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NCAA MEN'S 3RD & 4TH ROUND REGIONALS: WASHINGTON


March 23, 2006


Justin Dentmon

Lorenzo Romar

Brandon Roy

Jamaal Williams


WASHINGTON, D.C.

LORENZO ROMAR: I was pleasantly surprised this far away from the West Coast we had someone greeting us, but it was it was a nice touch.
Q. In your last two games, you've had a great defensive effort, how much is that a function of the opposition and how much is it an improvement in your team over the last 10, 11 games, defensive intensity?
LORENZO ROMAR: Well, I think it's had a lot to do with why we have been able to win ten of our last 11 because of our defensive intensity. If we are successful at all in this program at any time, it's because we're doing a pretty good job on the defensive end and if not, we are just a mediocre team. So our defensive intensity has picked up for sure and it has been reflected in our wins and losses.
Q. Do you see the game as your speed against their size, or is that oversimplifying it?
LORENZO ROMAR: Well, we cannot go as big as they can, but I don't think it's our speed against their size because they are quick, as well. They are not only a tall team but they are tall, athletic and quick basketball team. They are definitely bigger than us. We realize that, but I don't think it's our quickness versus their size.
Q. How much has Jensen's return to the starting lineup made a difference?
LORENZO ROMAR: Remember, it's not just that he's a starter but again he's a body out there on the floor, a body that's been in our defensive system for four years, someone who has guarded -- you guard the No. 1 pick in the draft last year, he's guarding Channing Frye, he's guarded a number of very good big people, post players over the years. He does the best job on our squad of doing that.
So it makes a difference.
Q. Talk about the advantage of playing this game here in Washington.
LORENZO ROMAR: The advantage of playing it here? I don't know if there is an advantage. (Laughter).
Q. Well, I mean people could get confused.
LORENZO ROMAR: Is this a trick question? (Laughter) I can't say it's an advantage. We just have to go out and play. Sorry for not a better answer.
Q. How would you characterize the attention Brandon Roy has received nationally and given the national forum right now, what would you say about him?
LORENZO ROMAR: First of all, it's been refreshing to see Brandon get the national attention that he is recently getting, and it always helps when you win. We always talk to our guys about when you win, sometimes you're able to get those accolades.
Q. Before now, Coach, before now.
LORENZO ROMAR: Before now, it was somewhat unfortunate, but at the same time, we had some other players that were very good on our basketball team. You know, namely Nate Robinson, everyone knew who Nate Robinson was last year. He was exciting, people pulled for him, with his size people pulled for him. He just did amazing things out there on the basketball floor. A lot of times, people would forget about the other guys on this basketball team that could also play.
But to add to that, Brandon Roy is not one that's playing, begging everyone to say, look at me. That's just not how he plays. Some guys play, look at me, look at me, please look at me. That's not how Brandon plays.
He deferred to his teammates, Brandon averaged 13 points, right at 13 points a game last year, and the same the year before when the game was gone the line, Brandon Roy had the ball. Last year and the year before, Brandon Roy had the ball. So he's always been talented but because of his unselfishness, his lack of unflashy play and the other members on the team that are so good basketball players, he has not received the notoriety that he has now.
Earlier in the year we were able to win a lot of games by some sizable margins and Brandon wasn't necessarily the guy that was taking all the shots. There were other guys that were wide open and Brandon did not say I've got to be an All-American or lottery pick, so forget you guys, I've got to get mine. When guys were open, he distributed the basketball.
When we started Pac 10 play and defenses tightened up and shots were not available for others, Brandon stepped up and has been on just an unverbalized crusade to make people understand who he is and who the Huskies are.
Q. How many people here do you think know who he is, who are going to come to this region?
LORENZO ROMAR: Before the season started, when you would hear people talk about Brandon Roy when they say he's a good basketball player, if he can work on his ball-handling skills, he would be a much better basketball player right there, that was an indication that nobody knew who he was.
So now when we see how well he contributes the ball, he plays point guard for us, he's just a great all-around player. I just read a comment where someone said, "He is a really good basketball player in spite of not being a great athlete." Well, they don't know who Brandon Roy is. I don't think anyone really knows who Brandon Roy is, with the exception of his name and how they have seen him perform a couple of times on the national stage. But he is an unselfish basketball player with great character who decided to come back to college to play his senior year and has matured quite a bit as a result and can just do anything you need him to do on the basketball floor. I think he is the most complete player in America.
