Update Husky Men’s Basketball

 

 

It has been about a month since I wrote about the University of Washington Husky men’s basketball team.

The non-league season that ended at the end of December 2014 was a success. The record was 11-2. The league season started out 3-3 in January. It did look like the Huskies had a good chance to go into the NCAA tournament if they continued and went around .500 in the league, however, now they have lost five straight. The main reasons are that their center Robert Upshaw during this losing streak was kicked off the team for breaking team rules. There was no reason given, however, there was speculation on why. I will not mention what the speculation is for his privacy. Just to say though hopefully he can get his life back in order. He was the backbone of the defense leading the nation in block shots. Right now Shaun Kemp Jr is the only big man playing as Jernard Jarreau is hurt. I am not sure of his return. Currently the Huskies are starting four guards. So what started as a promising season look like now it will go into the tank? During the recruiting process they will need to go after a few big men as Kemp Jr. is a senior.

In other Husky news the signing of recruits last week for the football season was a success. It was the first full recruiting season for Coach Chris Peterson. The success was they were able to sign some high chip players along with the top players in the state of Washington. For the last decade or so they have had little success keeping in state players. To be a very success team it is important to keep those players in state as well as getting other top players from outside of Washington especially those from California.

The Huskies are losing their top players to the NFL for next season; however, the future does look very bright. The Huskies should be success if Coach Peterson has the same success as he did coaching at Boise State. They were in the top ten in the country the whole time in the eight years he coached at Boise State.

Finally the Huskies football and men’s basketball teams need to become successful once again. Though the football team has had winning seasons the last several years the alumni expect the team to win around ten games a season and get into the hunt for the national championship series. Of course, to really accomplish the task they need to begin beating the Oregon Ducks. On the basketball side the men need to get into the NCAA tournament. It has been a few years since they did so. There was a time where they went to the tournament and went into the sweet sixteen. Like the football team they need to keep in the top in state players. For a while did not do so. High school basketball in the state of Washington is very good, and every year high recruits come out but the Huskies only maybe get one or two of them. If you look at the NBA there is a number of successful players who grew up in Washington State.

Good luck to both teams; I will update again in a couple weeks about the men’s basketball team as they get closer to the tournament as it starts play in the middle of March.