It turns out that Washington fans only had to see Quincy Pondexter on the opposing sideline for one season. Today it became official that the former Husky star and assistant coach is returning to Washington after a one-year hiatus at USC, although in a different role.
That stint in Los Angeles became necessary after head coach Mike Hopkins was fired following Q-Pon’s 2nd season on the Husky coaching staff. New head coach Danny Sprinkle opted only to retain Jerry Hobbie off the previous staff which led to Will Conroy and Pondexter ultimately taking jobs at USC under former UW Athletics Director Jen Cohen.
Pondexter is joining in the “special assistant to the head coach” position this time around. Last year, that role was filled by former Cal Poly head coach John Smith who intimated on social media a few weeks ago that he would not be returning. With no other assistant coaches moving on this cycle it seemed that either Pondexter would fill that role or another assistant would move down to the position (it had previously been filled by Jerry Hobbie under Hopkins). It seems likely that this is a temporary role for Pondexter who will certainly be expecting to move to a regular assistant job with Washington or another program in the future.
Pondexter was a premium national recruit coming out of Fresno, California back in the day and joined the Huskies as a player at the height of the Lorenzo Romar era. He averaged at least 9.9 points per game in all 4 seasons for UW including a breakout senior year averaging 19.3 points and 7.4 rebounds per game while taking the Huskies to the Sweet 16. That performance made him a 1st round NBA draft pick and he played 7 seasons in the NBA while missing 2 years due to injury.
After his playing career was over, Pondexter got into AAU coaching and eventually worked himself into a position to join the Washington coaching staff under Mike Hopkins.
Pondexter has been known for his deep ties to the Fresno area and he received some public support to get the Fresno State head coaching job last offseason before it ultimately went to local HS coach Vance Walberg (Fresno finished this year 6-26). While at Washington he helped bring in both Braxton Meah and four-star recruit Wesley Yates III, both of whom to which he has family ties. Meah started at center for the Huskies for the better part of two seasons while Yates missed his entire freshman year in Seattle due to a foot injury.
Last offseason, both Meah and Yates opted to transfer from Washington but only Yates followed Pondexter to USC. That ended up working out okay for Yates who broke out midway through this season to average better than 18 points per game on nearly 50% 3-point shooting. Yates entered the transfer portal for a second time this offseason and committed to also return to Washington.
Welcome back to Seattle, Quincy!