Q. A related question --
LORENZO ROMAR: And I was trying not to be biased. (Laughter).
Q. This is kind of related to that because talking about the attention or lack of attention Roy gets, and you're here on the East Coast playing this game, do you buy into the East Coast bias sort of thing? We've run into that with the Seattle Seahawks, as well.
LORENZO ROMAR: A little bit. But if that were the case, no one would know who Adam Morrison is, either, but everyone knows who Adam Morrison is.
Q. Can you talk about some of the matchups defensively and some of the thinking that went into them?
LORENZO ROMAR: We have difficult match-ups at each spot and come game time we have to decide exactly what is going to be best. But also, the way we defend, we have a lot of interchangeable parts, so a number of people could be guarding different players at any different time in their game. That's not the answer you're looking for but we don't play until tomorrow.
Q. I know that you were on Coach Harrick's staff back in '95 and granted this Connecticut team is different, but are there common threads in Jim Calhoun's team that helped you prepare for this particular game, like his style or some of his philosophies and so forth?
LORENZO ROMAR: They were a high octane team when we played them last time. It was in the Elite 8 game. They had future NBA players on that team, they have future NBA players on this team. They had great size and I think Travis Knight was a seven-footer that was their starting center. Donny Marshal was a 6'8" man, they had also a guy on the wing that was pretty good, Ray Allen (laughter).
They knew how to play well together, guys understood their roles and they defended and if you drove to the basket, you'd better have some type of strategy or they were going to throw it back out of there.
Q. Did you see similar things with the way Connecticut approaches this year?
LORENZO ROMAR: I'm sorry. The one difference, I think they had Doron Sheffer, Kevin Freeman, were two ball-handling guards that they played quite a bit. This year Marcus Williams is such a dominant play-maker, he's pretty much been handling the whole thing alone. I know earlier in the year they were starting Craig Austrie but now they are going with Brown who is a heck of a basketball player and a very tough-minded basketball player but that might be the only difference.
Q. Speaking of playmakers, coming into the year you lost Will Conroy; how surprised are you about Justin and his growth over the last six or eight weeks of the season?
LORENZO ROMAR: I wouldn't say surprised as much as pleasantly pleased. When we went out and looked for a guard last year we knew that he was going to have to be one that would have to come in and play right away. We didn't promise Justin a starting position, but if Justin would not be doing what he's doing now, we would have miss-evaluated and recruited the wrong guy. We recruited him hoping that he would be able to make this type of contribution and impact as a freshman. We tried to play him early in the year a lot of minutes knowing that down the stretch, he was going to have to make mistakes and fall flat on his face a few times so that he could get better. You learn from your mistakes and he has made certain mistakes but he has learned from them and here we are in the NCAA tournament and played two games, he has not committed a turnover and scored double figures both games.
I would say in short, he is what we hoped that he would be.
Q. The '98 team was a breakthrough for Washington because they had not been in the tournament for so long, but now the Sweet 16 level, that's a level that you guys haven't surpassed I think in about 50 years or so. I guess how important for the program is it to get that next benchmark, put your name up there on a higher level with those that regularly get past to the Elite 8 and so forth?
LORENZO ROMAR: I think it would be fantastic for a program if we were fortunate enough to advance to the Elite 8 or farther. Because as you mentioned, it has not happened in a while. A couple of these seniors are going to be up here in a little bit, those guys have accomplished a lot that had not been accomplished in 40 and 50 years. That has happened in the last three years and you've got to give these guys a lot of credit for allowing that to happen. If we are fortunate to do that and go on, it would be fantastic. It would be awesome.
Q. Is there one aspect of UCONN's game you hope to take away from them to be successful?
LORENZO ROMAR: We're concerned about how big they are. Some teams are tall in terms of the roster, but not really tall when they get out and play on the basketball floor. These guys, their size suggests that they are tall and when you go out on the floor and you realize that they have a ten-rebounds-per-game margin, and they block nine shots a game. Against Notre Dame, they blocked 18 shots in one game, you realize, well, they really are tall. (Laughter) That is something that we have to be able to deal with, and I think that's going to be very important for us.

