Inside The Huskies

Saddled With Losing Streak, Sprinkle Challenges UW Team

The Huskies have dropped four in a row heading into Tuesday's game at Oregon.
Dan Raley|
Danny Sprinkle watches the Huskies face Illinois.
Danny Sprinkle watches the Huskies face Illinois. | Skylar Lin Visuals

Danny Sprinkle takes his University of Washington basketball team on the road to face the No. 15 Oregon Ducks in a late-night Tuesday encounter -- in the fifth of six consecutive games against ranked opponents.

From East Lansing to Eugene, it's been a midseason obstacle course so far, with the Huskies (10-8 overall, 1-6 Big Ten) saddled with a four-game losing streak against an Oregon team (15-3, 4-3) coming off a 65-58 loss to Purdue on Saturday, three days after the 11th-ranked Boilermakers topped the UW 69-58.

For Sprinkle, the first-year UW coach has had to deal with a flurry of defeats after coming off consecutive seasons at Montana State and Utah State with 27, 25 and 28 victories.

"it's hard, it's hard," Sprinkle said with emphasis. "Just as a competitor, you want to win every game. It doesn't matter who we're playing. I get frustrated watching when I see our 17 turnovers against Purdue."

With another setback against the Ducks, the new Husky coach will match his worst losing streak in his six seasons as a college basketball head coach.

He previously watched his 2020-21 team at Montana State lose by 13, 8, 16, 16 and 5 points midway though that Big Sky schedule on the way to a 13-10 season, which was his second in charge.

A year ago, for a 28-7 Utah State club, Sprinkle lost no more than two games in a row on the way to the NCAA Tournament.

For the UW, he has almost an all-new roster combined with near season-long injuries to 6-foot-11 senior center Franck Kepnang and 6-foot-9 senior forward Chris Conway, plus the late arrival of 6-foot-8 French freshman forward Dominique Diamonde, now working himself into shape.

Sprinkle cann deal with the losses, just not how they're happening. He cites those 17 turnovers committed against Purdue, many of them simply self-afflicted miscues bowing to pressure.

"I challenged our team [that] we have to take ownership of that," he said. "You personally, it's got to hurt, man."

Tipoff is at 8 p.m. in Eugene and the Big Ten Network will show the game.

For the latest UW football and basketball news, go to si.com/college/washington

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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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