Q&A: Lorenzo Romar expects an emotional return when Wildcats visit Washington on Saturday

Home, bittersweet home

SEATTLE — Lorenzo Romar is back in the city he called home for the previous 15 years, and everything is already different.

Just over 10 months after the Washington Huskies fired him as head coach, Romar’s old team has ditched his pressure man-to-man defense and is thriving in a Syracuse-style zone under new coach Mike Hopkins.

And while Romar kept his Seattle house, it's different, too: The home is now occupied by Romar's daughter and her husband. They're expecting their first baby as soon as this weekend.

It’s different now.

Romar will deal with it. As Arizona’s associate head coach since April, Romar has displayed all the patience, congeniality and optimism he was known for as the Huskies’ longtime head coach.

That’s why UA coach Sean Miller said he doesn’t expect Romar will return to Hec Edmundson Pavilion on Saturday with a sour taste in his mouth.

“Lorenzo is such an even-keeled person,” Miller said. “I know he thinks the world of those players at Washington. I know he really hopes they’re going to be successful. I don’t think he has a bitter bone in his body. He’s such a good person, such a positive person.

“He loves that place. I’m sure it’ll be bittersweet but if anybody has a great positive mindset, it’ll be him."

That was the impression Romar gave during a recent interview with the Star, even as the Wildcats experience college basketball's lows (a federal investigation and early-season struggles) and highs (they've won 16 of their last 17 games). 

Has it been odd to be the No. 2 guy after so many years in the head coach’s seat?

A: "Obviously, it’s different, it’s a change. But when you really trust who you’re working for, it makes a big difference. I know how good a job has been done here because you had to prepare and compete against this program. So you have that respect. I think that’s really important. So I’m taking the position of trying to be a team guy and doing whatever I can do to help in any situation possible.”

In what specific areas have you helped the most?

A: "I don’t know if I’ve wanted to take a mental journal. It’s almost as if you go back to your budget and see where you’re spending your money and write it down. I haven’t written it down. I’m just trying to do the best job that I can do to support this coach, this staff and this program."

After being at Washington so long, has it hit you in a strange way that you’re working for a rival?

A: "That I’m here working for someone we tried to beat all of those years? (Laughs). Oh yeah. Oh yeah. That’s definitely different. But again I respect what’s going on here and I didn’t leave the University of Washington because I was sour on the University of Washington and decided I was going to go somewhere in our conference to beat them. I wasn’t employed.

"So to have an opportunity to come to Arizona, it was fully thought out. I knew what I was getting into."

Do you ever think "Maybe I should have taken a year off and done TV or sit by the beach?"

A: "No way, no way. I would have gone absolutely crazy, number one. And number two, doing what I’m doing, being with the kids and interacting with them, and all the things that go into being a coach, I’m experiencing at a high level right now. There’s no way I would trade sitting at home for what I’m doing right now. No way."

If and when you go back to being a head coach, is there anything you might take from this experience?

A: "No question. The defensive concepts, the defensive philosophy is really, really sound. Really good. And just overall, how things are run and conducted, you learn a lot. I learn something almost every day. I try to ask a lot of questions but also know I can be better equipped to help. There’s some things I’m learning on the fly as we go, and a lot of things are really different than how I did it as a head coach."

What’s an example of that?

A: "We play the pack-line here (a man-to-man defense that aims to close gaps and thus limit dribble penetration). We pressured at Washington, and I’m learning the value of how we do it here."

But some of your aggressive defensive teams were successful. How do you weigh that against what happens here?

A: "It’s not what you do, it’s how you do it. You have to coach to your personality. My personality fits in here as well, but there’s another way to do things. There’s not one successful way. There’s been a lot of moments where I go 'no wonder it was so hard competing against them.' So that’s all been a great revelation for me.

"You go back and picture images when you’re playing against Arizona and you remember how difficult it was to do certain things and now you see why — it just further confirms how this is a great way to play basketball here."

In some Washington-Arizona games, you had the high-post offense going and had success against the pack-line (Arizona was 2-5 in Miller’s first seven games against the Huskies). Did you think you knew how to beat it?

A: "I don’t think there’s any system that’s invincible. Ours at Washington certainly wasn’t (laughs). When you look at the percentages, and just being really, really sound in the pack-line, there’s so much value in that. You can be sound in pressure defense as well, but obviously your personnel will dictate how good you’re going to be in any scheme.

"I was a head coach for 21 years, and we believed in what we were doing but there are different ways to do things and be successful, and you can not argue with the success Sean Miller has had wherever he has been. Being here in the middle of it, you can see why."

