The Huskies and their revamped roster are on several top 25 voters' radar
The Washington Huskies men's basketball team will have an almost completely new look in the program's second season under head coach Danny Sprinkle.
Sprinkle will guide a team that has just two returners from the previous season: sophomore guard Zoom Diallo and graduate center Franck Kepnang.
The roster overhaul comes one year after the Huskies finished last in the Big Ten. They finished the season 13-18 overall and 4-16 in conference play.
The new-look Washington team includes several NCAA Division I transfers, including Southern California (USC) guards Desmond Claude and Wesley Yates III. Those two players drew the praise of Diallo and several other Associated Press (AP) Top 25 voters seem to be high on the Huskies.
In the first AP Top 25 men's basketball poll of the season, Washington went unranked but received seven votes in the poll.
Including the Huskies, 12 Big Ten teams were either ranked or received votes: Purdue (No. 1); Michigan (No. 7); UCLA (No. 12); Illinois (Big Ten); Michigan State (No. 22); Wisconsin (No. 24); Oregon (RV); Ohio State (RV); USC (RV); Washington (RV); Iowa (RV) and Indiana (RV).
The Huskies missed the threshold for the postseason Big Ten tournament in 2024-25 due to the cut-off being at 15 teams. The postseason tournament will expand to the entire conference (18 teams) this season, meaning the Huskies will have a chance to win the Big Ten and play their way in the conference tournament no matter what.
Washington will hope that it won't come to that point and that it will play better in the regular season so it won't need to win the postseason tournament. The Huskies' last NCAA Tournament berth was in 2019 and its last conference championship was in 2011 when it was still a member of the Pac-12.
Washington will begin the 2025-26 season against Arkansas-Pine Bluff at a to-be-determined time on Nov. 3 at Alaska Airlines Arena in Seattle.
RELATED HUSKIES STORIES
WASHINGTON QUARTERBACK EARNS SECOND WEEKLY CONFERENCE HONOR: Demond Williams Jr., who set a program record in yards against Rutgers, earned weekly conference honors for the second time this season. CLICK HERE
WASHINGTON WIDE RECEIVER HAS BEEN INCREDIBLY CONSISTENT: Denzel Boston has been one of the most reliable passing targets in the country this season. CLICK HERE
WASHINGTON QUARTERBACK SETS PROGRAM RECORD: Demond Williams Jr. had arguably the best single game by a signal caller in program history Friday. CLICK HERE
JOIN THE CONVERSATION
Remember to join our HUSKIES on ROUNDTABLE community, which is FREE! You can post your own thoughts, in text or video form, and you can engage with our Roundtable staff, as well as other Washington fans. If prompted to download the Roundtable APP, that's free too!