Washington Huskies Basketball: 2012-2013 Hikeem Stewart Evaluation

Feb 7, 2013; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Washington Huskies guard Hikeem Stewart (4) drives to the basket against UCLA Bruins guard Kyle Anderson (5) during the game at the Pauley Pavilion. Mandatory Credit: Richard Mackson-USA TODAY Sports

Statistics: 8.1 minutes, 0.5 points (23.1 percent shooting), 0.6 assists, 0.4 steals, 0.3 rebounds per game

What He Did In 2012-2013: Every team naturally has a player that is last in the rotation. Assuming Martin Breunig wasn’t actually in the rotation, that man would be Hikeem Stewart. He joined the Huskies alongside good friend, Tony Wroten. The two have acted as pretty much polar opposites since they arrived on campus. Wroten played frustratingly well and left to the NBA after one season, while Stewart has taken a back seat to just about every other player on scholarship. He was more of a last resort than a necessity and never did anything to make anyone question that.

Like Breunig, Stewart didn’t play in more games than he did, including the last seven games of the season. He showed a little speck of promise when he scored six points against Seattle U in 13 minutes, but realistically, that’s the type of competition he should be playing against on a nightly basis, not the Pac-12.

Outside of his six-point performance, he only scored in one other game. That came in the atrocious loss to Albany without Scott Suggs. He managed to rack up three assists in 18 minutes versus Jackson State, but that continues the trend of Stewart only performing somewhat adequately against lower competition. Against Pac-12 teams, he played a total of 16 minutes without scoring a point. He recorded one steal and one rebound in seven minutes against UCLA, but that was the extent of his playing time against upper-level opponents.

What To Expect From Him In 2013-2014: With an influx of new talent in the backcourt, I can’t imagine Stewart’s playing time increasing unless he drastically improves over the offseason. One of Darin Johnson and Jahmal Taylor will probably redshirt; the other will compete with Stewart to be the fourth guard in the rotation. At least Taylor and Johnson bring some potential with them; Stewart has already proven that he won’t live up to his 4-star rating.

He was pegged as a very good shooter coming out of high school, but has shot 29.4 and 23.1 percent, respectively, in each season he’s been at Washington. If Stewart can live up to that and improve his shot or become someone who can run the point effectively, he can earn playing time, but outside of that, I think his time has passed and Romar will look toward underclassmen like Taylor and Johnson to round out that rotation, rather than Stewart.