Huskies point guard Quade Green ruled academically ineligible
Quade Green addressed the local media for the first time in late November.
Washington’s starting point guard sat in front of reporters and talked about switching from the No. 0 he wore at Kentucky to No. 55 with the Huskies. The latter was his first number, the one he wore in his earliest days playing basketball. To Green, who transferred from Kentucky midway through last season, wearing it again represented a second chance.
“That’s one of the ways of telling me that I got to get back to myself,” Green said then. “That’s basically what it is. Get in the grind, that extra grind. What you’ve been through coming up in Philadelphia and being that humble, gritty kid that you’ve always been.”
For a while, Green’s second chance was running smoothly. The former McDonald’s All-American and five-star recruit quickly became a vital piece of the Huskies’ offense. Now, he’s been ruled academically ineligible effective immediately. He won’t take the floor with UW for its first Pac-12 road game against Stanford on Thursday, although he can practice with the team.
Green had been averaging 11.6 points and a team-high 5.3 assists per game. He was shooting 44.7 percent from the 3-point line, which led UW and ranked seventh in the Pac-12. He also had the seventh-best assist-to-turnover ratio in the conference at 2.3-1.
“His basketball character, I think, is incredible,” head coach Mike Hopkins said in November. “Makes others around him better, wants to lead the team in assists, pushing the ball up. I think those are all things infectious and that’s what we’re preaching as a coaching staff. He’s been an extension of us.”
The Huskies have a concerning lack of experience behind Green.
Sophomore Elijah Hardy will start in Green’s place against Stanford on Thursday night. He’s averaging just 8 minutes and 0.8 points per game.
“His energy levels are booming,” Hopkins said of Hardy on Tuesday. “Now it goes back to, we got that. You’re all over the place. Now, put that in with disciplined defense and I think that comes back to minutes and comfort and all of those different things. It’s hard to get in 6-8 minutes. ... He’s done a heckuva job.
“He’s impacted winning for us in the moments that he’s played. It’s hard. I tell him all the time, ‘Don’t let me be a coach that takes away your confidence.’ I want the most confident Elijah Hardy. We have to just coach him through: ‘I don’t like that shot , but I loved when you did this.’ So, start to get more consistency because he’s young.”
Sophomore guard Jamal Bey is capable of running the point, and has done so for UW on occasion this season. Bey is averaging 22.7 minutes and 5.5 points per game.
The Huskies also have freshman point guard Marcus Tsohonis, who has appeared in just three games. Hopkins said he planned to redshirt Tsohonis, but that will change with Green out. Tsohonis, a three-star recruit out of Portland, Ore., will dress against the Cardinal. He last played on Nov. 24 againt San Diego.
UW’s last day of instruction for the winter quarter is March 13. Finals begin the following week and end on March 20, so Green could potentially be eligible for a potential trip to the NCAA Tournament or NIT.
This story was originally published January 9, 2020 at 5:01 PM.
