Inside The Huskies

Pondexter Scorecard: 1 Cousin on UW Scholarship, 2 With Offers

Lleyton Leonard, who plays high school basketball in Arizona, has a Husky scholarship proposal.
Dan Raley|
Lleyton Leonard is another Quincy Pondexter cousin and highly regarded basketball player.
Lleyton Leonard is another Quincy Pondexter cousin and highly regarded basketball player. | Leonard

One of these days Quincy Pondexter is going to run out of cousins and what is everybody going to do for college basketball talent?

For now, the University of Washington has his extremely talented cousin Wesley Yates III, the native Texan, back in Montlake on the roster for a second tour of duty after a year sabbatical at USC.

The Huskies have an offer out to another Pondexter cousin in 5-star prospect Davion Thompson from the Chicago suburbs.

And yet there's Lleyton Leonard, a 6-foot-4, 170-pound swingman originally from Fresno, California, now playing Arizona high school basketball and, you guessed it, he's another Pondexter cousin.

Find two more, and you could put an entire team of Pondexter relatives on the floor together and see where it takes you.

While Leonard has deep family basketball bloodlines, he's the son of Louis Leonard, a former Fresno State and NFL defensive tackle.

The older Leonard was a 6-foot-4, 325-pounder -- some 150 pounds heavier than his son is now -- who spent four seasons (2007-10) with the Carolina Panthers, Cleveland Browns, Denver Broncos, New England Patriots and St. Louis Rams, appearing in 25 games.

Lleyton Leonard is coming off his freshman season at Basha High School in Chandler, Arizona -- the same school that sent quarterback Demond Williams Jr. to the UW -- in which he averaged 13.2 points and 8.9 rebounds per game for a 20-8 team.

He's considered such a prodigy that Arizona State and coach Bobby Hurley offered him a scholarship on April 12, 2024, before he had ever appeared in a varsity high school game.

Leonard currently holds offers from ASU, California and Washington, with many more sure to come.

Yet he may have to check and see what all of his cousins intend to do before committing anywhere.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

Huskies Offer Pondexter Cousin in Chicago Suburbs

UW Newcomer JJ Mandaquit Receives Another National Team Invite

Huskies Make First Offer to Colorado Prodigy, Just 15

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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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