The Mystery of Marcus Tsohonis — Will He Sit or Play This Week?

Marcus Tsohonis plays an unconventional basketball game, for sure.

He shoots a jump shot held out in front of his face rather than directly overhead, one that becomes more of a push than a flip, yet it goes in.

Oh yeah, the guy with the biggest hair in the Pac-12 completely disappears from the University of Washington basketball lineup more often than a guy on the run in the witness-protection program.

One minute he's the forgotten man, the next he's front and center, even a star.

Tsohonis sat out against Oregon and two games later the sophomore guard scored 14 points in 12 minutes at Colorado.

He didn't play at all against Arizona, but in the next outing Tsohonis started and dropped in a career-best 24 points on Stanford.

Two games following that breakthrough moment, he didn't get on the floor at all against USC, but two days after that he pulled 27 minutes and scored 9 points against UCLA.

On Wednesday night, the Huskies (1-11 overall, 0-7 Pac-12) host Colorado (11-3, 5-2) at Alaska Airlines Arena.

The 6-foot-3, 190-pound Tsohonis will be on the court stretching and taking turns in the layup lines.

Beyond that, the Buffaloes might as well throw out any scouting report they have on Tsohonis. There's no telling whether UW coach Mike Hopkins will let him take off his warm-ups or not.

As his Husky career flat-lines and resuscitates every few games, the Portland playmaker deserves credit for going along with this minutes madness in an stoic, fully engaged approach.

"It's nothing personal," Tsohonis said. "I've just got to take it to the chin. I've just got to play hard, work out and get better. Hopefully, if my name is called and being in the game, I'm ready to take on the challenge."

With the Huskies suffering through a historic downturn — only the 1953-54 team has started a season worse at 1-14 — players moving in and out of the lineup should be expected.

Yet the handling of Tsohonis runs to the extreme. In his two UW seasons, he always seems to be an afterthought before he performs well, which happens over and over.

Hopkins prefers to play just eight players each game, though most have been so one-sided this season that approach doesn't necessarily hold up.

"It was all about his work and stepping that up," Hopkins said of starting the young guard at Stanford. "I thought he had some great practices. He earned it."

A year ago, the coach removed redshirt status from Tsohonis at midseason once point guard Quade Green became academically ineligible. As the emergency fill-in, he played 19 games and started nine of them.

He did well against the league's better teams, scoring 19 points against Arizona State and 14 against Oregon. He averaged 7.3 points and 2.2 assists per game.

Yet with Green back and junior-college transfer Nate Pryor drawing most of the time, Tsohonis barely left the bench once this pandemic season began. Over the first six contests, he averaged 7 minutes a game and scored a combined 6 points.

That first Colorado game in Boulder was his coming-out party — until he sat down again.

Tsohonis, who averages 5.9 points and an assist per game this season, was a 3-star recruit who chose the Huskies over offers from Arizona State, USC and Washington State, though his home-state Oregon Ducks passed on him.

He seems like a loyal soldier. It will be interesting to see if he receives a bigger UW role at some point, remains mired in this constant shuffle or quietly moves on.

He's up, he's down, while his team can't get off the mat.

For now, he's like a firefighter on call.

"Whenever my number is called, I'm just making sure I'm ready to play," Tsohonis said.

Follow Dan Raley of Husky Maven on Twitter: @DanRaley1 and @HuskyMaven

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