Washington’s regular season begins in less than 2 weeks but the Huskies are still adding pieces to their roster for this upcoming season after earning a commitment from Serbian PF Nikola Dzepina. Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress broke the news from Dzepina’s agent and says that Dzepina expects to enroll for Winter quarter to hopefully be eligible in December.
The 6’9 Dzepina has been playing in the Spanish U22 league for Valencia and through 2 games this season was averaging 13.5 points and 4 rebounds per game while shooting 57% from 3-point range. He signed a 7-year deal with Valencia in March of 2024 and will turn 20 years old next July.
Dzepina broke out this summer while playing for team Serbia in the U19 FIBA World Cup (which also featured Huskies Hannes Steinbach and JJ Mandaquit). He was team Serbia’s leading scorer at 16.4 points to go along with 5.4 rebounds on 34.5% 3-point shooting over 4.1 attempts from deep per game. Dzepina’s lowest production output came when facing off against Steinbach and team Germany (9 points and just 1 rebound).
It’s unclear how exactly the roster situation is going to shake out with Dzepina joining before the heart of conference play. New roster rules in the sport have given teams a 15-person roster including walk-ons but Washington is already at 15. The Huskies have been beset by injuries recently which has necessitated Sprinkle’s hunt for more depth.
6’11 center Mady Traore is out for the season, 6’11 Christian Nitu has been banged up the last several weeks, and Lipscomb transfer Jacob Ognacevic is out for at least 3 months with a broken bone in his foot. Dzepina’s addition seems most likely a response to the latter as Washington really only had one forward capable of reliably hitting an outside shot and it was Ognacevic. It would be ideal if Dzepina were available right now but he gives some extra security in case Ognacevic ends up needing longer than 3 months to heal.
We’ll see if Dzepina winds up making a major difference on this roster. Last season the Huskies brought in Dominique Diomande on roughly the same timetable but he never ended up playing a minute on the court for Washington before transferring to BYU in the offseason. The hope is that Diomande was a case of misevaluation and he truly wasn’t ready whereas Dzepina will be capable of stepping in to contribute right away. Between the roster confusion and the eligibility situation it seems best for now to not absolutely count on Dzepina playing two months from now but it would be nice if he could step in from day one.