TERRY MOSHER
It feels like I’m piling on and I don’t like that, when I talk about the firing of Lorenzo Romar as Washington men’s basketball coach after 15 years. It reminds me of the time when Ken Griffey Jr. asked to be traded to Cincinnati and soon as he was gone the regional media piled on and wrote some disturbing stuff about the baseball player who saved baseball for Seattle and now is in the baseball Hall of Fame.
I didn’t pile on Griffey as others did. I thought it was unfair the media waited until he was gone to tell stories about him. Why didn’t they tell them when he was still here? That is being a coward.
I’ve written before that Romar should be replaced. So I’m not technically piling on. He had a good run until the last six years when things went from bad to worst. And why did they do that?
Well, it’s not just my belief, but others as well, that he started to recruit and get one-and-done players that were essentially one-year rentals. You can’t build a consistent program that way. John Calipari does it at Kentucky, but then Kentucky is a special basketball program and Calipari does a good job selling it to the nation’s top recruits year after year.
Washington is not in the same atmosphere as Kentucky. It’s a football school, whether you like that or not, and trying to duplicate what Calipari does at Kentucky does not work well here.
The Husky one-and-done players have been Marquese Chriss, Spencer Hawes, Tony Wroten Jr., Dejounte Murray and now Markelle Fultz. Wroten was a handful when he was here. He played the game practically by himself and is the definition of a player that puts self before team.
Probably the big thing that hurt Romar’s chances as a coach the most was the lost of Chriss and Murray a year ago. That was not expected early on. But as the season progressed, their rise in the eyes of NBA scouts was almost unprecedented, and their departure really stripped bare a program that would have been a Pac-12 contender if they had stayed.
The program began to fall apart even before that, however. Nigel Williams-Goss’ decision to leave the program after two years after the 2014-15 season and transfer to Gonzaga where he is leading the Zags in the NCAA Tournament really was a crushing blow. Then, too, the lost at the same time of Robert Upshaw, the big rim protector teams need, was a big blow. Upshaw was a risk when he was taken on, and so it was not a big surprised that it didn’t work out with the Huskies. Still, that was another shot to the gut.
Also transferring out the same time as Williams-Goss was Jernard Jarreau, Jahmel Taylor and Gilles Dierickx. Donaven Dorsey also transferred out of the Husky program a year ago.
So there were a lot of departures besides the one-and-dones, and that was just too much for a program that needed some consistent stability to have success. And when the program ended this season on a 13-game losing streak, it would have taken a miracle for Romar to be retained, even if his firing would mean a talented incoming class that is ranked the second best in the nation would be jeopardized. Athletic director Jen Cohen said Wednesday in her press conference announcing Romar’s firing that she would not release those incoming freshman from their letters of intent until a new coach hired has a chance to talk to them. Once that is done, she said she would release them if that is what they want.
You can expect the talented Porter kids – Michael Porter Jr. is the top-ranked player in the country – will leave and head back to Missouri where their dad, Michael Sr., has been hired as assistant to Cuonzo Martin, who stepped down as the coach at California to take the head job at University of Missouri.
Michael Porter Sr. is a close personal friend of Romar and he was hired this year as an assistant to Romar and brought along three sons that enrolled at Nathan Hale High School where they helped Hale go from a 3-18 season last year to an unbeaten season (29-0), a 3A state high school championship and the top ranking in the country among high schools this season.
So who will replace Romar? Cohen said she has a list and will make a national search for the next Husky coach. I’m not going to guess who the replacement will be. I know one of the coaches that probably will be on a short list is Gregg Marshall of Wichita State. He would be a good one, but there are others and I’m not going to speculate on them.
One more thing: Romar is a very good person and has a lot of class. He will land on his feet somewhere and whatever university hires him will be hiring a good one. It’s just too bad that his time had run out at Washington, for whatever reason. So now it’s on to a new era.
Hey, the sun is out. What is going on? I haven’t seen the sun in awhile. Even the local raccoons are out and about. But I’m not going out. I’m going to go watch a little March Madness. See you later.
Be well pal.
Be careful out there.
Have a great day.
You are loved.