From Beyond The Arc: Washington Women’s Basketball 2023 Preview

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Huskies head coach Tina Langley embarks on her third season for Washington. Langley took over starting in 2021-22 after a disastrous (and unfortunate) four-year stint with Jody Wynn. Wynn followed coach Mike Nichols, who in his four seasons never had under 20 wins, and took the Huskies to the postseason in every year he coached. Wynn’s first season went 7-23, and although the Huskies showed some progress in the next two seasons, they still stayed below .500 in seasonal and conference play under her tenure. The unfortunate part is that any hope of trying to improve on 2019-20’s 13-16 record was completely undone in the 20-21 season due to a lengthy Covid quarantine and a rash of injuries.

After firing Jody Wynn, the Huskies brought on Langley, who had just coached Rice to the WNIT championship. Langley’s record on her first season was 7-16 and then she made some solid gains last season. The Huskies’ record was 19-15 (7-11 Pac-12), nearly identical to Oregon’s (20-15, 7-11 Pac-12) and both teams tied for 8th in the Pac-12 standings. Washington made a deeper run than Oregon in the 2023 WNIT, eventually falling to Kansas in the Fab 4.

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A sophomore 6-4 F last year, Dalayah Daniels was the only Husky last year to go into double digit PPG, at 11.3 (she also had the lion’s share of blocks with 52). 6-1 F Haley Van Dyke was next with 9.4 PPG, followed by 5-11 F Lauren Schwartz with 8.7.

Thus far, Washington has not announced a roster for 2023-24, nor have they announced any signees from the transfer portal. They have four open slots of their roster as of this writing. We will undoubtedly see activity on this front within the next couple of months.

The Huskies will likely return three starters from last season’s team: Daniels, sophomore 5-11 G Hannah Stiles, and senior 5-11 E Jayda Noble. Washington is losing a fair amount of senior leadership to attrition and it’s fair to assume that they’ll be looking to the portal for answers.

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Langley signed four newcomers to the 23-24 class.

6-6 F Olivia Anderson is a Seattle area product and was a projected 4* recruit. Her size should make her an immediate presence this season.

Chloe Briggs is a 5-10 G from Ontario, CA. She was ranked 93 in the ESPNW Top 100.

Ari Long is a 6-0 G from Moreno Valley, CA. She was rated 46 in the ESPNW Top 100.

Sayvia Sellers is a 5-7 PG from Anchorage, AK. and was the highest-rated signee in WA’s class, at 28 in the ESPNW Top 100.

Much the same as Oregon, the Huskies will be fielding different faces from last season. Because there is still some roster-building that needs to happen, it’s difficult to guess where Washington ends up in the Pac-12 pecking order. We’ll know more at the beginning of the 23-24 season.