew never lacked for confidence as a UW freshman.
Courtland Muldrew never lacked for confidence as a UW freshman. | Dave Sizer photo

He had a 9-point flurry when he combined with Dzepina to score 14 of the Huskies' final 16 points to seal a 91-72 victory over USC.

He had a season-best 3 steals in that game.

Muldrew will be a decent player for someone when he relocates, yet he still needs to develop an outside shot if he intends to become a pro player.

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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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