Ahead of the 2026-27 college basketball season, expectations for coach Danny Sprinkle and the Washington Huskies aren’t overly high coming off a season in which the program went 16-17 on the year and 7-13 in Big Ten play.
On Wednesday, CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein released his initial power rankings for the conference ahead of Sprinkle’s third season at the helm, placing the Huskies at No. 14, ahead of only Minnesota, Rutgers, Northwestern, and Penn State.
Advertisement
After a year in which the Huskies bet big on the transfer portal and were bitten by the injury bug at every turn, Sprinkle doesn’t have the same talent that he did last year after the departures of several key pieces in the transfer portal, headlined by guard Zoom Diallo leaving for Kentucky, and is hoping to rely on some returners to lead the way.
Guard Wesley Yates III should be at the forefront of the offense after averaging 12.7 points and 3.3 rebounds per game, while he struggled from three-point range, shooting just 31.2 percent from long distance. However, he also missed time in the middle of the year due to a broken wrist, and as the roster dwindled to just seven scholarship players, he was forced to take a large number of inefficient shots later in the season.
Sprinkle is also hoping that international big men Nikola Dzepina, who joined the team in mid-December, and Mady Traore, who suffered a torn tendon in his foot in the preseason, can make an impact to make up for the loss of the nation’s leading rebounder, Hannes Steinbach, who was taken at No. 14 overall in the 2026 NBA draft by the Charlotte Hornets.
Advertisement
If the Huskies can also get improved three-point shooting from transfer portal additions Parker Friedrichsen, Ryan Beasley, and Steele Venters, they could outplay Rothstein’s ranking.
This article originally appeared on Huskies Wire: Jon Rothstein ranks Washington basketball in bottom third of Big Ten
