The Danny Sprinkle Decision

As the head coach of the Mountain West Conference-winning Utah State last year, Danny Sprinkle led the Aggies to the second round of the NCAA tournament. On March 25, 2024, one day after Utah State got obliterated by the Purdue Boilermakers, the University of Washington hired Sprinkle in an attempt to make its basketball program stronger for its first year in the Big 10 conference. This was a logical choice for Sprinkle, a Washingtonian whose father played for the UW football team in the 1960s.

In his first game as the coach of Washington, he led the Huskies to a 79-73 win against the University of California, Davis. The Huskies were 8 and 3 going into a game against Seattle U, against whom they had a 19-game winning streak. Seattle U was clearly the better team in this game, though, and the scoreboard agreed: a 70-79 loss for the Dawgs.

  This disappointing loss was just the beginning of a series of losses to better teams in the Big 10, with very few wins. But Sprinkle has not let these setbacks mess with his head. The Big Ten is the best conference, and playing all of these more talented and better-funded teams would make a lot of coaches give up. But he has kept it close in all of those games. In fact, the Huskies have racked up some key wins, including against #25 Maryland and Penn State. 

In conclusion, Danny Sprinkle was a good hire, making a team with little basketball reputation into a team with a winning record overall. He didn’t give up in the hardest games, and won’t for the rest of the season. GO DAWGS!!