SeaTown Sports Brew: Early Projections for Washington Basketball in the Big Ten
SeaTown Sports Brew: Early Projections for Washington Basketball in the Big Ten
Weekly Seattle Sports Roundup: Exploring Washington Huskies basketball's transition to the Big Ten under new coach Danny Sprinkle and early season projections.
The SeaTown Sports Brew is a weekly briefing and roundup providing insight into Seattle’s sports teams and athletes. Have a tip? Leave us a comment or email me at kevin@seatownsports.org. Subscribe below if you want this in your inbox every Monday.
The Leadoff - Early Projections for Washington Huskies Basketball
It is human nature, right? When the thing in front of you isn’t what you want, you start to think about the thing that is not in front of you. While two Washington Huskies football losses is not the end of the world, I don’t think I’m alone in already thinking about the upcoming Washington Huskies basketball season.
If you haven’t heard, or forgot, the Huskies moved on from Mike Hopkins earlier this year, and hired Danny Sprinkle. The son of former UW football defensive back, Bill Sprinkle (1965-1968), Danny, has been to the NCAA tournament the past three seasons with Utah State and Montana State. The hope on Montlake is that Sprinkle helps put some life into a basketball program that has not made the NCAA tournament since 2019.
Making a fourth consecutive NCAA tournament will be a challenge for Sprinkle for two primary reasons First, he’ll have to bring together a group of transfers to play cohesively on both ends of the court. The Huskies return zero starters from last season’s team and will start players from different schools, programs, and systems. Second, the Huskies are now in the Big Ten. That means conference games against the likes of Indiana, Purdue, Michigan State, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio State, and the Huskies’ old Pac-12 mates, UCLA, USC, and Oregon.
I’m not going to deep dive into Washington’s roster right now, but I wanted to give you a sense of where early projections have the Huskies finishing in the Big Ten:
ESPN’s Joe Lunardi has Washington OUT in his bracketology. He has nine Big Ten teams in the field of 68 and he has four Big Ten teams as his First Four Out. This means, the highest the Huskies are ranked in his projections is No. 14 in the Big Ten out of 18 schools.
- at The Blue Ribbon Report, the go-to preview publication for college basketball, places Washington at No. 10 in the Big Ten Conference, ranked above Nebraska, Maryland, and Wisconsin. Those three schools are in Lunardi’s First Four Out.
What do these projections mean? The early, and I emphasize, early, projections have the Huskies’ ceiling as a bubble team. The floor for this team is finishing in the bottom half of the Big Ten. So, I’m saying there’s a chance that we might see the Huskies dancing in March. Count me as even more optimistic when the Huskies have arguably the best player on the West Coast in the Big Ten, Great Osobor.
We’ll have more college basketball coverage as the season nears. Until then . . . onto the rest of the Brew.
Winners and Losers
Losers - Seattle Mariners (85-77) - Of course the Mariners end their season 5-1 in their last week of play.
’s obituary is at the 9:29 mark:Losers - Seattle Storm (25-15) - The Las Vegas Aces ended the Storm’s season last Tuesday, sweeping Seattle in a best-of-three playoff series. My obituary is at the 11:21 mark:
Losers - Washington Huskies (3-2) - The Huskies lost a frustrating road game to Rutgers, 21-18. Our post-game analysis is here:
Winners - Seattle Sounders FC (14-8-9) - The Sounders picked up three points, defeating the Houston Dynamo 1-0 with Paul Rothrock scoring the lone goal for Seattle.
Losers - Seattle Reign (5-5-12) - The Reign fell 1-0 to Bay FC. They have now dropped three of their past five matches.
On-Deck
All game times Pacific Time.
The Washington Huskies (3-2) host Michigan (4-1) for a National Championship rematch on Saturday 10/5, at 4:30 p.m. on NBC.
The Sounders (14-8-9) travel to Vancouver to take on the White Caps (13-8-9), Wednesday 10/2, 7:30 p.m. Seattle then heads to Colorado to face the Colorado Rapids (15-5-11) Saturday 10/5, 6:30 p.m. Both matches are on on Apple TV+ (MLS Season Pass).
The Reign (5-5-12) host Angel City FC (6-4-12) on Friday 10/4, at 7 p.m. on Amazon Prime.
The Seahawks (3-0) are in Detroit today for a Monday Night Football matchup against the Lions (2-1) at 5:15 p.m. on ABC. The Seahawks then will host the New York Giants on Sunday 10/6, at 1:25 p.m. on CBS.
The Kraken have a pair of preseason matches:
Tuesday 9/30, 6 p.m. at Calgary Flames on the Kraken Hockey Network and KONG.
Wednesday 10/2, 7 p.m. vs. Edmonton Oiler at Climate Pledge Arena on he Kraken Hockey Network and KONG.
Fast Break
Subscriber Shoutouts!
Shoutout to Darren, Jen, and
. Thanks for subscribing!Thanks to Peter,
, and Daniel for the support!Is your name missing? Leave us a comment and complain, or wait until next Monday!