Lorenzo Romar talks Andrew Andrews, Washington State and staying positive
Huskies coach Lorenzo Romar met with reporters earlier today to discuss the Huskies’ regular-season finale on Wednesday against Washington State. He also talked about UW’s lone senior, Andrew Andrews, and his impact on the program during his career.
(On motivating the team to play against a struggling Washington State team) “Well, on the one hand, it’s our last game. We’re still … whatever chances we have, we’re still trying to fight to get an NCAA tournament at-large bid. It’s senior night. Andrew’s playing his last (home) game. So we do have some things in our favor in terms of motivation and emotion. But on the other hand, you just always want to guard against someone taking a team (lightly) based on their record. And there’s no way – we have to remember that team took us to overtime at their place last time. And they beat us here last year. So there is no way in the world we should come out not ready to go.”
(On how UW is different than its first game at WSU) “I just think we’re a little more organized, collectively, as a group, in terms of what we want to get accomplished. I think we understand our purpose more on the defensive end right now. Back then, that was early. It was the third game of the year, I believe. It was our first road game. I just think we’re a more mature team right now than we were then.”
(On losing so many close games recently) “There’s one thing that we don’t have that we had earlier, and that is we were winning, we felt good about – well, I should say we were 2-0. … There was a great belief, and I think there’s a great belief now, (but) there was a certain, if you want to call it swagger, whatever we had. There was a lot of emotion there, that in these games, since we have dropped some, that emotion hasn’t been there as much. That’s the only thing that’s different. In terms fo what we’re trying to do, defensively and offensively, we’re definitely a better team than we were. As I’ve said, we just haven’t been able to quite get over the hump. I’d already mentioned games – we had played two games already the last time we played Washington State, and Washington State made the third. Double overtime, UCLA, we had to make plays to win that game. We had to make a whole bunch of plays to come back from 22 to beat USC. And then in the Washington State game, Andrew just does in there and dives in the pack and gets an offensive rebound for us to secure a victory. Those things haven’t happened in these losses. We haven’t been able to get over the hump to quite make those plays. So it would appear that we haven’t improved as a team, but I also think the teams we’ve played in the second half have improved and have been better. we just haven’t been able to get over the hump to show for it.”
(On games getting away from them) “I think there are two losses I can point to, probably we could have controlled it more. We point to Andrew’s missed shot against Colorado on the road, but we also at that point in that game, we didn’t play very smart when we had leads. I didn’t think we played very smart at all. Oregon State game, we were up six with just over a minute to go, and we can talk about what happened at the end with the clock or whatever, but we had our chances. I would say those two games, I don’t know if we helped ourselves in those.”
(How do you hope Andrew Andrews will be remembered by fans?) “A guy that persevered. The thing I continue to say about about Andrew, people make mention of his loyalty last year, where he could have opted out as well as some others did, but I would say he finished his last year the way he came in. He also could have gone to another school coming in. he wanted to come to the university of Washington, and at the time, and I know I’ve said this before, but I think people just overlook this. At the time we had Isaiah Thomas, Tony Wroten and Abdul Gaddy, all guys that shared the point guard position. And we talked to him about coming to Washington but going to prep school. And then that would allow – we knew Tony Wroten would probably leave after a year – would clear it up a little bit, clear up the traffic a little bit. (Andrew) says, ‘I want to go to Washington, and I’ll do that. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll go to prep school.’ He was going to go to prep school. But then Isaiah Thomas entered the draft, so that opened up a scholarship. So then, at that point, he says, well, I want to come, and we said come now and learn our system, and then the following year, the path will be even more clear for you. And that’s what he did. A lot of kids would not have done that. He was loyal coming in, and loyal on his way out.”
(On where he saw Andrews grow the most throughout his career) “I thought last year, in a very trying season, there were times when Andrew could have just blown up and just been upset and phoned it in. But the game that I’m thinking about in particular was at USC, and a little bit at UCLA, also, where we weren’t in the game at all, and both teams were having their way with us, things weren’t going well and it didn’t look like there was much hope, and he competed and played and tried to encourage people. I thought that showed a lot of growth. But it took – all year, he ended up being co-MVP of our team last year, so he was in the mix, and he saw the ups and downs, he experienced both. But I thought he showed great, great maturity during that weekend.”
(On the attitude of the team) “I think our guys are positive. Yesterday, we had a very, very light workout, but I thought our guys were positive then. Guys were very, very disappointed after the Oregon State loss. Very disappointed. And obviously disappointed in the Oregon loss, also, but you had that range of emotion of, ‘we’re going to get this done,’ to, ‘what? Are you serious?’ That happened. That was hard to overcome. But I think our guys bounced back admirably in the Oregon game. So we’re still disappointed but I think we’re more disappointed as, where we are now as opposed to where we were four or five weeks ago. But I still think this group is positive. I think this group is still together. I don’t sense at all that guys are going their own separate ways now. I think this is still a tight-knit group.”
