In Washington first-year head coach Danny Sprinkle’s first Apple Cup win, the Huskies apparently made their head coach pretty proud. Beating the Cougars 89-73 in the 300th meeting of the in-state rivalry was pretty good, to be completely honest, but Sprinkle seemed particularly proud of the way his team executed and worked together.
“I just like the grit and the effort, you know, that we had. We scrapped,” Sprinkle noted in his postgame press conference following the win.
That has to be huge for the Huskies head coach, whose team is now 8-3 on the season. Given that this is his first year On Montlake and he’s working to establish the Huskies men’s basketball program as a consistent winner, having that sort of an effort in a rivalry game matters quite a bit.
“We’ve been talking a lot about synergy and I didn’t feel like we’ve been connected yet this year, to be honest, offensively or defensively,” Sprinkle explained.
That may have changed a bit as the Huskies handled the Cougars at home last Wednesday.
Washington Huskies head coach Danny Sprinkle was proud of the effort UW showed against the Washington State Cougars
A lot about this first season with Sprinkle will be about getting the Huskies to have a sense of identity. There’s no doubt about that. Washington fans are more than familiar with that fact with the way this past UW football season went.
But it’s still nice to see a 26-point win over a rival. Especially when that’s arguably the best UW has played so far this season.
DJ Davis scored 21 points, Mekhi Mason added another 15, Tyler Harris scored 14, Great Osobor had 13, and both Tyree Ihenacho and Zoom Diallo put up 12 points each. Washington managed to shoot 60 percent from the field in the second half and hit on 10 of 21 three pointers throughout the game.
This was a great effort from the Huskies all over.
Now Washington will look to handle Seattle U on Monday evening. Can this sort of performance continue with the Huskies? Washington has a bit of momentum heading into this game, which is one more opportunity to get some more things figured out before dipping back into Big Ten play.