With Quade Green on Board, the Huskies Should Have Been Winners
Quade Green forever will be remembered as a talented college basketball player who couldn't quite find what he was looking for.
Some of it was his fault, some not.
A 5-star guard from Philadelphia, he signed with Kentucky, stayed for a season and a month, and left after his role decreased.
Green transferred to the University of Washington and helped guide a promising Husky team to an 11-4 record and a national ranking, but he became academically ineligible and the team tanked.
This season, it was hoped that a Green-led team could bring the UW back to respectability following the downturn, but the program went in the wrong direction again. It holds up the second-worst record (5-20) in school history.
Each time, the high-pedigree player was left wanting.
The 6-foot-3 Green soon will play his final game for the Huskies (5-20 overall, 4-16 conference), most likely in the Pac-12 tournament, which begins for them on Wednesday afternoon against Utah (11-12, 8-11) at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Twenty-seven months ago, the playmaker announced his intentions to join Mike Hopkins' team and excited Seattle basketball fans no end.
With a John Calipari point guard on hand, the idea was the Huskies would elevate the program a notch or two, especially after signing 5-star recruits Isaiah Stewart and Jaden McDaniels to go with him.
The possibilities were all so illuminating for the UW's NCAA tournament-starved basketball fans (soon to be one berth in 10 years).
Instead, everything came crashing down.
Green neglected his academics and was ruled ineligible, and the Huskies fell into a death spiral.
Over two seasons, they can't seem to pull out of it.
"I let the team down badly and with that academic ineligible stuff, I never felt lower than last year," a remorseful Green said on the eve of the first game. "Every day, I was beating myself up."
Quade Green brings the ball up the floor at Alaska Airlines Arena.
UW Athletics
With the UW off for 11 days from its regular-season finale to resuming play in the Pac-12 tournament, we're sizing up the play for each of the 11 players who has received minutes with a game on the line. Ten scholarship recipients and 7-foot-4 Riley Sorn. This is the 10th installment.
It was almost as if the UW mortgaged everything to obtain Green and the bank called in the loans extra early.
As a true freshman at Kentucky, he started 13 of the first 15 games before getting pulled from the opening lineup for good. He averaged 9.3 points and 2.7 assists per game, scoring in double figures 17 times, with one 20-point game.
The guard departed Lexington after coming off the bench for the Wildcats during the first nine games of his second season and having his minutes cut dramatically. He wasn't willing to try and work his way back in good graces as a player for Calipari.
Quade Green lets fly with his jumper for Kentucky.
Mike Weaver/USA TODAY Sports
With a fresh start at Washington, Green averaged 11.6 points and 5.2 assists in those 15 Husky games in 2019-20. He played well enough with the two freshmen big men alongside him. He scored in double figures in 10 outings, three times with 20 or more points. He shot 51.4 percent overall, 44.7 from 3-point range.
Yet without him, the Huskies were totally lost, nosediving to a 15-17 record and last-place finish.
This season it was hoped that things couldn't get any worse, but they did.
It was hoped Green's return as a senior would energize a program as much as his absence deflated it the year before.
Even the guard was overly hopeful when his senior season began.
"I've got a new slate, a new team, a better team," Green said before the opener. "We're ready to go now."
It's been ugly.
Five measly victories.
With those talented young big men in the NBA, Green has increased his team-high scoring to 14.8, but his assists have dropped to 3.5 per game, and his shooting has dipped to 42 percent, 30.9 from behind the line.
He's scored in double figures in 17 of his 24 Husky appearances, 7 times reaching 20 points or more. He has a season-high of 26 points against Oregon and 25 against UCLA, two of the Pac-12's tougher teams.
Still in December, with four seconds remaining and trailing the Ducks by 2, he launched a 3-pointer for the upset win and watched it bounce off.
A week and a half ago, Green had a 1-point lead and the ball with 18 seconds remaining at Arizona when the competitor in him elbowed the guy dogging him and he got called for an offensive foul, enabling the Wildcats to pull out a late victory.
The rewards have been few for him the supposed difference-maker. It's been that kind of year.
Green has the option to return for another UW season, but he's been vague about his intentions.
While his scholastic history hasn't always been exemplary, he will graduate soon, which would seem to indicate he likely moves on and gives the NBA a try, though he is undersized.
It's a shame the Huskies didn't have more success running behind a Kentucky-bred point guard.
Follow Dan Raley of Husky Maven on Twitter: @DanRaley1 and @HuskyMaven
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