When Kentucky transfer Keion Brooks, Jr. decided to commit to Washington he made the Huskies an instant contender in the Pac-12 North this coming season. He becomes the fourth transfer that Washington Coach Mike Hopkins has added this cycle. He will join Noah Williams from Washington State, Oregon transfer, Franck Kepnang, and former Fresno State Bulldog, Braxton Meah.
While Terrell Brown, Jr.’s 21 points a night are gone the Huskies have added size in a big way.
The first thing that jumps out is Brooks’ length. While he’s 6-7 he has a wing span of 7-1. What the long levers do is mess up passing lanes for opposing offenses. However, once he has a full grasp of the Hopkins’ zone defense he can begin to shut down teams on the wings. At 185 pounds Brooks won’t be asked to do much on the interior of the defense but his athleticism could show some shades of former Husky Matisse Thybulle.
While Washington posted a winning record on the season, at 17-15, there were five curious non-conference losses: Northern Illinois, Wyoming, Nevada, Winthrop, and Utah Valley. But there in lies the problem with the transfer portal and the complicated defense that Hopkins brought with him from Syracuse.
“The transfers didn’t ease into the system as freshmen under Coach Hopkins,” said RealDawg.com’s Kyle Waltos. “Early in the season with so many new components the challenge is to forget what they learned at their previous stop and learn new terminology and concepts.”
And that came back to haunt the Huskies last season when they could have been a bubble team if the non-conference defeats were reversed. That would have moved Washington’s record to a far more respectable to the selection committee, at 22-10.
Earlier this year the Huskies landed 6-foot-11 center Kepnang, who has a reach of 7-4. He has packed a solid 249 pounds onto his frame which gives him the ability to defend the rim. Offensively, as a sophomore, he shot 57-percent from the field last season scoring double figures only twice. He averaged 4.7 points and 3.1 rebounds per game. Defensively, though, the Cameroon native has Hopkins licking his chops with 60 blocks in two seasons. Three times during conference games he swatted four shots.
Joining Brooks and Kepnang in Washington’s front court is former top-250 player in the country in the 2020 recruiting class, Braxton Meah. After a couple of seasons at Fresno State in the shadow of potential late first-round pick, Orlando Robinson, Meah is a known quantity as he was originally recruited by Hopkins out of San Joaquin Memorial in Fresno. The 7-foot, 230-pound center gives Hopkins another athletic big body in the paint.
The Huskies finished 11-9 in conference play, right in the middle of a fairly well-balanced conference, tied with Oregon and Washington State and a game behind Colorado. Adding Brooks gives Hopkins one of his best lineups in a couple of years, and could thrust them to the front of the Pac-12 standings.
