Biggest Husky Basketball Inroad This Season Might Be Its Big Man

Lorenzo Romar went through 15 seasons as the UW coach with only one big man of any consequence in 7-foot-1, 245-pound Spencer Hawes, who stuck around Montlake just long enough to play his freshman season in 2007 before heading to the NBA draft.

Before that, Bob Bender relied heavily on 7-foot, 280-pound Todd MacCulloch to get the Huskies into the 1998 and 1999 NCAA tournaments before the Canadian post man turned to the NBA.

Other than that, it's been a forgettable series of one-dimensional, offensive-limited UW post players such as David Dixon, Aziz N'Diaye and Nate Roberts.

Under the continued guidance of Mike Hopkins' staff, Meah still needs a skyhook or a short-range jumper to further expand his game and make himself a much more dangerous player around the basket.

"I wish I could learn to do the skyhook," he said. "That's super hard to learn."

That's where his Husky coaches, whether they're holdovers or new ones next season, come in and earn their big salaries. 

Fifty years ago, James Edwards was sort of a gawky, unpolished player, but his Roosevelt High School and UW coaches put him on a regimen of agility drills and repeated offensive maneuvers to turn him into a 7-foot-1, 252-pound force in the key, an All-Pac-10 selection over multiple seasons and a 19-year NBA player.

This Husky season began promising enough when 6-foot-11 Frank Kepnang and Meah transferred in from Oregon and Fresno State, respectively, and then centered on the latter when Kepnang suffered a season-ending injury. 

Ths Ducks showed Meah proper respect when then purposely went after him to open the second half of last week's game with very intention of getting him into foul trouble and out of the game. Over the space of just 74 seconds, he drew his second, third and fourth fouls and sat down for the next 10 minutes of what became a 72-71 overtime victory for the UW.

Meah, who has two seasons of eligibility remaining as does Kepnang, seems enthusiastic about putting in the effort to becoming a better college player. 

He's gone from averaging 8 minutes per game at Fresno State as a reserve in 2021-22 to 29.5 minutes each time out for the Huskies while starting all 28 games, so he has much more experience and endurance. 

He averages 9 points and 7.1 rebounds an outing, up from 2.2 points and 2.2 rebounds a game a year ago for the Mountain West team.

Most impressively, Meah has improved his foul shooting from 44.8 percent at Fresno State last season to 70.7 percent for the UW by using an unusual, one-handed yet effective shot.

Freshman guards Keyon Menifield and Koren Johnson withstanding, the difference between the Huskies returning to the NCAA tournament anytime soon or continuing to shuffle along in mediocre fashion is having a full-service big man to build a team around, someone able to score consistently in a variety of ways as well as grab rebounds and swat away shots.. 

Meah, who has a dozen double-figure scoring games for the UW, could be that guy. Best of all, he wants to be that guy. 

"I want to say I'm pleased," he said. "I'm real happy that my work is really showing."

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