Wini Braga Brings Instant Impact, Experience to UW Basketball

For the first time in Danny Sprinkle's head coaching career, the third-year Washington Huskies' coach will have a Brazilian leading his team when his team takes the court later this year.

This past week, UW landed a commitment from 21-year-old Wini Braga (Silva), a 6-foot-9 forward from Altamira, Brazil, a versatile center-forward, who is expected to be the primary post option for Sprinkle in 2026-27 with ex-freshman forward Hannes Steinbach off to the NBA draft and starting center Franck Kepnang opting to finish his career at Kentucky.

Braga has led Minas, a Brazilian team that plays in the highest level of professional basketball in the South American country Novo Basquete Brasil (NBB), to a 29-9 overall regular season record and recorded back-to-back games of 18-plus points and at least five rebounds in a pair of playoff games against Corinthians.

With the way Sprinkle has assembled his roster ahead of next season, Braga will likely be the Huskies' go-to post option, either at the four position with junior center Lathan Sommerville playing the five or Braga playing as a center and UW playing with three or four guards, depending on the usage of Texas Tech transfer forward LeJuan Watts.

Like Steinbach, Braga comes to Seattle with an expectation to have a similar impact for the Huskies, with the ability to shoot and score. The difference will be if the talented Brazilian can consistently score in double figures, after he was unable to reach that mark in six of his final seven regular-season games.

The catch: his season-high 26-point and 12 rebound performance in Minas’ 80-77 defeat against Unifacisa on April 12 shows the ceiling the Brazilian possesses, even if he only had two 20-point outings in 2025-26.

”You got a light-bodied big man with above-average technical skills who, born in 2005, already has two seasons in the main rotation of one of the best professional teams in South America,” a local reporter wrote on social media about Braga’s game.

”He plays real basketball—mature, high-level. Very few young players contribute the way he does at this level.You're getting a very talented kid who is ready to contribute right away. He's a facilitator—he doesn't need the ball to impact the game, he can read defenses and execute within longer possessions (his team runs a very diverse and complex playbook).“

The addition of Braga is the first major front-court addition since Watts made his transfer official on April 25, when UW announced the formal move via a press release.

Now that Sprinkle has had two years of experience in the Big Ten, he’s got a better understanding of the league and how to match up using one or two bigs on the floor.