{"id":189744,"date":"2026-04-15T22:48:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T02:48:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=189744"},"modified":"2026-04-15T22:48:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T02:48:11","slug":"a-day-after-losing-german-star-to-nba-washington-sees-second-leading-scorer-transfer-to-sec-program-and-whats-next-for-the-huskies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2026\/04\/15\/a-day-after-losing-german-star-to-nba-washington-sees-second-leading-scorer-transfer-to-sec-program-and-whats-next-for-the-huskies\/","title":{"rendered":"A Day After Losing German Star To NBA, Washington Sees Second-Leading Scorer Transfer to SEC Program and What’s Next for the Huskies"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Washington Huskies<\/a> have really struggled since moving to the Big Ten. To make matters worse, the Huskies lost their best player to the NBA.<\/p>\n

Hannes Steinbach<\/a> declared his intentions for the 2026 NBA draft<\/a> yesterday afternoon. The 6-11 German had a sensational freshman campaign. He averaged a double-double with 18.8 points and a Big Ten-high 11.8 rebounds while shooting 57.7% from the field and 34% from the 3-point line. The all-Big Ten third team selection averaged 1.3 blocks per game and set a Big Ten freshman record with 22 double-doubles. He is expected to be a top-20 draft pick with lottery upside.<\/p>\n

\u201c[Steinbach] just has an innate ability to rebound the ball, and his feel for the game is just tremendous,\u201d coach Danny Sprinkle<\/a> told Percy Allen of The Seattle Times<\/a>. \u201cWe knew he was going to be good, but did we know he was going to play as he did as a freshman? Like nobody could have seen that. We thought we\u2019d have him for at least two years.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

A Day After Losing German Star To NBA, Huskies See Second-Leading Scorer Transfer to SEC Program<\/h2>\n

Washington, which had regular success from 2003-10 under Lorenzo Romar, is coming off a 16-17 campaign in Sprinkle’s second season in Seattle. The Huskies are just\u00a0 29-35 over the last two seasons, including 11-29 in the Big Ten. They are on a seven-year NCAA Tournament drought and have only made three\u00a0 NCAA appearances since 2010.<\/p>\n

Steinbach, who reportedly turned down $10 milllion in NIL money<\/a>, is not the only player vacating the Huskies. Steinbach’s departure means that the Huskies will have four new starters next season. The Huskies knew that 6-11 center Frank Kepnang<\/a> and Quimari Peterson wouldn’t return as they exhausted their eligibility.\u00a0 Although Kepnang officially entered the transfer portal as he seeks a seventh season via a waiver from the NCAA, per Roman Tomashoff of the Huskies Wire<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Kepnang is the sixth Husky to enter the transfer portal<\/a>. Zoom Diallo<\/a> — who started 29 games this past season — Desmond Claude, and consensus top-50 2025 recruit JJ Mandaquit<\/a> are the other key players in the transfer portal.<\/p>\n

There is some good news for Washington. Six-foot-6\u00a0 forward Bryson Tucker<\/a>, who started 14 of his 21 appearances, is expected to return to UW as is starting guard Wesley Yates III<\/a>, who was fourth on the team in scoring at\u00a0 12.7 points and second with two treys a contest. Additionally, Kepnang said there was a chance that he would return to the Huskies.<\/p>\n

All totaled, Sprinkle has seven players who will likely return from last year’s squad -not including Kepnang. Sprinkle does have a commitment from Davidson transfer Parker Friedrichsen<\/a>. Friedrichsen committed to the Huskies on April 12 after a career season with the Wildcats. The 6-3 guard, who also spent two seasons at Wake Forest, is a 3-point specialist.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 David Banks, Imagn Images<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\n

Diallo Picks Kentucky<\/h3>\n

Diallo became the second UW player to officially leave the program as he committed to Kentucky earlier tonight<\/a>. Mandaquit transferred to Arizona a few days ago.<\/p>\n

Diallo, a top 50 consensus recruit in 2024, showed significant improvement in year two as both a scorer and facilitator. The 6-4 guard was second on the team in scoring at 15.7 points and led the squad in assists with 4.5 a game.<\/p>\n

\u201cGrowing up, it was always a dream of mine to play for UW. Being able to wear \u2018Washington\u2019 across my chest is something I\u2019ll never take for granted,\u201d\u00a0<\/span>Diallo wrote when he entered the portal<\/a><\/strong>. \u201cI want to thank the University of Washington for the opportunity. I\u2019m thankful for all the memories and relationships I built during my time here. I especially appreciate Coach Sprinkle for believing in me and helping me grow on and off the court.<\/span><\/p>\n

Diallo is Kentucky’s first transfer in 2026 and is expected to be the Wildcats starting point guard. UK has seen five of its seven players who entered the portal find a new home.<\/p>\n

Huskies Recruiting<\/h3>\n

Sprinkle projects to add at least five to seven more players this offseason. The backcourt should be the Huskies’ priority as they have been gutted there. However, the Huskies also need to add to the frontcourt, potentially looking for a rim-runner and a big man who can stretch the floor.<\/p>\n

Sprinkle will likely look to add veterans in the transfer portal. Per Tomashoff, Washington has recently hosted Texas Tech forward LeJuan Watts and Boise State forward <\/span>Drew Fielder.<\/p>\n

While Sprinkle does not have any commits from the class of 2026, he could legitimately have another shot at five-star point guard Dylan Mingo. Mingo, who decommitted from UNC after the Tar Heels fired Hubert Davis, had UW in his final four schools.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

“After the North Carolina Tar Heels fired coach Hubert Davis at the end of the season and replaced him with former Denver Nuggets coach Michael Malone, the 6-foot-5 guard from Long Island Lutheran High School in New York, who is ranked as the No. 5 player in the nation by the 247Sports Composite, chose to back off of his pledge and reopen his recruitment,” Tomashoff said<\/a>. “Mingo, who holds 21 offers, initially chose the Tar Heels out of a final four that also included Baylor, Penn State, and Washington, and the Bears and Huskies should be quickly expected to rejoin the mix. However, after his older brother, Kayden, entered the transfer portal after one season with the Nittany Lions, coach Mike Rhodes’ team might be out of the running.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Washington Huskies have really struggled since moving to the Big Ten. To make matters worse, the Huskies lost their best player to the NBA. Hannes Steinbach declared his intentions for the 2026 NBA draft yesterday afternoon. The 6-11 German had a sensational freshman campaign. He averaged a double-double with 18.8 points and a Big […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3146,"featured_media":189841,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,2,556,3],"tags":[2785,3772,776,1441],"class_list":["post-189744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-featured","category-nba-draft","category-news","tag-big-ten-basketball","tag-college-basketball-recruiting","tag-kentucky-wildcats","tag-washington-huskies"],"modified_by":"Daniel Benjamin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189744"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":189847,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189744\/revisions\/189847"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}