So if you were to be a head coach in two or three years again, what kind of defensive philosophy would you have?

A: "Well, it’s hard to argue with what we do here. And right now, I don’t have an agenda for what I’m going to do in the future. I’ve just kind of immersed myself in this program. I just know there are not a whole lot of holes in what we do here."

You say that, but this particular team does not have a vintage Sean Miller pack-line defense.

A: "I look at the body of work. He’s been doing it for 14 years. This is an aberration. You talk to anyone in the country, anyone that plays against a Sean Miller team and they’ll tell you one thing they’re gonna do is guard you. I don’t think so far this season we have been as good as some others but the system has worked. It’s been tried and proven."

What about offense? You ran a more up-tempo offense at Washington than Miller does, and he said he might borrow from your offensive ideas.

A: "I like what we do on offense. I really do. I think it’s sound and I’ll tell you even the last couple of years when I was at Washington, we’d talk as a staff, and we’d say with Arizona, if you miss or turn the ball over, Arizona really gets up and down the floor. … Coach has asked my input on transition stuff and he’s been good. I feel like he hears it but I’m just trying to do whatever he needs from me. What has been done here is very good."

Has it ever been awkward that you were competitors and now you’re working for him?

A: "Zero. Zero. Zero. Like I said when I was first hired, it wasn’t like Sean called me out of the blue or we were just competing and never talked. We were with USA Basketball together. We’d go on a Nike trip every year and we’d see him there. He knew my wife before I came here. He would always speak to her when they would come to Seattle. And we would talk philosophical stuff, so when I finally get here, there was no awkwardness at all. We felt we had known each other."

How about your sideline demeanors? Everybody knows Miller is super-intense. Did that take some getting used to?

A: "Our demeanor is definitely different, but I was an assistant before I was a head coach. I was an assistant to other coaches with USA Basketball. I played for a number of different coaches. It wasn’t like I was a head coach my whole life and have never seen it another way. Coaching is coaching. We all have different personalities. So that has not been an adjustment at all to me."

You come in and everything’s fine. You go to Spain (for an exhibition trip) and then the investigation happens and Book Richardson’s off the staff. How has that affected you?

A: "I’m part of the team. We’re all in this together. So it’s, 'how can help?’ That’s all."

Book was known as a player’s guy who would throw an arm around you if you struggled. Has there been an adjustment without that piece?

A: "Anytime you’re in a group or team setting and one of your members is missing, it means everyone has to step up. Rawle Alkins (has been) out but with him out other people have to step up. That’s how you have to do it. Again, I’m just kind of looking for ways I can step up and be of help."

Was there a point, though, where you said, 'wow, this is a mess’ or maybe just kind of an unexpected situation?

A: "Unexpected, absolutely. But what have I got myself into? No. Like I said, I’m part of the team, and I believe in what we do here."

How do you anticipate your return going? Will it be a good thing? Bad thing? Nerve-wracking?

A: "It’s one of those, maybe two of those (laughs). It’s not awkward but it will be a different situation and I don’t know how I’m going to respond. I just know were fighting for the league championship right now and that’s where our focus is going to be on."

Do you watch Washington play, and is it that hard?

A: "I watch them. There’s some improvement with some guys. The team is playing well. It looks like they’re having fun. Yeah, I watch those things."

They’re doing it differently, especially with the zone defense. What do you think of that?

A: "I think they’ve done a great job of implementing the zone and creating a belief among the team there. It’s given them a chance to literally compete in any game, as we have seen at Kansas, at USC, it gives them a chance to be successful."

I was wondering if the kind of long athletes you had there would translate into a zone. Did you?

A: "Well, I definitely think over the years you watch (Syracuse coach) Jim Boeheim coach his team, and they recruit bigger, longer athletes, especially guards because it makes the zone more effective. That personnel that (Hopkins, a former Boeheim aide) inherited had some of that there, already in place. You can play pressure defense, you can play zone, there are a number of things you can do. Obviously, it’s working for them."

How has the change been for you personally?

A: "My wife and I just made this comment that we can’t believe it’s been nine months already. It’s been going by quickly because I think we’re enjoying ourselves, we’re enjoying the program, we’re enjoying Tucson. It’s been good."

Could you jump back into a head coaching job if you had the chance?

A: "I really don’t have an agenda. I’m not trying to give you the company line but I am enjoying myself here, and I come to work every day with the expectation of being here.

"You can’t predict what happens in the future. But this was never a situation where I felt like, 'OK, I guess I’ll go to Arizona for a year and see what I can do.’ I’ve never, ever felt that way. I’m going to Arizona and now that I’m here, we do like it and we’re enjoying ourselves."