Tina Langley's Rebuilt Culture With Washington Huskies Women's Basketball Leading to Recruiting Success

SEATTLE — The No. 16 Washington Huskies women's basketball team is off to a 3-0 start to the season after wins of at least 16 points against the UC San Diego Tritons, Pacific Tigers and Cal State Bakersfield Roadrunners, respectively.

The Huskies' latest win of the trio of contests was an 85-51 result against the Roadrunners, which saw UW score a program-record 35 points in the first quarter.

Throughout Washington's three wins this season, the team's returning players as well as several new additions (via recruiting and the transfer portal) have all had their time to shine.

Before the Huskies' win against Cal State Bakersfield, the program added two new additions from the Class of 2027.

On Day 1 of the early national signing period Wednesday, UW inked top 100 players and combo guards Jessie Moses and Ze'Ni Patterson.

Patterson ranks as the 86th-best player in the Class of '27 according to the ESPN NEXT 100. Moses is ranked as the 30th-best overall player, second-best combo guard and fourth-best player from Florida in the class, per the 247Sports composite.

Over the last couple years, Washington's recruiting uptick has seen a noticeable uptick. This has coincided with head coach Tina Langley helping lead the program back to the dance. In March, the team advanced to the Round of 32 before falling by three points in overtime to eventual Elite Eight team, the TCU Horned Frogs.

On top of the recruiting seeing an uptick, Langley has also retained the top players on the team year-over-year, a rarity in the modern era of college athletics. All three conference honorees from last season, first-team All-Big Ten senior guard Sayvia Sellers, All-Big Ten honorable mention junior guard Avery Howell and Big Ten All-Freshman forward Brynn McGaughy all came back to the team this year.

McGaughy was a five-star recruit and a McDonald's All-American in the Class of 2025 and was the highest-rated recruit in Langley's tenure as UW head coach.

The combination of recruiting and talent retention is a combination that is rare, and when asked about, Langley gave credit to the families of the players in helping to build the current culture.

"I'm just really, deeply grateful to their families," Langley said in a postgame interview Thursday at Alaska Airlines Arena. "We have incredible families in our program. I think that's what made this program so special. The families have completely come on board. Supremely talented young women, and when you meet the families you're like 'wow, this is special this is different.' And these two young women that we've signed families' are tremendous, as well. It gives us an opportunity to build and have players in our program for four years. We were so fortunate to have that last season."

UW's recruiting also might see another notable addition in the near future. The team hosted and had an at-home visit with the consensus top player in the Class of '27, point guard Kaleena Smith.

Under Langley, the UW women's basketball team has legitimate conference championship aspirations for the first time since the Kelsey Plum-led teams of the mid-2010s. And the culture that's been built has the team set up for success for the future as well as the present.