Lorenzo Romar talks toughness, optimisim and consistency before game vs. Oregon State

Huskies men’s basketball coach Lorenzo Romar met with reporters today to preview Saturday’s 12 p.m. game against Oregon State, and also said his team needs to be tougher and more consistent to avoid the kind of big runs that have doomed them in recent losses. Here is everything Romar said during a fairly revealing 20-minute session.

(Are you in must-win territory now?) “We have to come out and play, for sure. We can’t look beyond this. This is a huge game like the next one always is, but this is an even bigger one because we’ve squandered away two opportunities at home to start off on the right foot, so this is a very important game.”

(Do you tweak the starting lineup or rotation?) “No, no.”

(What about scheme?) “What we’re doing is not the issue, it’s that we’re not doing it consistently enough. Should we go back and change the first half against Oregon – I think the last part of the first half, it ended up 42-33, but right before that, we were up 24-21 at one point. Whatever we did at that point, do we change that? Do we change how we played against Washington State when we were up 13? If we were doing something totally wrong the entire time – you don’t play, you’re just down the entire time every game. We’ve got to be more consistent in what we do. That’s the bottom line. We’re just not consistent enough in whatever we’re doing.”

(How do you do that?) “We have to continue – and I say this all the time – we have to continue to watch film, we have to continue to address it. We have to continue to hold each other accountable. We have to be in adverse situations in practice, like we try to do already, but we have to continue to do it. It’s hard. I wish we had 20 more games to play so that we could be even more experienced, but you don’t do that. We’re in the conference. We’ve played two games of conference, we have 16 games of conference play left. You can’t prepare any more. But we do need to have a sense of urgency of, every play is so important right now. Every possession, every pass is so important. And that’s not to create a measure of tension or anxiety, it’s just real. It’s reality. We have to understand it. I believe it was about a four to five minute stretch in the Oregon game that got us down 20. It was about two minutes in the first half … it was 42-39 with 18 minutes to go, a little over 18 minutes. It’s 42-39, and we had the momentum, we were getting stops, and you look up, there it is again. And we’re down 10, we’re at the free throw line, we make two free throws, now it’s eight, (and) there it went. Bad shot here, turnover there, lost coverage, there it goes, just like that. We haven’t understood yet. We haven’t been able to grasp yet how important those situations are. We’re up 22-5 against TCU on the road. A bad shot, three turnovers, there it is, just like that, the team is back. They didn’t catch up at the time, they didn’t even the score, but that gets it going. We haven’t grasped that yet. So we can change, we can adjust, we can do all this – when it comes to that point where now we have to make sure we get a stop, take care of the ball, we can’t have a breakdown, it’s going to come to that point. Regardless of what defense we’re in, offense we’re in, that’s where we’re at.”

(Since this team started practicing for this season, is there something you or your staff did, or didn’t do, that you look back on and wish you’d done differently?) “I’ve thought and thought about that. There were so many times when we were at practice, where it looked like we had it. We’re doing a really good job. Only to come to the game and, wait a minute, we haven’t even seen this yet. We haven’t seen this at practice. Before Christmas break, when we got back, until our first game against Washington State, our practices – this is coming off of a high, regardless of who the teams were, we’re 3-0, we had a three-game winning streak and lost at the buzzer in the other one to Nevada – we were feeling pretty good, but we just couldn’t get over the hump of really clicking in practice. And that made me worry, like wait a minute, this shouldn’t be happening. We came out and played well at first against Washington State, but we didn’t finish it right. So as I go back, maybe to have had the foresight to realize some of it was maybe fool’s gold. But I didn’t have that foresight.”