Q. Brandon, Coach said in referring to you, "I think he's the most complete player in America." Do you think that you've been given that respect from anybody, everybody?
BRANDON ROY: Lately I think a lot of people have been giving me that respect. You know when they don't give it to me, I just use it as motivation. Now that they are saying I'm the most complete player, I have to look for other motivation. It's fine. I'm just happy people are respecting me and recognizing me.
Q. Before making it here to the Sweet 16, how would you characterize the level of attention you receive nationally given the statistics that you've put up across every category, honestly?
BRANDON ROY: Well, I don't think I got a whole lot of attention at all. Nate was doing some spectacular things and sometimes I was overshadowed. Like I said, giving me accolades and things like that, that doesn't determine how I play. I try to perform well no matter what they say. Now that they are giving attention, it's pretty cool.
Q. In (Inaudible) before playing you guys, you were a matchup nightmare, why do you think he said that and I'd also like Justin to answer why an opponent would say that about you.
BRANDON ROY: I guess that's because I can do a number of things, I can penetrate, I can shoot the 3-ball and I'll penetrate, I'll pass the ball off. I'm not one to mention, when I try to make plays, try to make plays to help my team perform well. It's not saying that I have to make a play to score or I have to lead the nation in scoring. I just have to make plays to let my team be effective to win and that's probably the biggest reason why I'm hard to guard.
JUSTIN DENTMON: When defenders get on him, he can draw a foul quicker than you think. I think people underestimate his jumpshot and he can drive. So I think a nightmare on him is with any team.
Q. Connecticut is obviously the No. 1 seed, you guys are 5 and George Mason is 11, or they would seem to be the prohibitive favorite going into the weekend, but do you find, I don't know if comfort is the right word, but they struggled in their first two games, we were behind in Albany and didn't exactly run away with their second game; did you see some weakness there that you guys can go after in this game?
BRANDON ROY: There's always a weakness in every team. They have had a lot of games this season where they are up 20 and they led leads slip and they have games where they are down 15 and they comeback. That just shows how dominating of a team they are and it also shows that sometimes they are less focused for 40 minutes in game, so we know, you know, they do get up 15. They may leave the door open for us to come back and if we are up 15, we have to be cautious because we know they have the ability to come back.
I don't know if you get excited about it or if you have to just stay focused, they have showed that they can do both sides. We just hope that they do have that lapse during the game where they are a little unfocused.
Q. If you played on the East Coast, would you be a household name now, honestly?
BRANDON ROY: If I played on the East Coast, I think I would be a household name. But on the West Coast I'm a household name so, that's good enough for me (laughter).
Q. Can you talk about Bobby's (Jones) versatility as a defender and if you find yourself matched up against him in practice, has he made you a better player?
BRANDON ROY: He's made me a better player over the past four seasons. All summer we played pick up basketball and we matchup against each other every game. It definitely pushes me because he makes me work hard for every shot, every time I penetrate to the basket, there's times he stops me. It's his ability to guard big men and small guys definitely helps our team because we can put them on anybody. He started off the game guarding D-Brown, and Augustine got going so he said, Bobby, got him. So that definitely gives us a two-dimensional player on the perimeter who can guard both people so he helps our team.
Q. You're coming in as an undersized post who can score against bigger guys. How do you plan to attack those guys?
JAMAAL WILLIAMS: I can't give you all my secrets. I'm here ready to go. I've got some things I'm ready to use that I haven't shown yet. (Laughter) They also are going to come out there on the perimeter because I'm not going to stay up in the post and let them beat around my shot all day. Use everything to my advantage as I've been doing so far and I don't think we'll have no problems.
Q. How do you guys kind of keep things normal when you're so far away from home, traveling across the country, going to a different arena every week and how do you keep things feeling like home on the road?
