Huskies Had German Player Locked Down Early, Watched Everyone Else Pursue Him

Danny Sprinkle, after running most of his University of Washington basketball players through a summer practice on Monday that began at 7 a.m., sat down at a table, surrounded by microphones, to address the media about his new team.

He might as well been perched on a catbird seat.

One of the questions posed to him was about 6-foot-9 German Hannes Steinbach, currently attracting a lot of attention at the U19 FIBA World Cup in Lausanne, Switzerland, and showing up in the first round of multiple mock NBA drafts without having played a minute of college basketball.

Sprinkle credited his UW assistant coach Andy Hill for immediately verifying the European kid's talent level and getting him into a scholarship agreement well before the rest of the college landscape got clued in to the promising European player.

"Andy Hill is the one who evaluated him really, really early on in the process," Sprinkle said. "People don't know, but we signed him early. We obviously didn't announce it. It got so out of control late, where every single program in the country, the elite of the elite, tried to get in there. But we already had him signed."

Steinbach recently drew a lot of attention in the opening round of the ongoing World Cup with a 19-point, 19-rebound outing against Slovenia. He moves exceedingly well and demonstrated this by throwing down a dunk on two opponents early in the opening game.

Add to that, he's a very determined rebounder, which is a talent not everyone focuses on across the modern game.

"His rebounding, even when he was kind of 6-7 and 6-8 and still growing, he's just one of those guys who's got a knack to be around the basketball. ... If he gets his hands on it, he's getting it," Sprinkle said.

Steinbach will be in Switzerland throughout the rest of the week, with Hill watching and protecting the UW interests, and then the Huskies will prepare for his arrival in Montlake to what looks to be an extremely competitive basketball atmosphere.

After all, the UW has never called media members together in the middle of the summer to meet with the Husky basketball coach and his new players in advance of what could be an entertaining winter in the Big Ten.

Steinback should be right in the middle of it all, grabbing rebounds and dunking on people at Alaska Airlines Arena, as Husky basketball goes through an expected resurgence.

"His skill level is very unique," Sprinkle said. "He's 6-9 and he's growing by the day. He's got huge hands. Like when you meet him, he's got basketball hands and basketball shoulders. ... There's a reason he's 25th in the mock draft -- like people know about him."

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: