With the UW Season a Lost Cause, It's Time to See What Cole Bajema Can Do

Why not put the Michigan transfer in the starting lineup against Washington State?

The tousle-haired kid usually enters the game for the University of Washington basketball team at the 15-minute mark of the opening half.  At 6-foot-7, he's tall and graceful scurrying around the floor. 

He appears fundamentally sound as a college player, especially so when squaring up and launching his 3-point shot. He easily leaves defenders behind on the drive.

Yet Cole Bajema has hardly showed us what he can do.

He's a bit of an enigma, a small-town guy from the Canadian border town of Lynden, Washington, who got a brief taste of big-time basketball at the University of Michigan before returning home.

A 4-star recruit, Bajema likely has significant skills lurking inside that slender frame of his, but he seems overly polite and far too mindful of his Husky teammates' needs when roaming the floor to let it all hang out. 

With the Huskies (3-16 overall, 2-12 Pac-12) likely down to just six games in a disastrous season, Bajema is the only scholarship player among the 10 on the roster who hasn't pulled a starting assignment so far.

That needs to change.

Beginning at Washington State (12-9, 5-9) on Monday night in Pullman.

With this team already a lost cause, put Bajema in the UW starting lineup against the Cougars and tell him to be a lot more selfish and to get his shots.

Everyone else does.

Even those guys who will never, ever hit them.

Who knows, he might have a little bit of Larry Bird in him. He just needs to act like it. Show more of a feistiness and a sense of responsibility that it's up to him to bring a positive outcome. It's time to match the skill set with the reputation.

"I'd heard of him just being another white guy in the state," UW guard Erik Stevenson, the Wichita State transfer who grew up in Tumwater, Washington, said with a laugh. "That's pretty much how I found out about him. I knew he was going to Michigan out of high school, so obviously he had some talent."

Cole Bajema drives on USC / USA TODAY Sports

Bajema, who averaged 27-plus points per game coming out of Lynden High School, initially chose Michigan over the Huskies and Virginia. He's the kind of guy who often shows up at Gonzaga. In fact, the Zags were among those who tried to pick him up once he entered the transfer portal last May.

While some might think he took on too big a challenge by going to Michigan, Bajema actually got caught up in a coaching change. John Beilein recruited him but headed off to the NBA before ever coaching him, leaving him in the hands of someone else, Juwan Howard. 

Howard was part of Michigan's famed Fab Five, but he wasn't the coach who made the initial connection here and it didn't work for Bajema. He drew just 10 games and 37 total minutes as a freshman in 2019-20, averaging 2.6 points per game. His best effort was 9 points in 11 minutes against Presbyterian.

"The departure of coach Beilein came as a big surprise," Bajema told the Michigan media at the time of the coaching change. "Given that coach Beilein recruited me, I am sad to see him go but fully support him in his new venture at the Cavaliers." 

No matter what happens during this pandemic-interrupted basketball season, Bajema will have three more seasons to develop his game at the UW. He's in the rotation, regularly pulling 12 minutes a game, but he averages just 1.9 in scoring.

That's needs to change. 

He scored 7 at Stanford last month. Two games ago, he scored 7 against USC, hitting 3 of 6 shots. That's just scratching the surface. There's likely a lot more points just itching to get out.

"He has a great first step, and he can get where he needs to get," Husky coach Mike Hopkins said. "He's extremely competitive, but he's learning a new system. With his size and his skill for his position, I think he's going to be a really good player for us, for sure."

That said, why wait?

Unleash him against Cougars. Start him at WSU. They're in last place in the Pac-12. The Huskies have done very little to plan for the future. They need to invest in it.

It's time to unleash Cole Bajema.

Follow Dan Raley of Husky Maven on Twitter: @DanRaley1 and @HuskyMaven

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