McDaniels: Every Time He Wins a Battle, He Loses the War

Huskies' freshman forward plays himself out of the starting lineup, but he's still working on his game.

Jaden McDaniels drove to the basket with a pair of Arizona players draped all over him and put his amazing basketball talent on display. Washington's graceful freshman forward pulled out a power move that no one saw coming.

Accelerating like few big men can, he launched himself into the air, as the photo shows, and threw down an explosive dunk over the Wildcats' Zeke Nnaji and Ira Lee, sending Alaska Airlines Arena 

McDaniels, however, wasn't satisfied with simply winning the physical exchange. He started yapping at his beaten defenders -- and he not only drew a technical foul, but he was banished to a seat on the far end of the Huskies bench.

It's been that kind of season for the 6-foot-9 potential lottery pick from Federal Way, Washington. 

McDaniels wins a battle, but he loses the war. 

It's gotten to the point where Huskies fans are readily convinced the first-year player with the huge basketball reputation doesn't care about much except himself. They blame the team's rapid descent into last place in the Pac-12 (12-11 overall, 2-8 in league) on him as much anyone.

Yet two nights later, McDaniels walked out on the floor 90 minutes before tipoff and worked on his game, shooting a variety of shots around the perimeter before moving to the free-throw line, as shown in the video. 

He was the only player from either Arizona State or the UW to enter the gym at that moment. Usually he shuffles out later than most of his teammates. In this case, he showed some commitment to his game.

McDaniels did this likely knowing he wasn't going to start against the Sun Devils because of his subpar play, giving way to fellow freshman RaeQuan Battle.

Unfortunately for him, the big man's night never got any better than that.

McDaniels played just 19 minutes, missed all six of his field-goal attempts from the field and finished with six points, all on free throws.  

He took one too many bad shots against ASU and was yanked with 12:35 remaining to play. He never re-entered the game. The Huskies lost 87-83 without him in a game that really wasn't that close. 

The school hasn't made McDaniels available for media interviews for going on a  month now, so it's hard to tell exactly what's on his mind. 

Is he mad, disappointed or unmoved by it all? 

Tomorrow, we compare McDaniels' plight to another UW player who similarly had great basketball promise and squandered his NBA opportunity.