Inside The Huskies

UW Signs Hannes Steinbach Hoping for More German Success

The 6-foot-10 recruit from Wurzberg doesn't turn 19 until next month.

Dan Raley

Germany's Hannes Steinbach has signed to play basketball for the UW.
Germany's Hannes Steinbach has signed to play basketball for the UW. / Steinbach

Now that Hannes Steinbach has signed his scholarship agreement to play this season for the University of Washington basketball team, someone needs to slip him Detlef Schrempf's cell phone number.

Tell him about Die Bierstube, a German pub not far from campus with its Bavarian pretzels, sausages and lagers.

Take him to the Rhein House restaurant on Capitol Hill for a meal heavy on the meat and potatoes fare that will remind him of home.

Better yet, just bring him to Dick's Drive-In in the Wallingford District and let him become learned on Seattle tradition and Americanized all at once.

Hannes is a 6-foot-10 forward from Wurzberg, Germany, which is halfway between Frankfurt and Nuremberg. He's someone who's been described as somewhat of an international prodigy by Danny Sprinkle, now hoping to get more out of him than he did Frenchman Dominique Diomande, which was zilch in terms of game time.

“He brings a great skill set, IQ and toughness along with tremendous size to our program," Sprinkle said of this European player. "He has competed at the highest level of international basketball with diverse opportunities and has been extremely successful while doing it."

Again, the Huskies have a long history with German basketball players who have become highly decorated and productive in Montlake, topped by the late Christian Welp and Schrempf, both eventual NBA players.

The 7-foot Welp, who died in 2015, remains the school's all-time leading scorer with 2,073 points, while the 6-foot-10 Schrempf became one of the highest drafted Huskies, going eighth overall in the 1985 draft.

Then again, there were a few Germans who didn't pan out, such as Ulrick "Uli" Sledz, a 7-footer who played in just six games and scored 6 points during the 1977-78 season and went home.

Steinbach is widely considered to be one of the top European prospects in his age group, most recently competing for Würzburg Baskets of the German Bundesliga, the nation’s top league. He averages a modest 7.1 points and 5.4 rebounds per game while shooting 68 percent overall.

For Germany in FIBA U18 action, Steinbach averaged a more wieldy 15.4 points, 12.7 rebounds and 1.4 blocks in international competition.

He turns 19 next month.

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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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