The Washington Huskies men's basketball team has had a current and potential future player put up solid numbers in the FIBA U20 EuroBasket tournament in Slovenia.

The Huskies' current player who's been taking part in the event was sophomore forward Nikola Dzepina, who helped guide his native Serbia to the championship game against Slovenia, which was guided by UW recruiting target, 6-foot-6 combo guard Urban Kroflic.

Dzepina and Serbia were unable to take down Slovenia. Serbia fell 84-65 to Slovenia in the championship game Sunday.

Despite the loss, Dzepina earned impressive honors for his performance in the tournament.

The 6-foot-10 forward was named to the EuroBasket All-Star Five. He was the only player on Serbia who received the honor. The other four recipients of the honor were: Raul Villar (Spain), Mark Padjen (Slovenia), Kroflic (Slovenia) and Mohamed Diakite (France).

In the championship game, Dzepina scored 10 points on a 3-for-11 mark from the floor and a 3-for-4 mark from the free-throw line. He also had nine rebounds, three assists and a block.

For the entire tournament, Dzepina averaged 13.9 points on 57.1% shooting from the field across seven games in addition to 6.6 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 1.9 blocks per  game.

Dzepina joined Washington in the winter quarter last year when the season was underway. The Serbian native was in-and-out of the rotation due to injuries and was unable to hit his stride, in large part due to him actively learning the playbook as he went along.

Dzepina finished his freshman season having averaged 2.6 points on a 30.2% clip from the floor across 14 games in addition to 1.3 rebounds. He averaged 11.1 minutes per game.

The Huskies will have a need this season to replace a significant amount of offensive production, both scoring and rebounding, which was vacated when forward Hannes Steinbach entered the 2026 NBA Draft. Steinbach led UW in scoring (18.5) and rebounding (11.8) last season.

If Dzepina's EuroBasket showing is a show of form similar to what the sophomore will have in college this season, he could prove to be an adequate replacement for Steinbach, who is working on getting his professional career going in the NBA with the Charlotte Hornets.

-- Washington head coach Danny Sprinkle was in Serbia to watch the EuroBasket tournament. While no doubt supporting Dzepina, he was also there looking to finally land Kroflic, who the team has had interest in for months.

The Huskies currently have 14 players signed to the roster for this upcoming season, leaving them one spot available. Kroflic missed the championship game for Slovenia against Dzepina and Serbia due to a hamstring injury he suffered in a semifinal game against France.

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