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Inside The Huskies

UW Basketball Unveils New Roster in Sunday Exhibition

Danny Sprinkle will be missing a third of his players who are hobbled by injuries against UNLV.
Dan Raley|
JJ Mandaquit and the UW will face UNLV in an exhibition game.
JJ Mandaquit and the UW will face UNLV in an exhibition game. | UW

For the curious, Danny Sprinkle will unveil his restocked and presumably upgraded University of Washington basketball team -- with 12 new players among his 14 -- for the first time on Sunday with an exhibition game against UNLV at Alaska Airlines Arena.

Tipoff is at noon and the event is open to the public. No radio broadcast will be provided and only those who have BIG-plus streaming will be able watch it at home.

The Huskies will open the season for real just over two weeks later, when they host Arkansas-Pine Bluff on Monday, Nov. 3.

Entering his second season in charge of the Huskies, Sprinkle acknowledged he'll have just two-thirds of his roster available for this no-counter, with injuries putting a number of players on the sideline.

"I really don't know who's going to play," he said following last Tuesday's practice.

Yet two of his most heralded players, both freshmen, will be in uniform and well worth an early look in 6-foot-1 point guard JJ Mandaquit and 6-foot-11 German import Hannes Steinbach.

"Our team executes best when he's on the floor," Sprinkle said of the pass-first Mandaquit. "He's got such an elite feel in passing ability."

Sprinkle returns two starters from last season's 13-18 team that finished last in the Big Ten in 6-foot-4 sophomore guard Zoom Diallo and 6-foot-11 senior center Franck Kepnang.

Another familiar face will be 6-foot-4 sophomore Wesley Yates III, a former Husky shooting guard who sat out the 2023-24 season in Montlake with a foot injury and transferred and played last season for USC.

Add to them 6-foot-10 sophomore center Lathan Sommerville, a Rutgers transfer; 6-foot-7 sophomore swingman Bryson Tucker, an Indiana transfer; and freshmen guards in 6-foot-3 Courtland Muldrew, who played his high school ball in Arkansas, and 6-foot-5 Jasir Reacher from Oakland, California.

New Huskies who are injured and won't play are 6-foot-6 senior guard Desmond Claude, a USC transfer; 6-foot-1 senior guard Quimari Peterson, an East Tennessee State transfer; 6-foot-8 senior forward Jacob Ognacevic, a Lipscomb transfer; 6-foot-11 sophomore Christian Nitu, a Florida State transfer; and 6-foot-11 junior Mady Traore, a one-time Maryland and New Mexico State player.

Traore is out for the season with a foot injury, while Ognacevic will miss three months of action, likewise dealing with a foot injury.

UNLV has a new coach in Josh Pastner, formerly the Memphis and Georgia Tech leader. He's undergone a roster rebuild similar to Sprinkle's, counting just one returning player in 6-foot-9 sophomore Jacob Bannarbie from Anchorage, Alaska. The Runnin' Rebels were 18-15 last season.

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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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