Inside The Huskies

Sprinkle Promises Next Huskies Will Play at Much Faster Pace

His first UW team had to take things slower because it didn't have enough firepower.
Dan Raley|
Danny Sprinkle watches the Huskies face Illinois.
Danny Sprinkle watches the Huskies face Illinois. | Skylar Lin Visuals

Danny Sprinkle's University of Washington basketball team currently looks a lot like the new practice facility going up behind Hec Edmundson Pavilion.

Under construction. Beginning to take shape. Something soon to be new and different.

While many of the faces are unfamiliar for the Huskies this coming season -- 12 of 14 roster slots have changed hands in the past three months -- how the coach plans to use them will be notably different than his first UW team, as well.

"The one thing we're going to try to do is we're going to really try and play a lot faster," Sprinkle said on Monday. "Last year -- I hate playing like that. We had to limit possessions with that group to give ourselves a chance to succeed. I don't want to do that."

In his first season in Montlake, the coach saw his Huskies average 71.6 points per game compared to 75.5 for the opposition.

That's expected to change.

"We're going to play fast," Sprinkle said. "I want to play fast. I want to attack. I want to get our guards downhill. Bigs in front of the rim. If you're open, we want to shoot to make a lot more threes."

As the Husky coach leads his team through permissible summer workouts, he has 10 of his 14 players on hand, with freshmen in 6-foot-9 Hannes Steinbach and 6-foot-4 JJ Mandaquit currently playing in the U19 FIBA World Cup in Switzerland, 6-foot-11 Christian Nitu getting ready for coming U20 FIBA Eurobasket in Romania and 6-foot-11 Mady Traore dealing with visa issues.

Of the two Husky returnees, 6-foot-11 senior center Franck Kepnang, following a series of knee injuries that ended or interrupted his past three seasons, appears as healthy as he's been in quite some time.

"He's in great shape," Sprinkle said. "He lost 10 to 12 pounds. He leaned up to take pressure off his knees."

Obviously, someone let Kepnang know he's going to have to play a lot faster this coming season.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

Published
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.

Home/Basketball