(Are you still as optimistic as you were a few weeks ago about where this team can end up?) “If we can figure it out fast. The luxury I have more than the average fan is to have been coaching and been around a number of different teams and have seen the times when that day hit, or that week hit, and you realize uh-oh, we are in big trouble. And then to also think, like, we’re just not getting it, we’re just not getting it, and then all of a sudden it clicks. I’ve seen them both. Because I’ve been in those situations, that’s why I can feel optimistic that it can still click. After two conference games – ‘yeah but they were at home, you’re 7-7, this hasn’t happened’ – it’s all right. We can figure it out quickly enough. And it has to happen fast, obviously. I’m still very optimistic about this team.”

(Can you teach toughness?) “It can be taught but it’s just like shooting in some ways. Shooting is not taught in a week. If you have the potential to be a good shooter, and you have to have the potential. If you just can’t shoot, that wasn’t one of the things you were blessed with, then that’s a different deal. but if you have the potential, you just haven’t shot it well, like an Andrew Andrews, or Isaiah Thomas, who didn’t shoot the ball well but kept working, over a period of time, he got it where he became a really good shooter. Andrew Andrews became a really good shooter over a period of time. But it doesn’t happen overnight. And that toughness part of it, a lot of it has to be in you, but some of it has to be acquired over a period of time. He would smile if he were right here sitting next to me, but Quincy Pondexter, when he left here, I saw him strike fear in opponents. I saw him physically abuse opponents. I saw it. I saw him intimidate people when he was here his last year. But that wasn’t the case when he first got here. Over a period of time, it happened. I’ve seen it happen with Matthew Bryan-Amaning. I’ve just seen it with a number of guys over a period of time, but it didn’t happen when they were really young. It didn’t happen. So we’re hopeful that this curve can quicken, so to speak. We don’t have another year. We’ve got a game tomorrow. We play Oregon State tomorrow. We can’t wait. It has to happen. We’re working toward it, but the sooner, the better.”

(Is there a common denominator among players who make that transition?) “Individual basis, but one common denominator is that it really meant something to the kids to do well. It really meant something to them. Those that got it eventually, it really meant something to them. They did not want to be that person that wasn’t tough, or whatever their deficiencies were, and they worked their tails off. But it still didn’t happen within a month or two. It took a while. … By the way, Jon Brockman was not one of those guys (laughs).”

(Have you been more pointed about preaching it?) “Yes, we have. We played our last game in Australia and as all the teams were, a bunch of grown men out there. This particular team that we played was a little more fiery, a little more testy, a little more physical. And there were probably three, four times where a fight was about to break out in that game, and our guys were right there, ready. Our guys were so physical that night, and mentally tough. Sometimes guys can be … it takes, to me, more toughness sometimes to not fight, to show restraint, even though you can probably clock and beat up the whole room. You’ve got the power to do that. But to show restraint and not do it, that’s where the mental part comes in. I thought we showed both that night. I thought we were mentally tough and physically tough, and our staff talked about that – ‘we shouldn’t have a problem this year with toughness issues.’ So here we are, though. That’s something we’ve got to get better at as a team.”

(Is it especially surprising with guys like Matthew Atewe and Sam Timmins that you still get pushed around?) “A little bit. It wasn’t just them. Our team that night was pretty tough. We think it’s in there somewhere, we just have to continue to work to get it out. Like I said, sorry to keep repeating myself, but I can name you a whole bunch of examples of teams when they were freshmen and sophomores, they weren’t that tough. But when they became upperclassmen they won championships, they won league titles and I’m not just talking about us. I’m talking about a lot of places. We just don’t have that luxury right now, like I said. We play tomorrow. But we’re going to continue to work on that and get better at it.”

(On young players like Matisse Thybulle needing to step up more consistently) “A lot of times with young players, you mentioned Matisse specifically, he’s a sophomore. But still, I put everybody in the category of – Noah Dickerson and maybe David Crisp were the only two on this team last year that we really looked to make key scorers for us or were go-to guys at times. But our go-to guys were the three that are gone, so this is new to our guys. And then we have younger players. Typically, a lot of times before a scout, before young players are scouted, they come out and they do things you go, ‘whoa, he’s only going to be in college for the rest of this week and then that’s it. He’s going to be gone, he’s so good!’ Then the scout comes into play, and in league play, it starts all over again. Teams have enough sample size to really take some things away. And then players figure it out again and they’re off and running. And that could be what’s going on a little bit with a couple of our guys. And I say that to say, I think our guys will be fine that way. We’ve just got to find our way.”

