Inside The Huskies

UW Basketball Team Loses Second Player to Injury in Ognacevic

The 6-foot-8 transfer forward suffered a foot issue in practice that will keep him out at least three months.
Dan Raley|
Jacob Ognacevic, now with the UW, looks for an opening for Lipscomb against Arkansas forward Trevon Brazile last November.
Jacob Ognacevic, now with the UW, looks for an opening for Lipscomb against Arkansas forward Trevon Brazile last November. | Nelson Chenault-Imagn Images

While the University of Washington basketball team has decidedly more talent on hand for the coming season, it's sadly lacking in luck.

At Big Ten Basketball Media Day in Chicago, Husky coach Danny Sprinkle revealed how he's lost 6-foot-8 transfer forward Jacob Ognacevic to a foot issue for at least three months -- the UW's second significant player injury over the past month.

Last season's Atlantic Sun Player of the Year, Ognacevic was a projected starter and considered one of the Huskies' top outside shooters after coming to Montlake from Lipscomb in Nashville, Tennessee.

Earlier, 6-foot-11 transfer center Mady Traore suffered a season-ending foot injury in practice and won't play for the UW until the 2026-27 campaign.

Ognacevic came to the Huskies after averaging an even 20 points per game last season -- the highest of any player on Sprinkle's roster -- shooting at a 57.5 percent rate, including 40.2 from 3-point range.

The Husky coach was greatly encouraged by what he had seen of the player originally from Sheboygan, Wisconsin, after watching him in practice throughout the summer and the fall.

"When he's making 3s, we're going to be a totally different team," Sprinkle said. " We're going to be really hard to guard. I expect him to shoot a tremendous percentage and shoot a lot of them."

Ognacevic has dealt with a serious injury before on the college level, tearing up a knee in the preseason that forced him to sit out his entire second season at Lipscomb in 2023-24.

In losing Ognacevic for most the season, if not all, and Traore, the Huskies have taken a significant hit to its front line.

Sprinkle referred to Traore, who previously played for a Texas junior college, Maryland and New Mexico State, as his "most athletic player" in terms of running and jumping.

The Huskies, picked to finish 11th in the Big Ten in a preseason media poll, are coming off a last-place showing in Sprinkle's first season as the UW coach.

The thing that supposedly separated this Husky team from last year's was the upgrade in players up front and now they're down two.

The Huskies play an exhibition game against UNLV at noon on Sunday, Oct. 19, and open the regular season with a home game against Arkansas-Pine Bluff on Monday, Nov. 3.

And they'll have to do it without the services of Jacob Ognacevic.

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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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