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Inside The Huskies

Pondexter Departs UW to Become G League Head Coach

The former Husky all-conference forward exits after two coaching stints at his alma mater.
Dan Raley|
Wesley Yates III bumps fists with UW assistant coach Quincy Pondexter.
Wesley Yates III bumps fists with UW assistant coach Quincy Pondexter. | UW

Quincy Pondexter has left the University of Washington basketball program to become an NBA G League head coach, making him the fourth Husky assistant to depart Montlake since the season ended.

The former NBA player will head up the Windy City Bulls, a feeder team for the Chicago Bulls based in Hoffman Estates, Illinois.

Pondexter has been a UW basketball fixture on and off for two decades, playing as a first-team All-Pac-10 selection for the Huskies in 2007-10 and coaching three seasons for Mike Hopkins in 2022-24 and this past season for current coach Danny Sprinkle.

Yet guided by his coaching ambitions, he joins a fairly significant exodus of players and assistant coaches at the UW.

Prior to Pondexter making a career change, the Huskies lost assistants in Jerry Hobbie to TCU, Tommy Conner to retirement and DeMarlo Slocum to an apparent coaching hiatus.

For replacements, the Huskies have hired DeAndre Haynes, most recently from Marquette, and Charles Klask, a former NBA assistant and scout, who last was with the Denver Nuggets in 2025.

The only remaining assistants from this past season are Jerry Hill and Abdul Gaddy.

Sprinkle's assistants, no matter who it is, have been extremely busy trying to restock a UW roster that had 10 of its 16 players leave because of graduation or transfers once the season ended.

Pondexter, 38, coached for a season at USC between his Husky stints and seems upwardly mobile in terms of the profession.

He played nine NBA seasons for four teams, including 2018 with the Chicago Bulls, who he'll be directly involved with in his new position.

Quincy Pondexter (3) is shown in 2019 with the San Antonio Spurs, his last NBA team as a player.
Quincy Pondexter (3) is shown in 2019 with the San Antonio Spurs, his last NBA team as a player. | USA TODAY Sports

The 6-foot-7 forward originally from Fresno, California, was a first-round draft pick, the 26th player taken overall, for the then New Orleans Hornets and the Memphis Grizzlies.

He also played a second stint for New Orleans, now known as the Pelicans, and retired from the NBA with the San Antonio Spurs in 2019.

As a senior for the UW in 2010, Pondexter averaged 19.3 points and 7.4 rebounds per game to help carry Lorenzo Romar's Huskies into the NCAA Tournament.

In the postseasonevent, he was directly responsible for the UW beating Marquette 80-78 by supplying a last-second bank shot and New Mexico 82-64 with his team-high 18 points before the Huskies fell to West Virginia 69-56.

On that 26-10 team, Pondexter's starting backcourt consisted of Isaiah Thomas and Gaddy, with the latter still on the UW staff.

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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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