(On Oregon State) “They are a team that is improving every week, to me. They didn’t win the two games against SC and UCLA, but I thought they played UCLA pretty tough. They kept that game close, and we know UCLA is a really, really good team. Their last game against WSU they lost but they had every chance to win that game also. So they’re a team that’s really improving, and they’re going to get coach’s son back and they’re going to be even better whenever he gets back. Eubanks is becoming one of the top post players in our league. He’s a load to deal with.”

(With JaQuori McLaughlin coming to town, seems like a lot of local guys have come in here and played well against you this season. Something to that?) “Wanting to play better, there’s no question when you come home. I remember over the years, Marcus Williams who played (prep) here, played at Arizona, came back and had a great game against us. I remember as a player myself going back to Los Angeles, playing against UCLA, USC. I remember UCLA, it was a year they went to the Final Four, 1980, we beat ‘em there and I played pretty good. I just remember, going home, you circle that game from day 1, when I get to go home. Guys always get pretty excited about doing it.”

(What have you seen from McLaughlin so far?) “He’s what we thought. He was not a starter at first but now he plays as many minutes as anyone on that team. He’s a good basketball player, no doubt about it.”

(They do anything differently than last season?) “They do a couple things different. Their team has changed a little bit, also, without Gary Payton II. A lot of the stuff, he’s been doing a lot of the same things since he started coaching. But very effective, they’ve been.”

(Have you looked at last year’s game (a UW loss on a buzzer-beating 3-pointer by Stephen Thompson Jr.) against OSU much since then?) “I haven’t looked at the game as much as the last five minutes of the game. I don’t replay it every night, but I have gone back to it and watched it several times.”

(Is the sting of that loss still there?) “Yeah. It’s still there. There was a lot of meaning to that game. There are probably four games since we’ve been here in 15 years that carried a lot of weight, carried a lot of significance on our season, the future, all of that, and that would be one of them.”

(If you had a chance to do it all over again, even your postgame comments, would you change anything?) “Why you gotta bring the postgame comments up (laughs)? As far as the basketball game is concerned, hindsight is 20/20, obviously. I would have hoped we could have slowed the ball down that last shot. But it wasn’t just that last shot. Again, it was a minute and a half, something like that, and we were up 7. Tinkle hit a shot-fake 3-pointer with our guy all over him. That was as big of a shot almost as the 3 that Stevie Thompson hit. That is the one that got them in the ballpark. If he doesn’t hit that shot, game over. We missed free throws. We couldn’t come up with two rebounds down the stretch. We got them to miss, and we couldn’t come up with a couple of rebounds. Just everything that could have went bad, went bad in a minute and a half. So there’s a lot you wish could change, but I would say if we play that game 10 times, the same circumstances, we probably get it done. But a game with NCAA ramifications and all kinds of things at stake, we didn’t pull it out.”

(On the popular belief by statisticians that a team’s defense has little impact on the opponent’s 3-point percentage) “Well, we understand all those analytics pretty good because of Pabail (Sidhu), who is our guy that’s on top of all of it. But I probably keep it a little more simple: we can’t have breakdowns like we had defensively. When teams hit a number of 3s or a high percentage of 3s against us, so far this year it’s because we’ve had too many defensive breakdowns. That’s what it’s been. So whether it evens out or not, we’ve got to do a better job with guarding that.”

This story was originally published January 6, 2017 at 3:20 PM with the headline "Lorenzo Romar talks toughness, optimisim and consistency before game vs. Oregon State."