Not a lot has gone right for the Washington Huskies men's basketball team this season.

Despite competitive showings in conference competition against ranked opponents, the Huskies have been rattled with injuries and find themselves 11-10 overall this season and 3-7 in Big Ten competition.

There is zero breathing room for Washington to make anymore mistakes or lose anymore games if it wishes to keep any semblance of NCAA Tournament hopes alive.

One thing that has gone right for the Huskies is freshman forward Hannes Steinbach.

The German recruit has emerged as UW's best player and has received a fair amount of 2026 NBA Draft hype.

Steinbach is averaging 17.4 points per game, 11.3 rebounds per game, 1.6 assists, 1.1 blocks and 1.1 steals per game, respectively. He's connected on 52.8% of his shots from the floor.

Steinbach's 17.4 points and 11.3 rebounds per game both lead the team.

Steinbach has registered a double-double in 13-of-18 games played this season, which leads the Big Ten. He needs one more to etch his name into the Washington history books.

Steinbach needs one more double-double to pass Isaiah Stewart for the freshman program record.

Stewart set the previous record with the Huskies in 2019-20.

Stewart, who was a five-star recruit and the fourth-ranked recruit in the country in the class of 2019 according to 247Sports, was a one-and-done player at Washington and was selected with the 16th overall pick in the 2020 NBA Draft by the Portland TrailBlazers. He was traded to the Detroit Pistons days after the draft on Nov. 22, 2020, where he's played since.

Steward was a first-team All-Pac-12 selection and named to the Pac-12 All-Freshman team in his lone season in the Pacific Northwest.

Steinbach's stellar freshman season has been a saving grace on what has otherwise been a disappointing year for a Washington team that rebuilt its roster from the ground up this postseason.

If the Huskies do end up making a run to the NCAA Tournament, it would be the first tournament berth for UW since 2019 and Steinbach will be a driving force behind the drought being broken.

Washington will next be in action against the Northwestern Wildcats at 5 p.m. PT on Jan. 31 at Welsh-Ryan Arena in Evanston, Ill. The Huskies will return home after that game to play the Iowa Hawkeyes at 8 p.m. PT on Feb. 4 at Alaska Airlines Arena in Seattle.

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