Washington Big Man Jacob Ognacevic Ready to Hit Big 3s in Big Ten

SEATTLE, Wash. — New Washington Huskies sharp-shooting big man Jacob Ognacevic admits he wasn’t ready for Big Ten basketball coming out of high school.

Sure, he’d average 39 points and 16 rebounds per game his senior year in Big Ten country at Sheboygan Lutheran in Wisconsin in 2019-2020, but the big-time schools weren’t calling. Now a sixth-year senior for the Huskies following an Atlantic Sun Conference Player of the Year season at Lipscomb, the 6-8 forward believes it’s time.

“I don’t think I was ready to be in the Big 10,” said Ognacevic, who averaged 20 points and eight rebounds as the Bison went to the NCAA Tournament last season. “I think that’s what makes my college career really special. Each year, I’ve take a big leap, and I’ve gotten better each year.”

Ognacevic’s college journey began at Valparaiso as a 205-pound center.

“And my first year at Valpo, I was super slow,” said Ognacevic, who’s in the 240-245-pound range these days. “The physicality was an issue, too. I had to play the five [center position] because I wasn’t quick enough to guard the fours [power forwards]. So, just being able to work on my quickness, work on my speed, and then as each year happened, I was able to get more experience.”

Ognacevic averaged six points for Valparaiso in 2020-21 — a year that didn’t count eligbility-wise due to Covid — and then entered the portal. He started off quickly at Lipscomb, scoring 30 points in the first game of the 2021-22 season. He averaged 11.2 points that year and then 17.7 points his third season before taking the next step last year.

Though UW coach Danny Sprinkle likes the physical development, it’s Ognacevic’s smooth three-point shooting stroke that led to the second-year Washington head man reaching out when Ognacevic entered the transfer portal. Sprinkle, who felt forced to run more of a plodding offense in his first year at Washington because of a lack of shooters, sees his new big man as a key to a faster-paced team in 2025-26. The Huskies finished last in the Big Ten last season with a 4-16 record (13-18 overall). Washington’s 71.6 points per game trailed only Minnesota’s 68.1.

“When he’s making 3s, we’re going to be a totally different team,” Sprinkle said. “We’re going to be really hard to guard, and I expect him to shoot a tremendous percentage and shoot a lot of them. Because he just spaces the floor so different for us, and he opens up the driving lanes for our guards.”

Sixth-year senior center Franck Kepnang, who is one of only two returning players, along with sophomore Zoom Diallo, is glad to see some additional big men on the team this year. Practicing fully healthy for the first time in three years, Kepnang looked a little leaner, and Sprinkle confirmed that his 6-11 center is down about 10 pounds. There was no sign of a brace on his troublesome knee that has limited the Cameroon-native to 32 games total over the past three seasons.

“We have a lot of high IQ players,” said Kepnang, who played his first two years of college ball at Oregon. “Having such a deep roster, especially in the bigs, that gives us — especially me — to be able to get a little bit of a break with being in a rotation. Being able to go in and out and have somebody that comes right back and plays at that same high level.”

If there’s one thing that is certain about the 2025-26 Huskies, it’s that Ognacevic will shoot more three pointers than Kepnang.

Of Kepnang’s 337 collegiate field goal attempts, only one has come from behind the arc. Ognacevic has made 134 of 331 (40.5 percent) 3-point attempts in four seasons on the court.

“I have been working on it,” Kepnang quipped.

Ognacevic has scored 1,816 career points despite missing the entire 2023-24 season with a knee bone bruise he described as a “weird, weird injury.” He led Lipscomb to one of its two NCAA basketball tournament berths in school history (2016, 2025). The 14th-seeded Bison fell to No. 3 Iowa State, 82-55, though Ognacevic was solid with 18 points on 7-for-11 shooting.

Though Lipscomb’s not known for its rich NCAA tourney history, the Bison have been to the Dance more in the past 10 years than Washington, which has qualified just once in the past 14 seasons (2019).

Ognacevic has high hopes for the team this season.

“I love the way they play here,” he said. “I love what Coach Sprinkle is building, and I wanted to be a part of it.

“I like to share the ball, take good shots, don’t take bad shots, and that’s how I want to play. I want to be a good teammate.”