Inside The Huskies

How Quincy Pondexter Chose Washington Basketball

The former Husky star and current assistant coach almost picked Fresno State instead.

Roman Tomashoff

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Most Husky basketball fans know the story of Quincy Pondexter. The small forward came to Washington as the nation's 27th overall player in the 2006 recruiting class and put together a stellar career. 

During his senior year, Pondexter averaged 19.3 points per game and was named to the All-Pac-10 first team. He also earned an All-American honorable mention from the Associated Press while leading the Huskies to the NCAA Tournament before being selected 26th overall in the 2010 NBA Draft by the Oklahoma City Thunder.

After a nine-year NBA career that saw him play for four organizations, Pondexter returned to Washington as an assistant coach before the 2021-22 season. Since joining the staff, Pondexter has been able to help secure a commitment from his cousin, five-star guard Wesley Yates.

However, one conversation with Fresno State head coach Steve Cleveland in 2006 could have erased all of that.

During an interview with ESPN Radio in his hometown of Fresno, California, Pondexter admitted he didn't want to go too far from home. He held offers from UConn and Washington coming out of high school but didn't want to stray too far from home and he was ready to surprise Fresno State's coaching staff with a commitment before his senior year.

"I didn't want to go to UConn, I thought Washington was even too far," Pondexter said. "I went into the meeting and Coach Cleveland told me he had never seen me play basketball and he just heard I was good and he was going to recruit me just because the local media would kill him if they said I never got recruited by him. And so that was his recruiting pitch in the first two minutes of the meeting and my dad said, 'Well, I guess this is over with.'"

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Roman Tomashoff
ROMAN TOMASHOFF

I've followed the Huskies for my entire life, and to be in a position where I get to cover them full-time is nothing short of an honor. After graduating from Lasell University in 2019, I moved to Seattle to pursue my dream of working in sports media. While writing for the Husky Haul, I also covered local sports for the Everett Daily Herald before the COVID-19 pandemic. After being hired by Realdawg.com in February of 2021, I also transitioned into doing a lot of entertainment writing, as I work on a variety of magazines as a contributing writer for Centennial Media, and have also contributed to Emmy Magazine, as well as Walt Disney Television Studios. 

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