It’s still early in the season, but there’s plenty of reason to be hopeful for this year’s UW Huskies men’s basketball team, a group that sits atop the Pac-12.

Nowell, Carter lead UW Huskies past Stanford 80-64

The 13-4 Huskies are undefeated at home (9-0) are 4-0 in conference play for the first time since 2012.

Washington guard Matisse Thybulle joined 710 ESPN Seattle’s Danny, Dave and Moore Friday to talk about how the Huskies have been able to get such a fast start in the Pac-12 this year.

“I think it’s just stuff that we’ve been trying to do all year, and that’s just continue to grow and build on each game,” Thybulle said. “Every non-conference game we had was a chance to learn and get better, so it only set us up better for conference play.”

Thybulle has 251 career steals in his time at Washington. What’s been the key?

“Well one, I love it,” Thybulle said. “Two, the key is you’ve got to have a great coach, like Coach (Mike) Hopkins, and some great teammates who can have your back. For me, I’m blessed to have the opportunity to go out and take crazy gambles because one, Coach Hop trusts me because I’ve proven I can have success doing it, and then two, I have four guys behind me who will cover for me. When I go and take the risk to try to get these steals, I know that they have my back and they’re not going to let it all get messed up just because I messed up.”

Thybulle – who was shocked to find out during the interview that he has a Wikipedia page – also talked about Washington’s zone defense and why it’s harder to play defense today. You can hear the full interview here, or in the audio clip embedded above.

Listen to Danny, Dave and Moore every weekday from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. on 710 ESPN Seattle.