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Inside The Huskies

UW Basketball Hasn't Been Top 10 in Anything -- Until Now

Danny Sprinkle's transfer portal efforts have been singled out.
Dan Raley|
Great Osobor reacts favorably after a play against the TCU in the first round of the 2024 NCAA Tournament.
Great Osobor reacts favorably after a play against the TCU in the first round of the 2024 NCAA Tournament. | Robert Goddin-USA TODAY Sports

The University of Washington basketball team hasn't been Top 10 in anything for the longest time. Certainly not in the Associated Press poll, where the Huskies are now going on 19 seasons without an upper-tier ranking, or since Brandon Roy was the college game's best player.

Ever slowly people are beginning to recognize that the UW is attempting a college basketball renaissance under new coach Danny Sprinkle, who just spent the past two months almost completely remaking his roster.

On Monday, 247Sports acknowledged that Sprinkle appears to be progressing quite nicely in bringing bulk basketball talent to Montlake by giving the Huskies the No. 8 spot in its Top 10 transfer portal team rankings.

Consider in this analytical breakdown, the UW trails, in this order, Arkansas, Indiana, Kansas, St. John's, Kentucky, West Virginia and Alabama, and tops Michigan and UCLA. That is rare company, indeed, for Husky basketball.

National writer Brad Crawford assessed the work of Sprinkle's hit-the-ground-running staff in this manner:

"With five new player acquisitions in May, Washington enjoyed one of the biggest rises in the national transfer portal team rankings and now has a top 10 haul this cycle. The Huskies opted for frontcourt help with Utah State star Great Osobor and Portland's Tyler Harris and solidified their backcourt with four-star D.J. Davis from Butler and Rice's Mekhi Mason. North Dakota 6-4 guard Tyree Ihenacho is the latest addition, joining Rhode Island's Luis Kortright."

The Huskies have only three holdovers from last season's 17-15 team that was coached by Mike Hopkins, who was replaced once the season ended. Just one of those players, 6-foot-11 center Franck Kepnang, appears in the running for a starting role and regular rotation play this coming season, though he needs to avoid injuries.

While the UW has made a lot of program-building progress, the outside experts haven't ranked the team or any of the Huskies among any offseason lists in any manner -- until this one.

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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