SEATTLE — It's a big mystery. Scratch that — it's a Great mystery.

New Huskies men's basketball coach Danny Sprinkle has already made a Lake Union-sized splash with the names he has brought to Washington since getting the job in March.

Perhaps the biggest was bringing forward Great Osobor over from Utah State, where Sprinkle last coached.

Osobor averaged 17.7 points and 9.0 rebounds per game last season while winning Mountain West Player of the Year. How coveted was he? Enough to reportedly amass $2 million in NIL deals, the largest known sum in college basketball right now.

This speaks to the connection Sprinkle had with his former player, who could have gone just about anywhere he wanted. It's enough to spur some optimism among Husky honks, who have seen their team reach the NCAA tournament just once (2019) in the past 12 seasons.

But optimism and enthusiasm are two different things. What about the rest of Sprinkle's offseason work?

The big gets out of high school were Tacoma's Zoom Diallo, a national top-50 recruit who spent his senior year at Prolific Prep in California, and Jase Butler, a top-100 recruit from San Francisco. The big keep, if he can stay healthy (a giant if), is center Franck Kepnang.

And then there are the transfers: Guard Mekhi Mason out of Rice, guard DJ Davis from Butler, center KC Ibekwe from Oregon State, Chris Conway from Oakland and Luis Kortright from Rhode Island.

How do you feel about this?

On one hand you have a potential All-American with Osobor, who was named as an honorable-mention selection to that team at the end of last season. The England native hasn't sizzled his entire college career (he came off the bench in his two years at Montana State) but made a seismic leap last season. You also have Diallo, a McDonald's All-American, who starred at Curtis High School but put up middling numbers at Prolific Prep. And then there's Kepnang, who was a defensive menace in the 18 games he played over the past two seasons, but whose injuries sidelined him in a hurry.

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