Lorenzo Romar on Allonzo Trier returning for Arizona: ‘As good as they’ve been, they’re about to get better’
I’m still in the desert and was not at Huskies coach Lorenzo Romar’s media availability in Seattle today. But Associated Press reporter Tim Booth was, and was also kind enough to pass along audio of Romar’s press conference. Here is everything he said about facing No. 7 Arizona, the play of Markelle Fultz and what went wrong at Arizona State.
(On what went wrong at ASU) “I thought that we, in the zone, did a really nice job in the first half, for the most part. I didn’t think our defense was terrible. We had some blow-bys late in the game that kind of tainted our effort, so to speak. Aside from that, the thing that didn’t go well was we didn’t make shots in the first half. We shot 30 percent in the first half. We couldn’t convert layups. We couldn’t convert wide-open 3s. We couldn’t convert a lot of things. We also turned the ball over too many times. Four travels in the first half. Unforced turnovers.”
(Was the zone an ASU-specific thing?) “Well, we knew they were small. If they were big, we would have stated out in man, but they started out small. We didn’t think that we could do a good enough job when they went small, with our starters, so we went zone. But we’ve been playing more zone than we have in other years this year, so it’s kind of a game to game thing.”
(Were there moments you felt you could make a run and get back in it) “Oh, yeah. One in particular, we had cut it down to … three or five, we actually got them to miss and we didn’t come up with the ball. They were taking the ball out underneath and they threw it away, basically, and their guy, Vila, tracked it down at halfcourt, threw it behind himself to us – we had the ball, but we stepped out of bounds and then afterwards, finally, they scored. But I thought that was a big moment in the game where we just couldn’t get that ball back. But I thought we made a couple of runs at it, not to mention the way we started out. We started out pretty good.”
(On his assessment of UW’s perimeter defense) “It hasn’t been very good. Our defense hasn’t been very good. It’s been better the last few weeks. Utah, it was a zero. But aside from the Utah game, I think it’s been better than it was earlier in the year.”
(On Fultz in the final few minutes against ASU) “He, offensively, took over. No doubt about that. Markelle had two points with two and a half minutes left in the first half, so he scored 26 points in 22 minutes, basically, and just got to the basket, hit shots. The other thing about Markelle is, he had nine assists. If it were a night where we were just making our shots at a normal rate, he probably would have had 15 or 16 assists. But we missed a lot of wide-open shots with him delivering the basketball. He probably would have had 28 and 15, something like that. He played exceptionally well.”
(On maybe telling Fultz to shoot more earlier) “I don’t think there’s any question – he took over 20 shots. Maybe you look at it like a Russell Westbrook situation, where it doesn’t matter how many shots he’s taking, because he shooting – Markelle is shooting a higher percentage. I do also think though, he had nine assists and could have had more. Guys were just wide open. They collapse on him, guys are just wide open and he was distributing the ball. Just want to make sure there is a balance, where there have been times when he has done that, and maybe it hasn’t gone in, then the question is, do you think he’s trying to carry the load too much? If you’re losing, you think he could have done it different. If you’re winning … he is an exceptional basketball player and I think we obviously know we need him to score. We need him to just go play and be very aggressive every game, every moment of every game. That’s what we need him to do.”
(On Fultz maybe having the best statistical season of any player under Romar) “Statistically, when you look at not just the scoring – I think the most anyone’s ever averaged is 20 for us, Brandon (Roy) and Andrew (Andrews). Andrew was pretty good because he averaged six rebounds. Markelle, six or seven rebounds a game. He’s second in the league in assists. He’s third or fourth in steals. I don’t think there’s any question, across the board, statistically, he’s having the best year of anybody that we’ve had.”
(On Fultz getting docked because his team isn’t winning) “As I said last week, anything to do with winning, us not winning enough, has nothing to do with Markelle. Markelle … he’s been phenomenal. I think Brandon, and we know how great a player Brandon was, Brandon had three other seniors with him on that team. He had Jamaal Williams who was with him who could score on anybody. He had 27 and 13 rebounds against UConn in the Sweet 16 game. Bobby Jones played in the NBA. Mike Jensen was a three or four-year starters. So I just think his supporting cast was a lot more experienced, and even with Andrew, we had all freshmen, basically, but that was a team also that was 7-3 after 10 games and missed the NCAA tournament by a couple of shots. He had freshmen but Marquese and Dejounte Murray were probably further along in terms of talent than what Markelle has to play with.”
(Do you follow Cameron Dollar at Seattle U much?) “Oh, yeah. Very much. All the time.”
(On his thoughts on the job Dollar has done) “The fact that when he took the job, they could not go to the NCAA tournament – and I believe it was three years or four before they could go – so for three or four years, they recruited players saying ‘you won’t be able to go to the tournament.’ Not eligible. I don’t know how you recruit that way. So just the last couple years, being able to say you’re going to have the opportunity to participate in the NCAA tournament. I just think that climb and what they had to do in that transition from D2 to D1, he’s done a great job.”
(On what Dollar brought to UW when he was an assistant) “He was very fiery. He knew – he was always a winner. Always a winner. Brilliant in terms of his intelligence and understanding of the game. He knew me very well. He knew our system very well.”
(On whether UW has had an assistant like Dollar since then) “We’ve never had a player before or after Jon Brockman that was the same, but Brandon Roy was a better player. We’ve never had a player that was the same as Isaiah Thomas, but other guys were good. So nobody’s been the same as Cameron. Cameron is unique. He’s different. We’ve had other good assistants. But Cameron is different just like other assistants are different, just like players are different.”
(On Sean Miller keeping Arizona together despite Allonzo Trier missing so much time) “I think Sean is a fantastic coach. I think at Arizona, you go to their games, and there are 14,000-plus screaming and the environment is just great over there. He has a senior in Kadeem Allen that I think is having a terrific, probably all-conference year. We all know what (Lauri) Markkanen has been able to do at 7-foot. (Dusan) Ristic is a senior that I think is a very, very underrated low-post scorer. He gets that ball around the basket, if he gets it off, you can pretty much count it as a bucket that’s going in. With that, Parker (Jackson)-Cartwright is a senior guard that’s been there and helped them win a lot of games. Now you add Kobi Simmons and Rawle Alkins into that group. They’ve been able to have enough to keep it together, and they just continue to get better.”
(On what Trier adds now that he’s back from suspension) “Arizona before Allonzo, because they played such good defense, they protect the basket, they have great size, they have a lot of components to make a good defensive team. But sometimes they would have scoring droughts, and I think Allonzo puts an end to all that. He’s such a gifted scorer. So as good as they are, they’re about to get better. As good as they’ve been, they’re about to get better.”
(On the keys to competing with Arizona) “We have to be able to not try to jam it down their throat and score first-side like sometimes we’re guilty of doing. We have to be able to move the ball against them to get them moving, so we can create good opportunities, good shots. Against Arizona State, I thought we had great shots the whole game. We weren’t able to knock them down. Arizona is like Cal in that you can go out and play and get shots off, but they’re not quality shots. You have to find a way to get good shots. We’re going to have to find a way to handle the environment there. Last year I thought we played them really good for a half. In the second half, they hit a few buckets, and you could see the crowd wanting the gladiator effect to just happen to us, and I thought we got rattled a little bit in the second half, and they just distanced themselves like that. We can’t let that happen against them.”
This story was originally published January 27, 2017 at 2:52 PM with the headline "Lorenzo Romar on Allonzo Trier returning for Arizona: ‘As good as they’ve been, they’re about to get better’."