Just nine games into their 2016-17 campaign, the fate of the Washington Huskies seems written in pen, if not etched in stone.
Why is Washington content being a one-and-done factory that can’t make the NCAA Tournament?
Like LSU a season ago, Washington seems likely to miss the NCAA Tournament despite having the potential No. 1 pick in the next NBA draft on its roster. So why does this keep happening? And why does it seem unlikely to stop any time soon?
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Despite being able to lay claim to one of the most coveted prospects in the 2016 recruiting class and potentially the No. 1 pick in the 2017 NBA draft, Lorenzo Romar's team sits at 4-5 after the season's first month. Markelle Fultz has been as good as advertised, but that hasn't saved Washington from losing to Yale and Nevada at home, to TCU twice, and to Gonzaga in a nationally televised blowout.
There are no more quality non-conference opponents remaining on Washington’s schedule, and even if there were, the Huskies would likely still remain in the unenviable position of having to flip the script completely and dominate a tough Pac-12 in order to have a shot at hearing their name called on Selection Sunday.
There are only three power-conference head coaches who have missed the NCAA Tournament in each of the last five years and managed to keep their jobs: Brad Brownell at Clemson, Pat Chambers at Penn State, and Romar. Of that group, Romar seems like the only one who is a stone-cold lock to be back next season even if his streak of futility extends to six.
The reason? Washington already has its next Markelle Fultz lined up in the form of class of 2017 sensation Michael Porter Jr.
Porter Jr. is a consensus top-five player in the 2017 class who is remarkably skilled despite standing 6’10. He and his younger brother, a blue-chip talent in the 2018 class, both have a lengthy relationship with Romar and play for former Washington star Brandon Roy, who was named as the new boys basketball coach at Nathan Hale High School in Seattle last summer. Oh, and their father, Michael Porter Sr., was hired by Romar as a full-time assistant coach back in May.
So Romar’s gig would seem to be safe barring a complete off-the-court disaster, or a player mutiny or something. With that job security comes a predictable immediate future for Washington basketball. The Huskies will continue to play uninspired basketball, they will continue to lose and will ultimately follow in LSU’s footsteps by not playing in any sort of postseason tournament, Fultz will be a millionaire in a few short months, Romar will keep his job, Porter Jr. and the other two top-100 commits that Washington has waiting in the wings will arrive on campus in the summer, and the whole cycle will begin anew.
All of this begs an incredibly simple, but equally insoluble question: What’s the point?
Sure, college sports have become about more than just winning games and competing for championships, but shouldn’t those two things carry at least some weight in any major program’s overall strategy? Is “hey we’ve had a couple really cool players wear our uniform” really enough of a branding benefit to overshadow missing the NCAA Tournament for the better part of a decade?
None of it seems to make any sense. Washington’s home attendance is up slightly from last season, but I can’t imagine the added revenue from that average jumping by about 1,500 people is going to be significant enough to fund a new library or workout facility on campus. The brand boost that will come with Fultz’s imminent professional career would also seem unlikely to generate that level of cash.
Playing for a dismal and detached LSU team last season didn't keep Ben Simmons from being the first player taken in the NBA draft, and similar circumstances are unlikely to force Fultz out of being a top-five pick. That doesn't mean that both players picked the ideal way to spend their one year between high school and the league.
If a five-star player doesn’t want to play on a national title contender during their one year of college ball, that’s fine, but they’d be better served playing for a low-major close to their hometown than they would suiting up for a middling power conference program. Markelle Fultz the Marist Red Fox or Markelle Fultz the UC-Irvine Anteater would be infinitely more interesting than Markelle Fultz the Washington Husky is right now, and either one of those former players would have a far better chance of playing in the NCAA Tournament than the latter does.
Washington may pull an upset or two during the Pac-12 season, but ultimately, there will be no lingering memories of Markelle Fultz's brief time as a college basketball player, and that's unfortunate for him and everyone who cares about the sport. It's equally unfortunate that we're more likely than not to be having a nearly identical conversation 12 months from now.
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