Notes and Quotes

It was a much more upbeat Lorenzo Romar that met the media following the 68-59 Husky win over ASU in Tempe tonight. He was composed as always, but had a twinkle in his eye as he talked about the game.

“This team doesn’t have much margin for error, and we didn’t make many errors tonight. With the exception of defending their out of bounds plays, every player that went into the game for us contributed something to this game. We took care of the ball (only seven turnovers despite constant pressure from ASU), and we were patient on offense. We didn’t take any bad shots, we did what we needed to do on offense,” said Romar.

“There was a lot on the table for Arizona State tonight so we knew they’d come at us hard. There was a lot at stake tonight, and I thought our guys met the challenge.”

Romar added that, “We had some of the same shots we had in Arizona, but tonight we made them. It makes a difference. And our guys did a nice job of getting physical on Carson tonight. Our bigs did a great job, Aziz and Sean really contained their big guys and that’s important.”

After questioning his team’s effort in the second half at Arizona, he was pleased by what he saw tonight.

“Our guys played with passion tonight, and that made a difference. I was wondering how we would bounce back after that uncharacteristic second half against Arizona. We gave up too many easy transition baskets against Arizona, so it was going to be interesting to see how our guys would respond. I think we did respond, with passion tonight.”

Senior Scott Suggs had the game that everyone has been waiting for this year. “Scott really played well tonight, and grabbed four rebounds too. It’s really important that he do that. I’m glad he had a big game tonight, so let’s go from here. He got off to a good start so I was happy about that,” said Romar.

And his senior point guard was amazing when the game was on the line. “Abdul was REALLY good tonight. He made clutch plays down the stretch, and had seven assists and zero turnovers while getting pressured the entire game. He took shots with authority and conviction, and without doubt in his mind that they were going in. I thought he did a really nice job of guarding his guy too. I don’t think there is any question that this was his best game from start to finish. He finished 6 of 9 from the field and hit a huge shot down the stretch.”

So how did the Huskies win despite C.J. Wilcox going 1-11 from the field?

“We have talked all year about having everybody here on the same night, knocking shots down. We haven’t had that before tonight. Tonight, Scott stepped up and Abdul stepped up. Sometimes, if CJ is off, no one steps up and that can be a problem for us. It showed that we can be OK if CJ is struggling, as long as the rest of us step up,” answered Romar.

“I thought we were patient down the stretch. We didn’t experiment. We did things we were comfortable with, we went to the places we knew we’d get good shots. We didn’t force the action. We got the ball back, adjusted, and then moved the ball to the other side and got another good shot off.”

So now the Huskies get an extended break before finishing up the season in Seattle.

“I’m glad we have a little time off. We were able to get this on the road before coming back for our remaining three home games. We can’t let this week get away from us, I told our team that. We need to get as sharp as we can before we play next.”