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DIRECTV WOODEN LEGACY MEDIA CONFERENCENovember 13, 2014Lorenzo RomarTIM SIMMONS: Our final coach is Coach Romar from the University of Washington. Coach, happy birthday. I guess it's number 56 for you. LORENZO ROMAR: Good detective work there. Thank you. Q. Coach, welcome, and just like to double check with you, how is the team progressing so far through the preseason? Any strengths that you've seen with your team and any concerns? LORENZO ROMAR: Well, I think in some ways we have some good experience. We have some older guys that have been around a little bit, and that always helps. I think we have some guys that sat out last year that weren't eligible to play or hurt and now they're back. I think that helps our team, too. I think we have a full complement with our roster of guys that can help us be a pretty good basketball team. Q. Coach, who are some of your top players? Obviously you had a pretty good freshman last year and so forth. Kind of name some of your top players and those injured players that are coming back? LORENZO ROMAR: Our back court is returning from last year. Both of them averaged double figures, led by Nigel Williams‑Goss, who was a freshman on the All‑Freshman team in the Pac‑12 last year. He was second in scoring, and led us in assists. Then there is Andrew Andrews who averaged 12.3 points a game last year, but averaged about 16 or 17 in his last five or six games in conference, so he came on really strong. Jernard Jarreau tore his ACL the first minute of our opener last year, so we were without his services. He's back. He's a 6'10" forward that's pretty versatile. We had a redshirt named Robert Upshaw, who transferred in and sat out last year. He's a 7‑footer, so he's eligible this year. So those are two guys that are on our roster that didn't play for us last year. Q. Coach, any surprises you've seen so far in the preseason? I know you had one exhibition game, but have you seen any surprises? LORENZO ROMAR: I don't think so. These guys so far are doing what we were either recruiting them to do or what we saw in terms of them progressing by the end of the year last year. So things are just kind of coming along right now, and we're still working, we're definitely a work in progress. Q. Coach, I know you have three games prior to playing in the tournament. But any thoughts on San Jose State? LORENZO ROMAR: Well, we haven't gotten that far yet. I know Coach is going to do a good job with his team. But here with several games before that, we're kind of preparing for these guys. But by the time we get there, we'll have a whole lot of knowledge about them. Q. Do you like the format where you're playing two days and off a day and playing in your third game? Do you like that format? LORENZO ROMAR: Given the nature of the time of year, I think it's fine. We're looking forward to it. We're excited about it. Q. Being that you're a Pac‑12 coach and so forth, what are your thoughts about playing in a tournament where John Wooden has his name on it? LORENZO ROMAR: Well, I grew up in Los Angeles in Compton, Compton, California, and was right there when all of the championships were being won by Coach Wooden. And then I had the good fortune to work as an assistant at UCLA for four years, and got to spend quite a bit of time with Coach Wooden. We've had teams when I was at Pepperdine, here at the University of Washington where we've played in something with John Wooden's name on it, The Wooden Classic. Now to be able to play in the Wooden Legacy Tournament is just very, very special. It gives us an opportunity to tell our guys what John Wooden stood for. Not only was he a great coach, but he's a great man. Q. Coach, you've obviously played at a pretty high level. You've been in the NBA and had a great college career and all that stuff. Being this is your 56th birthday, is there anything you're reflecting back on all those years that you've been involved with the sport? LORENZO ROMAR: Oh, you're talking about basketball in general? Q. Basketball and life in general, too. LORENZO ROMAR: It's taught so many lessons. You've learned you had a better ability to learn how to win, handle victory, better ability of how to lose, handle defeat and things we talked to our team about that you can carry over into life. It's being able to get me a lot of places, being able to see a lot of things. I've been able to see a lot of parts of the world through this game. It's just been great. I'm glad that I've been a part of it and still am. Q. I know several people couldn't be on the conference call today because of other commitments. But one of the questions they wanted me to ask you is how important is it to play three games in the L.A. area knowing that you're going to go back for two more maybe against USC or UCLA. How important is it for Washington to play in Southern California? LORENZO ROMAR: Well, it's great. We recruited a lot from California in general and Southern California. So it gives some people, some young people a chance to maybe watch us in person and watch some of the other teams, too. But we get a chance to be down there knowing that we're going to be playing down there in conference play, it's good. We like doing it. TIM SIMMONS: Questions for Coach Romar on his 56th birthday? Q. Coach, I've got two questions: First, team camaraderie in the smartphone and social media era. In your opinion, have those things sort of weakened the bond among your players as far as if they're Tweeting and texting and they've got the big headphones on instead of actually communicating with each other off the court? LORENZO ROMAR: I think they're still bonding, but I think it's a lot more superficial. I don't think there is a whole lot of depth to the bonding. Lot of times we can hide behind social media and talk through things and not talk things out, not learn a whole lot about people. We can take our time responding. We don't have to read the others' facial look, the body, the demeanor, the countenance. We don't read that because we're texting. I think it takes away from the genuine closeness that you could have without social media. Q. The second thing is, I don't know if you've heard any of these coaches, Larry Brown at SMU was the most recent one, to come out and say Kentucky is not only going to go undefeated, but they have the top two teams in the country if you split up their team. Another coach said they could beat NBA teams. So being that you have NBA experience, and obviously plenty of college coaching experience, I guess I won't tip my hand to how I feel about those comments, I'll just say how realistic do you think that is? Not the undefeated talk so much as competing with NBA teams? LORENZO ROMAR: Well, I think people saying that are being very kind, and I think I would take it as a compliment to Coach Calipari and what they've done with their program and what type of team people are expecting this year. But all in all, you go out there and play against NBA guys that are experienced and stronger, a lot more experienced and stronger. I think it's a different story in the beginning. TIM SIMMONS: Coach, thank you very much, and appreciate your time. We'll see you in a couple of weeks in Anaheim. LORENZO ROMAR: Sounds good. Have a nice day. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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