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# Washington Men’s Basketball Coach Danny Sprinkle: ‘This Ain’t Last Year’s Team’
- URL: https://www.emeraldcityspectrum.com/washington-mens-basketball-coach-danny-sprinkle-talks-new-team/
- Published: 2025-10-01T00:31:21.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-08T06:18:08.000Z
- Author: Aaron Coe
- Tags: Huskies, Washington Men's Basketball, Danny Sprinkle, Hannes Steinbach, Wesley Yates III

\[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="2988"\]

![ Washington Huskies men’s basketball head coach Danny Sprinkle demonstrate a play during practice at Hec Edmundson Pavilion in Seattle, Washington on Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025. Credit: Aaron Coe/Emerald City Spectrum ](https://storage.ghost.io/c/1d/f2/1df2f77b-83dd-4bc0-a6d2-6d1bb5df89a3/content/images/2026/10/sprinkle-250930-format-original-1.jpg)

Washington Huskies men’s basketball head coach Danny Sprinkle demonstrate a play during practice at Hec Edmundson Pavilion in Seattle, Washington on Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2025\. Credit: Aaron Coe/Emerald City Spectrum \[/caption\]

SEATTLE, Wash. — What exactly it will all mean after the Washington men’s basketball team gets going for its second season in the Big Ten is unknown, but one thing is for certain. 

“The ain’t last year’s team,” Huskies second-year head coach Danny Sprinkle said Tuesday. “It’s a totally different energy.”

And it truly is not last year’s team, as only two players return from a 2024-25 squad that finished last out of 18 teams in the Big 10\. UW began its full, 20 hours per week, practice schedule recently with many new faces for Sprinkle’s second season. During the next 33 days, the coaching staff will attempt to figure out how to fit all the new pieces together before the season opener against Arkansas-Pine Bluff on Nov. 3.

Sprinkle, brought in late in the hiring cycle in 2024 after his Utah State team advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament, put together a Huskies team that struggled to score points last season. This year, the coaching staff hit the portal hard, finding players from several levels of basketball who have a history of scoring points. 

“Some of the guys we brought in, just older,” Sprinkle said. “… Guys that played four years of Division I basketball in a high level of competition.”

> [#Huskies](https://twitter.com/hashtag/Huskies?src=hash&ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=emeraldcityspectrum.com) men’s basketball coach Danny Sprinkle:  
> “This ain’t last year’s team.”  
> Likes what he’s seen as Washington has been able to practice in full. [pic.twitter.com/jWpOFwB3KQ](https://t.co/jWpOFwB3KQ?ref=emeraldcityspectrum.com)— Aaron Coe (@Coe\_Aaron) [September 30, 2025](https://twitter.com/Coe%5FAaron/status/1973103902452228286?ref%5Fsrc=twsrc%5Etfw&ref=emeraldcityspectrum.com)

The two returners — guard Zoom Diallo and center Franck Kepnang — will play significant roles for Washington this season. Former USC guards Wesley Yates and Desmond Claude appear to be upgrades with Big Ten experience. Two conference players of the year, guard Quimari Peterson and Jacob Ognacevic, will be stepping up a level in competition as UW attempts to put the ball in the hoop more often. Freshmen Hannes Steinbach and JJ Mandaquit are among a strong group of 2025 recruits who will likely play roles this season. 

Sprinkle has often run short rotations of 7-9 players during his coaching career at Montana State, Utah State and Washington, but said the rotation might be 10-11 players this season. 

“Everybody’s had their moments \[in practice\],” Sprinkle said. “They really have. I can go through every single player, and now it’s going to be who's going to do it consistently, and who’s going to do it on both sides of the ball.”

In addition to the individual skill levels, Sprinkle will also be looking for which grouping of players performs best together. 

“\[It’s\] finding those mixtures of lineups, who play well together,” Sprinkle said. “At the end of the day, who’s going to help us win?”