Most people wait 10 years before they go to a college reunion. Not Daejon Davis. He left Stanford barely six months ago.
He'll reintroduce himself to his former teammates on Saturday when his University of Washington basketball team hosts the visiting Cardinal at 3 p.m. at Alaska Airlines Arena.
For Davis, he simply came home to Seattle after spending four seasons in the Bay Area to use up the generous NCAA eligibility provision extended him and everyone else who had their college sporting careers impacted by the pandemic.
After playing 104 games and starting 97 for Stanford, Davis will face the Cardinal (10-4 overall, 3-1 Pac-12) as the leading ball-handler for Mike Hopkins' Huskies (7-7, 2-2).
Had things turned out differently with the local coaching situation, he might have done this in reverse, using the bulk of his time playing at the UW and picking up another season elsewhere.
Stanford will note that he still looks the same, as a somewhat hard-nosed player who can handle the ball and steal it frequently, but he doesn't scare anyone with his 3-point shooting.
In his Cardinal career, Davis averaged 10.5 points, 3 rebounds and 4.2 assists per outing. His 14-game stat line for the UW this season is 8.5, 2.7 and 2.6.
He wound up playing against the Huskies six times, with four of those games coming at Alaska Airlines Arena. He was 5-1 against them. He missed two others in California because of injuries.
Davis was one of those local players who got away because of a sudden slip in Husky basketball fortunes.
In 2014, when he was a sophomore at Seattle's Lakeside School, Davis received a scholarship offer from then Husky coach Lorenzo Romar.
A year later, the point guard accepted the offer after transferring across town to Garfield High.
In 2016, after decommitting when he wasn't quite sure about his decision and visiting Gonzaga, Oregon, Arizona and Stanford, Davis once more accepted Romar's UW offer.
A year later, Davis pulled out of his Husky commitment for good, or for at least four years, when Romar was fired and replaced by Hopkins, and he signed with the Cardinal.
As a Stanford freshman, he was at his best against the Huskies by scoring a series-best 16 points in a 73-64 victory in Seattle and handing out 9 assists while not taking a shot against them in Palo Alto in a 94-78 win.
So today Davis will go to this reunion, hoping to have a much better time than fellow Husky guard and former Arizona playmaker Terrell Brown had last week at his. Brown lost by 16.
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