There is just Sunday night’s 7 p.m. exhibition versus Division II Saint Martin’s left until the start of the 2018 Washington men’s basketball season, following a couple of games in France and Spain this summer and last week’s behind-closed-door scrimmage at UC Santa Barbara.
Regarding the variety of adjustments coach Mike Hopkins intends to make this season, the initial reports have been largely favourable.
In August, Washington scored 92 points against French opponent Cergy-Pontoise and tallied 73 in three quarters against a Spanish all-star team before the game was stopped due to court conditions. 
And during last week’s controlled scrimmage, UW outscored a veteran Gauchos team that went to the NCAA tournament last season, which has inspired optimism among the Huskies that features eight newcomers.
“We’ve been coming together as a team these past couple of months,” said sixth-year forward Moses Wood, who spent the past two seasons with the Portland Pilots. “We got a little experience with the European trip.”
This is the third straight year in which the Huskies are bringing in at least seven players and Hopkins believes the two previous seasons has taught them how to foster camaraderie and teamwork in relatively short time.
“The more you do anything, you get better at it,” Hopkins said. “I don’t know necessarily if we made mistakes before. But like anything, you adjust and make changes if you don’t see the results you want.
“We’ve always had really good players. I don’t question that. The thing is, we didn’t always have the best fit. … So, that’s what we’re focusing on. Getting everyone to fit together.”
Among UW’s eight transfers are fifth-year graduates Sahvir Wheeler (Kentucky), Paul Mulcahy (Rutgers), Anthony Holland (Fresno State) and Wood, who believes their experience helps to build chemistry.
“Coming to a new place, you got to learn your guys, learn their style, where they like the ball and how they like to be communicated to,” Wood said. “With so much experience and so many older guys, everyone is a leader on the team and everyone can talk to each other.
With younger guys, sometimes it can be hard to talk to them and they might get a little upset if you say something the wrong way.
However, communication between the older guys is much simpler. Sort of, we know what it is. Guys have existed for ages. We are aware of the elements that comprise a strong team and a weak team. We know the negative behaviours that might harm us and the positive habits we should cultivate. We understand what it takes to work well as a team since we are older.
In addition to a fast-paced offense led by returning scoring leader Keion Brooks Jr., the Huskies are expected to unveil a new man-to-man defense on Sunday at Alaska Airlines Arena.
“It’s night and day compared to what we’re used to do,” said Brooks, who tied for third in the Pac-12 last season in scoring while averaging 17.7 points per game. “Everything is pretty much different. We’re working on shifting and changing our culture. We want to bring UW back to prominence. We want to bring UW back to a winning mentality. 
“Before you even get to the schematics and the coverages, you got to start with how you approach practice every day. How you approach the weight room. I feel like all of that goes hand-in-hand. But specifically on the court, I feel like we’ve done a great job of adapting to the new stuff. We have a highly intelligent basketball team. The coaches have done a great job of throwing stuff at us and we’ve been doing a great job catching on pretty quickly.”
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