Sprinkle Edict -- 'Not About You, It's About U-Dub'

The new Husky coach laid out his team blueprint at Big Ten Media Day.

Danny Sprinkle is seen during the NCAA tournament practice for Utah State. / Robert Goddin-Imagn Images

With questions coming at him right and left, new University of Washington basketball coach Danny Sprinkle treated Thursday's Big Ten Media Day almost like a job interview, sticking to his talking points as he moved from station to station trying to sell himself.

Clearly, his message centered around the considerable challenge of coming up with a cohesive team built from eight transfers, three returning players and two freshmen.

Sprinkle, the son of a former UW football player, took over a program that went 17-15 last season and fired coach Mike Hopkins after seven seasons in charge, and the new guy has a roster consisting mostly of his hand-picked talent.

"We have some really good pieces -- now it's getting them to play together, it's to create shots for each other," Sprinkle said. "When you bring in so many transfers, they're all really talented in their own right. But now the shot can't be about you, it's got to be about U-Dub. That's one of our sayings where we say, 'It's not about you, it about U-Dub.' "

Sprinkle, who came to the Huskies from Utah State, was accompanied to the one-day basketball gathering in Indianapolis with 6-foot-8 power forward Great Osobor, likewise from Utah State, and 6-foot-5 guard Mekhi Mason, a Rice transfer.

In order to get things done right, Sprinkle said he pursued a certain kind of player to come to Montlake. He wants them to pursue academic degrees and make a positive impact on Seattle, which aren't necessarily the goals for everyone across a college basketball landscape now heavily influenced by players moving from team to team and motivated by name, image and likeness money.

"We're not going to negotiate on character," Sprinkle said. "We want to make sure we're getting the right type of kids in our program, that we can coach hard, that we can love hard. We're going to discipline them. We're going to make sure they're doing the right thing."

The Huskies have just about a month to put everything together before opening the season against UC Davis on Tuesday, Nov. 5, at Alaska Airlines Arena, with a warm-up exhibition game against Western Oregon coming the week before on Oct. 29.

Osobor, the reigning Mountain West Player of the Year, and Mason, a 67-game starter in the AAC, most likely will be team building blocks. Figuring out how to put everyone else in the mix will take the rest of the month.

"[It's] being physical and playing together," Sprinkle reiterated. "When you bring 13 pretty much brand new players together, everybody is trying to show how good they are, especially the transfers. Now they've got to start playing together. They've got to play for one another. Theyv'e got to give teammates a shot and understand it's not about them. If we want to be successful, we need all 13 of those guys because you need depth in the Big Ten."

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