Quoting Huskies coach Lorenzo Romar after controversial finish in Corvallis
Huskies coach Lorenzo Romar spoke with reporters briefly after UW’s 82-81 loss at Oregon State on Wednesday night at Gill Coliseum. Here is what he said, including his assessment that Stephen Thompson Jr. traveled before sinking a buzzer-beating 3-pointer to lift the Beavers to victory. A video of the play is embedded below.
(Opening) “Great job by Oregon State getting it done. They were really good offensively in the first half. Boy, they were shooting at a high percentage. Thought we settled down in the second half and did a better job defensively. We gave ourselves every opportunity to win the game, but we didn’t get it done.”
(On changing defense in the second half) “We were mixing it up, yes. We did a number of things, we trapped the ball screen at times, we didn’t switch at times.”
(On the final play) “The main thing is we did not want them to get a running start, and they got a running start and caught the ball. But we just wanted to keep them in front. Dejounte contested the shot as well as you can contest a shot. He did a tremendous job. Guy hit a leaping leaner from 21 feet out.”
(The replay seemed to show that he traveled ...) “He traveled. But they didn’t call it.”
(On Andrew Andrews’ performance) “Andrew played exceptionally tonight. Would have loved to have seen him in his home state get a win here, but we came up a little short.”
(On the attitude of the team right now) “You could probably guess. I don’t think they’re in there jumping up and down with excitement. It’s a tough loss. Tough loss.
(On the loss being tougher because they played well) “Second half, I thought we did a really good job. We made shots tonight. They beat us, they pounded us on the backboard, but we made shots. They shot 29 percent in the second half. We did a lot of things, again, that would allow you to win a ballgame. But we don’t have anything to show for it.”
(Think about fouling on the last play?) “It was two points. Two points. You don’t want to do that with three seconds. They had to bring the ball the length of the floor. We didn’t execute totally the way we should have.”
(On the game) “Again, I thought we played well enough to win the game on the road, and we didn’t finish it.”
(Consider double-teaming the player who caught the ball?) “There are a million things you could do. With 3.3 seconds left on the clock and a guy has to go the length of the floor and he has to hit a leaping leaner like that from 21 feet … the fact that it was a two-point game, that made it a little more difficult, took away from certain things that we could do.”
This story was originally published February 24, 2016 at 11:34 PM with the headline "Quoting Huskies coach Lorenzo Romar after controversial finish in Corvallis."