(On the young players understanding the struggles that might come with playing in college) “I don’t know if they would say this is part of it, because in their minds this isn’t part of it. This is not what they signed up for. But I think this group has been such a special group in all aspects. I’ve said all year, in the classroom, on road trips – I can’t tell you how many times those that worked at the hotel have literally written notes to us or has sought us out and said, ‘this is one of the more special groups we’ve worked with.’ Flights, the airport, people will approach us and just say, ‘that group was so well behaved.’ Just across the board. So they’ve remained that way, and I don’t see why it’s going to change here with the season we have left. I continue to see our guys being positive.”
(On how WSU has changed since January) “Well, early on, the group was playing with a lot more confidence because they had not been unsuccessful yet. You can just see, I think Coach Kent and his staff have done a great job of keeping these guys up to continue to play. Again, that’s the thing that we have to guard against, because they are not going to come in here and lay down. They’re going to come in here and they’re going to bring it. But I think that would probably be the biggest difference.”
(On what WSU is doing differently now) “They I think are emphasizing some things offensively a little different, maybe they’re doing a few things differently defensively. They’ve changed their lineup a number of times. That’s different right there. Maybe roles have changed a little bit. Que Johnson, who I think is a very gifted offensive player, he’s playing a lot more aggressively now. They’ve fought through a lot of injuries. (Charles) Callison, who I think is a very good guard for them, was out for a few games with a concussion I believe it was. And then (Valentine) Izundu was out for a while. So they’ve had to play through some guys being in and out of the lineup.”
(On if there is anything he wishes he’d done differently as a coach during the losing skid) “I would say addressed our decision-making earlier with this team. Again, there was that balance of wanting your guys to play with confidence and yet being able to make the right decisions and not forcing the issue. I would probably think we would have placed more emphasis early on that.”
(That’s offensively?) “Yeah. There are times when we’re up five, seven, and even up 10, and we may come down and turn it over three consecutive trips, or we’re up and clearly have the momentum and maybe we may force a shot or try to take an early, contested shot and the other team goes down and scores right away and it’s a tie ballgame. That happened to us in several games that we had. We have a much better understanding – it didn’t happen much against Oregon. In fact, we were able to make the run to come back, but we just weren’t able to get it done.”
(On that being a byproduct of youth) “There’s no doubt the youth plays a part in it, but as I said, there is the balance. Knowing that the team is young, the team is new, of earlier, maybe enforcing that ‘you can’t do that.’ But you also run the risk of now, you’ve got guys playing without confidence, and now they’re playing tight. One thing about our team, I think we ended up 3-6 on the road – I don’t remember us playing tight. And I think that’s helped us win some games, the fact that we didn’t do that. We’ve gone into a few hostile environments, the second half at Arizona was the only time that I felt like maybe the environment got to us. Other than that, it didn’t, and I think it had something to do with, guys are confident. And you strip that, you take that away, now you’re in a tough situation. You’re playing really tight. That’s not good for anyone. So there’s a balance to it.”
(On Marquese Chriss improving his attitude and temper) “He’s made great progress. At times early on, Marquese, whenever he would get down, he would carry it with him the rest of the day. He doesn’t do that. He bounces back. There’s a fine line with any of us, and I would challenge to go over to the IMA with any of you right now and play a game of 3-on-3, fullcourt, and if the game is close, see how you would handle it. I’d like to see that. Usually when I’ve been around anyone, you get in a real competitive situation and that balance of being totally competitive and getting after it and then controlling your emotions all the time is not easy for most people. And I think he’s done a remarkable job of maintaining his composure as the year as gone on. Again, with him, I think a lot of it has to do with, he’s just a competitor.”
(On what happened when Chriss bumped the official at Oregon) “Malik was coming in for him, and they give each other a pound when they come in the game, and he was headed that way, jogging off, and the official was kind of moving a little bit, and you’ve been in a situation where you’re trying to get by someone and you have to brace yourself – it was just kind of one of those situations.”
(On being close to the Pac-12 blocks record) “We’ve not talked about it as a team. We’ve talked about how we have the ability to block shots and we’re good at it, and as a result, certain times we shouldn’t foul because you’ve got a shot blocker back there. Don’t foul before he gets there. I think it is special. it’s one of the reasons I think this is a special group, the ability to be able to do that, to lead the league in blocks and steals I think speaks to this group that there are some things that we do pretty good.”
(On those things not translating to getting rebounds) “It hasn’t at all. And when I look at our lack of rebounding, sometimes we just don’t really look to check. We just, ‘I’m going to go get that ball. See, I can out-jump everyone, and I’m just going to go get it.’ We’ve found out this year, no, you just can’t do that. Sometimes it’s because we come over to block the shot and we don’t get it, but because I come over, the ball bounces right to one of the guys you were guarding. Sometimes we block the shot and the ball comes off right to another player on the offensive team and he lays it up. There should not have been, and we’re better at this, of guys just blowing by the rim to put us in a position to block the shot. And then sometimes we just get pushed around, to be honest with you. We have position and guys box out and guys just move us around. We’ll continue to get stronger and do those things, but there’s been a variety of reasons why we haven’t rebounded as well.”
(Was that a surprise?) “I would think even though we were young, we still were athletic enough to do a better job on the backboards, but for those reasons that I mentioned, there are a lot of variables that have kicked in to where we haven’t done as good of a job.”
This story was originally published March 1, 2016 at 5:00 PM with the headline "Lorenzo Romar talks Andrew Andrews, Washington State and staying positive."