JUSTIN DENTMON: We just stay with each other. We talk to each other, it just feels like we're at home. We're all together. We all crack jokes and stuff like that. We just like being at home and when we're back at Washington, we do the same stuff that we do on the road.
Q. You guys have held the first two tournament teams to 60 point, in the 60s; how different is this club defensively from the beginning of the year and if it is, why?
JUSTIN DENTMON: I think it's better because now that we all shift gears, earlier in the season, we had some lapses and lapses, and now it's tournament time and we definitely don't want to go home right now.
BRANDON ROY: I played on both teams and last year's team was really small and we tended to give up a lot of easy buckets around the basket, you start Nate, Will Conroy is -- those guys are smaller when they are getting hands up on shots but now you say Brandon Roy and Bobby Jones, I think we're a little better inside keeping teams out of the paint. I think more than anything, we're just more physical and our size is average across the board but I think it plays to our advantage a little bit.
JAMAAL WILLIAMS: I think we are just being more aggressive. I think earlier in the year a guy was still asking questions of Justin and still trying to figure out where they are supposed to be in situations like that. Now we understand all the game time situations and how we are supposed to play it and rotation and things like that so when we get out on the floor we don't have as many problems to solve.
Q. In light of all the talk about UCONN being the most talented team in the country, if both teams play their best game tomorrow, can you guys win or do y'all need to play well and hope they are a bit off?
BRANDON ROY: That's a great question. I've been thinking about that. If UCONN plays their best game ever and we play our best game ever, it's tough to say. I think we almost need them to have lapses. They are so talented, you know, and they have experience, I think we do need to play our best basketball and we need them to be a little unfocused at times during the game to win. I watched them early against Kentucky and when they were clicking on all cylinders, they are a tough team to guard. We are definitely going to need them to make some mistakes in order to win I think.
Q. Justin, Marcus Williams has been such a key; what do you intend to do defensively?
JUSTIN DENTMON: I can't say right now.
Q. In general?
JUSTIN DENTMON: In general, really just slow him down in transition. That's really how I can put it. I can't say nothing more than that because I really don't know (laughter).
Q. Could you talk about your transition going from a scorer in high school to more of an assist man now in college and yet that capability which shows how dangerous that makes you; just how did that transition come about and how dangerous that makes you?
JUSTIN DENTMON: It makes me dangerous, that makes me feel good if it makes me dangerous. I think it's a big advantage. The scouting report probably says that I'm probably going to pass first, which is true on this team because we have a lot of scorers. It just shows that I can really hit some open shots. I just think it's all played to our advantage.
Q. Was it hard for to you make that switch?
JUSTIN DENTMON: Yes, it was real hard because I was used to being the go-to guy in high school and coming to a program to change the way I play to make the team better is really a big step. It was a big adjustment. But no, somebody had to do it.
Q. I read where coach had you guys fly in on Tuesday. I guess to most of you have never been to Washington, D.C. before. What have you done the last couple of days, did you do any tourist things or anything like that?
BRANDON ROY: We went to the nation's capital. We got a nice tour. Got to walk around and see some of the old president's statues and things like that. We went to the White House, that was real cool. I was hoping I got to see the president walking down one of those hallways and say hi. We took a lot of pictures. We were happy enough we came early to do those things because when I woke up this morning, all I was thinking about was playing the tournament and UCONN. So we put that whole experience behind us. It was a great chance to see great things and now it's a chance to play a great team. We were in the West wing, we got to see his office and all those things and it was pretty nice. I was like, "Does he just randomly walk around?" They are like, "Yeah, but not today, it's past his bed time" (laughter).

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