Danny Sprinkle's UW Basketball Recruiting Vision for the Future

The Husky coach wants a ready mix of high school players and transfers.

Nico Bundalo holds up a Serbian basketball banner. / Serbian National Team

Danny Sprinkle, the University of Washington basketball coach for eight months, apparently wants to play with the big boys.

On Wednesday, he served notice that this won't be your grandfather's Montlake program anymore when he pulled a commitment from 6-foot-10 power forward Niko Bundalo, a top 25 recruit and U18 Serbian national team member who chose the Huskies over defending champion Connecticut, Kentucky, Michigan State and a host of other blue bloods.

Eyebrows were raised like flags all across the college game when that decision was revealed. People more and more realize that Sprinkle's coaching career is on a rapid ascent and he's making inroads with his youthful and persuasive approach to building a Big Ten program.

Sprinkle's Huskies (4-1) play again on Thanksgiving day, facing Colorado State (3-2) in the Acrisure Invitational in Palm Springs, California, with opening tipoff at 3:30 p.m. and the game broadcast on Tru TV.

Bundalo gives the UW three top 100 high school players for the Class of 2025, joining guards JJ Mandaquit and Courtland Muldrew, and they'll be joined by an incoming transfer in touted 6-foot-11 Mady Traore from a Texas junior college and formerly of Maryland and New Mexico State. Similar to Bundalo, Mandaquit has played for his national team.

JJ Mandaquit, Husky signee, has been a USA national team player. / USA basketball

While elite basketball talent has been delivered to the UW in recent years -- in particular, see Markelle Fultz and Isaiah Stewart -- Sprinkle's challenge will be to win with his.

Former UW coach Lorenzo Romar brought in the 6-foot-3 Fultz, eventually the NBA's No. 1 overall draft pick, only to suffer through a dismal 9-22 season with him in 2016-17 and get fired.

Mike Hopkins not only procured the services of the 6-foot-8 Stewart, he added highly regarded 6-foot-9 Jalen McDaniels to his roster, too, and the best he could do with these two NBA-bound players was a disappointing 15-17 record in 2019-20.

Quizzed about his recruiting approach, Sprinkle said he prefers to develop the high school player rather than fortify his roster with transfers, which is what he was forced to do for his opening season at the UW.

The talent search was more his style when he signed guards Zoom Diallo and Jase Butler to join the current Huskies and for the future picked up Mandaquit and Courtland, all 4-star guards.

"These are kids now like I know who they are," Sprinkle said. "I know what they're built like. I know what stock they come from. And we've seen them mulitple times. In the spring, when I got the job, the only guy I really knew was Great [Osobor} because I'd coached him."

Sprinkle signed 8 players from the transfer portal and two from the high school ranks to get started with the Huskies. The perfect ratio, he says, is something akin to 50-50 between these two talent sources.

"From here on out, I don't want to sign 10 guys in the portal," he said. "I'd love to start getting three to four freshmen every year and patch it up in the portal with three to four guys. You have to have some consistency and [have] guys two or three years. ... That's my vision for what we have to do to be successful here."

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