The Washington Huskies men’s basketball team now knows the shape of its Big Ten grind for 2026-27, and it comes with a familiar challenge: finding traction in a league that has not been kind to them so far.
Danny Sprinkle is still chasing his first winning season at Washington. In his first two years, the Huskies went 13-18 and 16-17, and those seasons lined up with the program’s first two trips through Big Ten play. Against conference opponents, Sprinkle has gone 11-29 over that stretch.
The reset has been broad. Washington has turned over almost the entire roster again, bringing in nine new players.
The changes haven’t stopped there, either. Former assistant Quincy Pondexter left for the head coaching job with the Chicago Bulls’ G-League affiliate, the Windy City Bulls, and the university also brought in former Syracuse Orange general manager Alex Kline for the same role.
Now the Huskies have their Big Ten slate in hand, and it’s a 20-game schedule split evenly between home and road.
Washington opens conference play on Dec. 2 at Southern California, then gets UCLA at Alaska Airlines Arena on Dec. 13.
The conference run rolls on with trips to Michigan on Jan. 2 and Michigan State on Jan. 5 before the Huskies return home for games against Indiana on Jan. 9 and Nebraska on Jan. 13.
From there, the path stays busy. Washington visits UCLA on Jan. 16, hosts Northwestern on Jan. 20, then heads to Wisconsin on Jan. 23 and Minnesota on Jan.
- Rutgers comes to Seattle on Jan. 30, followed by a Feb. 7 trip to Oregon and a Feb. 10 home date with USC.
The final stretch includes road games at Ohio State on Feb. 14, Penn State on Feb. 17 and Iowa on March 2, with home games against Maryland on Feb. 20, Purdue on Feb. 27 and Oregon on March 6.
A few wrinkles stand out in the breakdown. Washington will face UCLA, USC and Oregon twice each, once at home and once on the road. The Huskies also have two nonconference games tucked between league dates - Baylor on Dec. 19 and Cornell on Dec. 28 - with the Baylor game part of the Seattle Holiday Classic at Climate Pledge Arena.
The travel picture is manageable by Big Ten standards. Washington avoids trips to Rutgers and Maryland, but still has one game in the East at Penn State in State College, Pa. Beyond that, the Huskies’ road work stays in the Midwest, with visits to Michigan State, Michigan, Ohio State, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
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Washington Gets One Last Chance To Sharpen Up Before Big Ten Play
Before Washington dives into Big Ten play, it gets one more tune-up at Husky Stadium on Saturday afternoon against Eastern Washington. Kickoff is set for 4:15 p.m. PT, with the game on the Big Ten Network and radio coverage spread across multiple stations and platforms, giving the Huskies one last chance to clean up the details in front of their home crowd.
The timing matters, because Washington enters the weekend in the national conversation and still has a little room to sharpen things before the schedule tightens. It has handled Eastern Washington in all three previous meetings, but this one is less about history than about carrying momentum into conference play without leaving any loose ends behind. [Read more 🡒]
Washington Keeps Getting Chances But One Offensive Problem Still Lingers
Washington keeps finding ways to put itself in position to swing momentum, and the defensive side has done its part by creating extra chances. Jedd Fisch pointed to an offense that still has room to grow, with the line and run game lagging behind the rest of the operation, while also noting that those issues are fixable even if the turnaround will not happen overnight.
The bigger concern is what Washington has done with all those opportunities. The Huskies have been strong enough defensively to create turnovers, but the offense has not consistently turned those takeaways into the kind of points that separate good teams from dangerous ones. Demond Williams continues to give the program a meaningful rushing element, joining an elite group of UW quarterbacks to top 1,000 career rushing yards, but the next step is turning those flashes into something more reliable when the game opens up in front of them. [Read more 🡒]
Washington Just Added A Veteran Guard With A Chance To Matter Fast
Washington added another experienced piece to its backcourt with the signing of transfer guard Tayshawn Comer for the 2026-27 season, a move Danny Sprinkle announced as the Huskies continue shaping their future roster. Comer arrives with stops at Nevada, Eastern Kentucky and Evansville, bringing the kind of mileage and maturity that can matter for a program trying to keep its guard play steady and its locker room grounded.
Sprinkle pointed to Comers defense, leadership and ability to create offense as the traits that make him a useful fit in Montlake, especially for a team that values guards who can handle more than one job. The next question is how quickly that experience translates once he gets into Washingtons system, because the Huskies are clearly betting that his presence will be felt sooner rather than later. [Read more 🡒]