Lorenzo Romar on Dejounte Murray: ‘While we could not make baskets, he kept us in the game’

A few quotes from Huskies coach Lorenzo Romar after Washington’s 95-83 overtime victory over Arizona State on Wednesday night ...

(Opening) “... They have so many guys that can make baskets, and they did a tremendous job of making baskets in the first half, knocking that 3-ball down. The second half, we adjusted in how we were defending. When we switched out on the guard, it made all the difference in the world. We were over-helping in the first half and they were just finding guys. We were staying home a lot more and consequently they shot 31 percent in the second half. That is a team that is very capable on any given night of winning ball games.”

(On trying to slow down Tra Holder) “He was the one doing the most damage. We were just too tentative, and we were playing off of him, then we played on him and he drove, we helped off and they found people. But like I said, we adjusted in the second half and played it slightly differently and that was the difference for us.”

(Did Matisse Thybulle play a big part on that?) “Well, we switch so much, so there were different guys on him. there were guards. He hit a couple over guards, also.”

(Is that the best you’ve seen Dejounte play?) “Yeah, that’s his best game so far, offensively, for sure. While we could not make baskets, he kept us in the game. We couldn’t put the ball in the basket, and he kept us in it.”

(Looks like he tweaked his ankle?) “Yeah he tweaked his ankle a little bit.”

(Were those set plays for him?) “Our offense is, space the floor. We space the floor. And if they don’t pick you up, we kick the ball. We practice it all the time. And in this particular instance, he was able to get there. He’s so shifty with the basketball, he was able to get all the way to the rim. They would bring a guy up to help but the floor was spaced, so he was able to even get by the guy that would help.”

(On Murray knowing when to attack) “You never have to tell him to go. And that goes for all of our guys. Again, we space the floor a lot and create opportunities for penetration.”

(On not being able to get in rhythm with all the fouls) “That played a part in the first half, but again, you’ve got to credit Arizona State, because another team maybe couldn’t have taken advantage of it. But at halftime, no one had more than two fouls, so it was as if we could start with a clean slate almost. It definitely made a difference to have our guys in there. We told Marquese, ‘Marquese, when you are in the game, it makes our team so much better.’ He goes 7-for-7 in the game … He just made some big plays for us.”

(On Andrew Andrews’ shooting slump) “He missed a wide-open 3 a few possessions before, and before he shot it, he said, ‘Coach, I’m going to knock this one down.’ And we ran something for him to get wide open and he missed it. So when he finaly got that one, it was very timely too. It gave us a little space.”

(More on Andrews’ slump) “I can’t remember a year that Andrew’s been here that at some point in conference he hasn’t gone through a little mini-slump, but man, when he breaks out of that slump, he’s been nails when he comes out of it. So it wouldn’t be a problem with me at all if he breaks out of it on Saturday.”

(On the game lacking flow due to lengthy video reviews) “I’ve been in worse.”

(On coaching through the reviews) “It’s interesting – it actually gave us rest. Our guys were able to rest because we went a long time in that second half with that same group without substituting. That allowed us to recover a little bit, to tell you the truth.”

(Did the explanations on the video reviews make sense to you?) “We out-rebounded them by eight. That was good.”

This story was originally published February 4, 2016 at 2:46 AM with the headline "Lorenzo Romar on Dejounte Murray: ‘While we could not make baskets, he kept us in the game’."