Kepnang Pledges His UW Return, Should Be Focal Part of Huskies

When healthy, the big man from Cameroon is somebody to build around.

Franck Kepnang, if anything, brings a college basketball resume that should be the envy of his University of Washington teammates.

For Oregon in his previous stop, he appeared in two NCAA Tournaments, starting two of four games. He even made it to the Sweet 16, though it wasn't necessarily all that sweet — in 2021, the Ducks played in Indianapolis before no fans in a COVID-restricted setting and lost to another another Pac-12 team, USC.

Sounds a lot like Kepnang's UW career, one that was going to bring him a fairly prominent role this past winter only to end abruptly after eight games because of a season-ending knee injury.

However, the 6-foot-11, 250-pound Cameroon native impressed everyone by having his surgery and then staying highly engaged with his teammates for the rest of the season, becoming an inspirational figure on the sideline.

On Tuesday, Kepnang made it official on social media that he was on board for the 2023-24 basketball season with the Huskies. 

With Mike Hopkins receiving a Husky coaching reprieve albeit with the clearly stated ultimatum of winning a lot more games, he needs to take a healthy Kepnang, pair him with 7-foot-1 Braxton Mea as much as possible and go with a power lineup.

To beat teams next season, Hopkins should try to beat them up, just bring down the hammer. 

The coach has got nothing to lose now. And he's got two big men to use.

Next season starts now, the work starts now, I'm excited to run it back with my teammates and represent this amazing University! #Godawg #lamissioncontinue pic.twitter.com/QsTDLWpiZN

— Franck Kepnang (@franckkepnang) March 21, 2023

Hopkins possesses a luxury few Husky coaches before him have experienced — he has 168 inches of battle-tested post players with plenty of rim-rattling potential at his disposal.

If he can't figure out how to adequately deploy these two players next season, he should quietly move on when it's over, before he's even asked.

Having to go it alone, Meah started 31 games, averaged 8.8 points and 7.2 rebounds per game, led the conference in shooting at 70.6 percent and brings a whole head of confidence coming back. He just needs a few more conventional offensive moves to go with his go-to dunk.

Kepnang was just getting started in showing what he could do, averaging 9 points and 6.3 rebounds per outing, when he tore up his knee at Oregon State. When healthy, he can be scary inside, offering an effective jumper around the key when he's not slamming shots through. 

The idea would be to pair these two as much as possible with swingman Keion Brooks, the last holdout in pledging a UW return, and this past season's freshmen guards in Keion Menifield and Koren Johnson. 

Should Brooks not see any benefit in returning to Montlake, the Huskies could probably find enough points from incoming freshman Wesley Yates to supplement the returning veterans. For that matter, Brooks is the only other guy in Montlake who's sniffed the NCAAs, appearing in one loser-out game for Kentucky in 2022.

Regardless, Hopkins has a lot of basketball talent to work with. This can go either one of two way for him: he either figures out how to put all those big-man pieces together or he fails miserably at it. Sort of like what Kalen DeBoer and Jimmy Lake did and didn't do with the UW football talent. 

A healthy Kepnang is a gift, someone who knows the way to the NCAA Tournament, a player who, if used properly, can save a coaching career. 

---

Go to si.com/college/washington to read the latest Inside the Huskies stories — as soon as they’re published.

Not all stories are posted on the fan sites.

Find Inside the Huskies on Facebook by searching: Inside Huskies/FanNation at SI.com or https://www.facebook.com/dan.raley.12

Follow Dan Raley of Inside the Huskies on Twitter: @DanRaley1 or @UWFanNation or @DanRaley3

Have a question, direct message me on Facebook or Twitter.