Lorenzo Romar says Andrew Andrews was ‘phenomenal’ in Huskies’ 89-85 win at Arizona State
Here is all that Huskies coach Lorenzo Romar said after Washington’s 89-85 win at Arizona State on Saturday.
(Opening) “You think about the loss in Tucson, and how that had not happened to us before, how we would respond. This group of guys, I thought responded quite well. All day, you could just see there was a lot of focus, and when we came out from the beginning, there was a lot of focus. Our guys showed a lot of heart and character, again. No one cared who got the credit on that floor. Everybody was for everyone else, and it resulted in a victory. Andrew Andrews was phenomenal. Thirty points, 12 assists. He hit the big free throws at the end. He did a great job. Some other guys hit some big shots for us.”
(The big shots by Matisse Thybulle and Dominic Green...) “And David Crisp, but you’re talking about maybe the guys that hadn’t done that before. That’s what growing up is all about, and a team effort. Guys are maturing. And those are the type of things you’re able to see when that happens.”
(On playing through foul trouble again) “We’ve been in this situation before. Unfortunately, we have a little practice at it. Offensively we were able to spread the floor, and we were switching anyway, so it didn’t mean as much. Our guys showed great, great toughness. When you’ve got David Crisp, Andrew Andrews and even Dejounte Murray down there wrestling with Nick Jacobsen down there. We were fronting him, and they got it to him a couple times, because they practice, too, but for the most part our guys did a good job when we were small, during that time, of not letting him just go crazy inside.”
(On going with Green over Noah Dickerson down the stretch) “We didn’t have many other choices. Dominic has been working hard in practice and his attitude has been terrific. Sometimes in a situation like that, when someone’s working and their attitude is the right way, you want to reward them and give them a chance. But we also think he’s a pretty good basketball player. He just hadn’t found himself yet. But tonight, I thought he took a big step.”
(On shooting 52.3% despite being worst-shooting team in Pac-12) “We have a weird team that way. We’re at the bottom of the conference but yet we’re third in makes in the games in the league. Tonight, going with Andrew breaking the defense down and kicking it out, we had a lot of wide open looks, and wide open looks at the ones you’ve got to make, and guys stepped up and did it.”
(What does it say about Andrews that he played so well despite an ankle sprain) “It didn’t surprise me. I think I said he probably won’t be 100 percent, and he’ll play, and he’ll be functional. And he was more than functional.”
(Did you expect the freshmen to have this big of an impact?) “I didn’t know. We were hoping around this time, this is mid-January. See, I look back at the beginning of our schedule where we were playing Texas in China and then coming back playing in a loaded tournament in the Bahamas and thinking oh my goodness, with this team in the beginning, it’s going to be very difficult. We were just hoping we could get through that so they would have time to develop. So around the beginning of January is when you start to see improvement from new players and young players.”
(Was there a turning point in this game?) “When David Crisp hit a couple shots, those two big 3s I thought were very pivotal, because they were coming back. They were roaring back. David hit those two to allow us to have a little cushion, so that probably would be it.”
(After Andrews’ two turnovers, did you switch up the way you inbounded the ball?) “Just slightly. Just slightly. We arranged it so he wouldn’t catch it in the corner. We got the ball to the guy we wanted to get it to. He kept getting fouled. Thank goodness we pulled it out.”
(Anything more you can do to keep bigs out of foul trouble) “Just keep playing more games. Keep playing more games and guys will grow up and get a little better at it.”
(On the road trip) “Very proud of our team. You get the split on the road, anywhere in this league, it’s saying something, and our guys did it. We now have two road wins and we’re not done with the first half of conference yet. I couldn’t be prouder of our team.”
(Any hangover from the Arizona game?) “I thought we saw right away there was no hangover. Right at the beginning, you could just see, we were down in a defensive stance, we were communicating, we were working together, and we were sharp.”
This story was originally published January 16, 2016 at 7:35 PM with the headline "Lorenzo Romar says Andrew Andrews was ‘phenomenal’ in Huskies’ 89-85 win at Arizona State."