Inside The Huskies

Injured Kepnang Won't Play Again This Season for Huskies

The UW big man has been plagued by knee issues for 15 months.

Dan Raley

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When the University of Washington basketball team had the services of a healthy Franck Kepnang, it held up a 7-3 record, which included a stirring upset of Gonzaga. 

Without him, the Huskies are a middling 7-9.

As of Tuesday, Kepnang won't play again this season, according to Husky coach Mike Hopkins, who said the 6-foot-11, 253-pound center from Yaounde, Cameroon officially has been shut down because of ongoing knee issues.

The news doesn't get any worse than that for Hopkins, who over the over the weekend cited the loss of Kepnang as a big reason for his veteran team stumbling along with a 14-12 record (6-9 in Pac-12 play), which includes five losses in the past eight games.

The 10th-place Huskies have five regular-season games remaining before entering their final Pac-12 tournament in Las Vegas. They play at Arizona State (13-13, 7-8), which is tied with four teams for sixth place, on Thursday night with a 6 p.m. tipoff.

Kepnang, an explosive post player, has had nothing but  bad luck since transferring from Oregon, where he appeared in 52 games over a pair of seasons, but has been limited to just 15 in two years with the Huskies.

He tore up a knee at Oregon State in a 66-65 loss on Dec. 1, 2022 that resulted in surgery and ended his season after eight games. He reportedly had another procedure in the offseason and was injured again against Seattle University, in the 10th game of this season, won  100-99 in double overtime by the Huskies.

He sits down after averaging 8.3 points and 5.9 rebounds per game, and missing 16 consecutive games.

With an extra season available from the COVID pandemic, Kepnang should have more eligibility remaining if he chooses to use it.

The Huskies now have lost three players to season-ending injuries with Kepnang joined by 6-foot-4 freshman guard Wesley Yates and 6-foot-8 sophomore forward Samuel Ariyibi, both sidelined by severe ankle issues.

 

 

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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