How will the Huskies finish the season? What's the latest on the recruiting trail? And what's the best Power Five team to not make the NCAA Tournament? Those answers and more in this round of Percy Allen's Husky hoops mailbag.
Earlier this week, we took questions on the red-hot Huskies, who are 10-1 in Pac-12 play and enter Saturday’s game against the Cougars in Pullman well on their way to a conference title and a likely shot at the Big Dance. You had so many questions, we broke the answers into two mailbags.
If you missed it, here’s round one. Now for round two …
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It doesn’t look like Jaden McDaniels is in any rush to make a choice between what’s expected to be UW, San Diego State or Kentucky.
He’s been consistent when asked about recruiting and said he wants to concentrate on his senior season at Federal Way before turning his attention to his college destination.
So I’m going to take him at his word.
Federal Way (20-2) is the No. 1-ranked team in the Pacific region by USA Today High School Sports.
Coach Mike Hopkins constantly reminds the Huskies of their past disappointments to help them overcome adverse situations. He did it during a 79-69 win at Oregon State when UW was in danger of letting another big second-half lead slip through its fingers.
No doubt, Hopkins will continue to hammer that message home and he doesn’t want the Huskies resting on their laurels.
Barring injuries, he’ll likely rely on a nine-man rotation. He’ll cut back on practice time like most coaches to keep players mentally and physically fresh.
But I’m not sure if Hopkins will make any big strategic moves down the stretch that would be a departure from the past.
Much like Elijah Hardy, Bryan Penn-Johnson is another UW freshman who just hasn’t been able to get on the court.
However, the 7-foot center has battled an assortment of injuries this season. He appeared in five of the first seven games before an ankle injury suffered in late November forced him to miss six weeks.
Penn-Johnson was in uniform on Jan. 30 for the USC game, but he was back in street clothes in the next game on Feb. 2 against UCLA.
Hopkins said Penn-Johnson suffered an unspecified injury in practice. Hopkins wasn’t optimistic when asked if Penn-Johnson would play again this season.
Well, “actively” is the operative word there.
I haven’t gone into great detail with Hopkins about his recruiting strategy, but there are few teams/coaches who actively recruit overseas because of the expense.
It’s somewhat of a feat that Hopkins and the Huskies are able to maintain a recruiting footprint on the East Coast due to the difficulties in travel.
Often players like Sam Timmins end up at Division I schools because they know someone who has a connection with a certain team. I believe that was the case with Timmins, who had a prep coach that kept in contact with former UW coach Lorenzo Romar.
Gonzaga recruits internationally about as well as any school and that’s in large part due to assistant Tommy Loyd who is arguably the nation’s best at scouting and securing overseas players.
That’s a trick question, right?
Because UW fans will probably never forget the 2011-12 season when the Huskies won the Pac-12 regular-season title with a 14-4 record. They lost their Pac-12 Tournament opener and had a 21-10 record on Selection Sunday.
Pac-12 tourney winner Colorado received the league’s NCAA automatic berth and the committee chose California, which finished second in the conference at 13-5 and had a 24-9 record at the time.
The Huskies were livid because it was the first time the regular-season champ in a Power Five conference didn’t advance to the Big Dance.
The Golden Bears lost in the first round and the Huskies advanced to the NIT title game where they lost 68-67 in overtime to Minnesota.
We’ll see.
That’s not a very insightful answer, but the Huskies haven’t been in this position before.
While it’s true they haven’t lost consecutive games all season, those four previous nonconference defeats were followed by relatively easy matchups against San Diego, Eastern Washington, Seattle U. and Sacramento State.
That’s not exactly a Murderers’ Row.
This time, the Huskies are looking to “bounce back” against a suddenly rejuvenated Washington State team that won at Arizona State (91-70) and Arizona (69-55) last week.
UW beat WSU 85-67 on Jan. 5 at Alaska Airlines Arena, but the Cougars didn’t have Robert Franks. The WSU star forward, who leads the Pac-12 in scoring (22.6 points per game), tallied 31 points against Arizona and 34 versus ASU.
Arizona State’s 75-63 win over Washington didn’t unlock any secrets to the Huskies’ pesky 2-3 zone, but you can be sure WSU coach Ernie Kent will be poring over the film considering UW has won the past three games against the Cougars and held them to just 64.8 points.
Do you have more questions about the team? Email them to pallen@seattletimes.com or tweet to @percyallen.