Here's an Early Husky Basketball Starting 5 to Consider

UW fortunes appear to be looking up with infusion of Kentucky blue-blood talent.

Alaska Airlines Arena lately has been off limits to everyone who uses it. Workers folded up the lower-level seating, cordoned off all of the court entrances and proceeded to sand and refinish the floor. 

Meantime, University of Washington basketball recruiters did the same to a roster more in flux than most. On Wednesday, they turned a somewhat mundane offseason up a notch by pulling a transfer portal commitment out of former Kentucky point guard Sahvir Wheeler.

Give embattled Husky coach Mike Hopkins and his staff credit for aggressively sorting through John Calipari's hand-me-downs in recent years and finding something they can utilize.

Wheeler, of course, is the third former Wildcats player in four seasons to head for Montlake, joining 6-foot-7 swingman Keion Brooks, the UW's leading returning scorer at 17.7 points per game, and former point guard Quade Green, a G League regular now for a couple of seasons.

A Texan from Houston, Wheeler is a little left-hander who prefers to wear No. 2. At the UW, where have we heard that before? This newcomer, of course, will need to get permission to wear that retired digit from fellow southpaw Isaiah Thomas. 

Brooks and Wheeler were two-thirds of the lineup for Kentucky's 28-8 team in 2021-22, starting 33 and 29 games, respectively. Brooks averaged 10.8 points per game, Wheeler 10.1 when he wasn't dishing the ball.

With all of this Kentucky blue-blood talent ordered up with a bourbon chaser, we wondered what a Husky starting lineup might look like here in late April, even though Hopkins still has a pair of scholarships to fill.

After giving this careful thought, it was decided the Huskies should become Wildcats West, plus go all in with as much height as they can install up front, capped off by a Seattle native getting his hands on the basketball a lot more.

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SAHVIR WHEELER :: Jordan Prather/USA TODAY Sports

One of the nation's leading point guards over the past four seasons, this Kentucky playmaker reunites with Keion Brooks. They played and started together in the 2021-22 season.

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KEION BROOKS / Skylar Lin Visuals

He came to Seattle to have a team built around him, which wasn't going to happen at Kentucky. Now he has his point guard with him in Seattle and has a chance to really flourish. 

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KOREN JOHNSON / Skylar Lin Visuals

The Huskies hope to get a lot more production from their top local player. The Seattle native averaged 6.8 points while coming off the bench in 29 games. He's just a sophomore.

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FRANCK KEPNANG / Skylar Lin Visuals

The former Oregon big man lasted just eight games in his first year at the UW before injuring a knee. He's hoping for a full season this time. He averaged 9 points and 6.3 rebounds in his short run with the Huskies.

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BRAXTON MEAH / Skylar Lin Visuals

This former Fresno State center and 31-game UW starter averaged 8.8 points and 7.2 rebounds per outing and topped the Pac-12 in shooting at 70.6 percent.

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Consider the following opening five, who will take to that newly stained floor accompanied by loud music and garish scoreboard graphics, that bellowing public-address announcer who sounds like he belongs in Vegas, say at a mixed-martial-arts event, and chest bumps all around:

SF — Brooks returns for a second season, looking to develop a 3-point shot that would make him draft-able in 14 months. He has a much greater chance of taking over games his second time around the Pac-12, especially now that he has a true point guard from Lexington who knows him well and should be able to get the ball to him nonstop. Look for Brooks to be a more dominant player when he's surrounded by a pair of healthy big men again and getting fed by a high-level passer.

PF — The Huskies had 6-foot-11, 250-pound Franck Kepnang for all of eight games last season before his knee buckled on him and required surgery. They need to make up for that shortfall by using big Franck as often and as long as they can this coming season, or as much as that repaired knee permits him to be on the floor. He can hit the jumper around the key. He blocks a lot of shots. Most of all, he brings energy and attitude to be admired.    

C — The only good thing that came out of losing Kepnang last season was it gave the Huskies the opportunity to develop the 7-foot-1, 250-pound Braxton Meah. He's athletic for a man his size and a proficient dunker. All he needs is a short jumper or one-handed shot from 10 feet to really be a factor. The Huskies have been a .500 team or worse in recent seasons mostly because they wouldn't or couldn't rebound. They have no more excuses now with their pair of Montlake towers.

SG — Koren Johnson got off to a late start last year because of offseason shoulder surgery and once he came back it seemed like he had to compete with the departed Keyon Menifield for the ball. While Menifield was great fun to watch because he was super quick and creative, the 6-foot-2 Johnson might be the better basketball player in the long run because he's more of a pure shooter, carries a lot more weight on his frame and seems to have a bit of an edge to him.

PG — The 5-foot-9 Wheeler, who played two seasons each for Kentucky and Georgia, comes off a wasted year in which he missed 13 games with injuries. Still, the possibilities are endless if the UW can keep him healthy. Consider his triple-double, the first in program history at Georgia to see what he can do: 14 points, 11 rebounds and 13 assists against LSU in 2021. He broke Georgia's single-season assist record with 193 (7.4 an outing) in '21 and ranks fourth all-time at Kentucky with 207 assists (6.9) from the 2022 season. He can score when needed, too, averaging 14 points per game for Georgia in 2021 with a career-best of 27 against Florida.

In summary, Hopkins might save his job yet by meshing these four one-time transfers and lone homegrown player into a lineup that stands a good chance of making everyone forget about all of the recent mediocrity surrounding the program.

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