For the first time since 1916, Washington State and Washington will not meet in men’s basketball during a calendar year.
That’s the end of the hoops Apple Cup, at least for now, and it comes despite WSU wanting the series to keep rolling. Greg Woods of the Spokesman-Review reported that the teams will instead play an exhibition in Seattle at a date that has not been set.
The disappointment is obvious. The surprise? Not much.
From the start, UW coach Danny Sprinkle has given off little interest in preserving the matchup. Before the first game, he said it wasn’t important to him that the series continue. WSU coach David Riley, meanwhile, has been firmly in the other camp.
"We had to keep this thing alive," Riley said back in December of 2024. "I think that's something that we've tried with all of these Northwest teams is to make sure that we're doing right by what I think is good for college basketball and playing these local teams is a heck of a game."
There are plenty of possible reasons the game is gone. Strength of schedule doesn’t really explain it, though, not when WSU has been through two difficult seasons and Sprinkle has put together two soft non-conference slates in his first two years at UW.
Maybe it’s about image. Maybe Sprinkle doesn’t want to risk a loss to WSU, especially with UW’s roster spending apparently nowhere near what it was a year ago, or the year before.
However it happened, the move also wipes out some appealing storylines. Riley would have had a chance to coach against former players Steele Venters and LeJuan Watts, both now at UW.
Watts played two seasons at Eastern Washington under Riley, then one at WSU before heading to Texas Tech. Venters spent three years at Eastern Washington before transferring to Gonzaga.
Still, this feels like the natural endpoint from the moment Sprinkle downplayed the rivalry’s importance. And it may be a preview of where things are headed in football, too.
WSU and UW did not play baseball this year, have not met in women’s basketball since the Pac-12 broke apart, and are not scheduled to play women’s soccer this year. Volleyball is the only sport in which the schools have continued to see each other regularly outside of football.
On the football side, the Apple Cup has three years left on its original deal. The teams are set to play in Seattle this year, in Pullman next year, and back in Seattle in 2028. After that, it wouldn’t be a shock if the series ends - or even if UW backs out of the 2027 game to avoid a trip back to Pullman.
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