The Washington Huskies are used to being mocked.
Throughout the past 15 seasons, the team has been incessantly
bad, finishing in the bottom half of the conference in 13 of those
seasons and only making the NCAA tournament twice.
“There have definitely been some down times here in the
past 15 years,” said Washington head coach Lorenzo Romar, who
is beginning his first season with the Huskies.
But now they’re making a serious push to get out of their
doldrums and become contenders in the Pac-10.
After last season, head coach Bob Bender resigned following a
dismal 116-142 record in nine seasons.
Washington athletic director Barbara Hedges hired Romar two
weeks later. Romar, a former Washington letterman and UCLA
assistant coach, came in from Saint Louis, where he led the team to
a 51-44 record in three years.
“I was torn between leaving Saint Louis,” Romar
said. “We had a lot of good players, and after going 9-7 last
year I knew we were ready to make a move in Conference
U.S.A.”
But in the end, returning to his alma mater was too good of an
offer to turn down.
“I just knew Washington would be a great place to
go,” he said.
Romar moved to Washington, and one of the first moves he made
was to hire Cameron Dollar, one of his Saint Louis assistants and a
former UCLA player, to become an assistant on his new Washington
staff.
“I knew it would be something I was interested in,”
Dollar said, recalling his first thoughts after getting the
invitation.
Little did Dollar know the rough start he would be in for.
Over the summer, Dollar was slapped with a one-month suspension
for recruiting violations. Both he and Romar had to suffer through
the negative national media attention that came with the
infractions.
“Cameron is like a son and a little brother to me,”
Romar said. “To see that happen really hurt, because we are
in this together. But he admitted his faults, and was up front
about everything.”
Obviously, the suspension displeased Dollar. He said his actions
warranted the penalty, but to sit out in late September and early
October was bad for him and the program.
That period is crucial to both recruiting and planning for the
current season. “I wasn’t glad at the timing of
it,” Dollar said. “But that is the reality of the
situation.”
Both coaches say they put the incident behind them, and are
ready to tackle the upcoming season.
They say turning the program into a winner might take some time,
but that they have a plan in place.
First, Romar wants to play an up-tempo game that will attract
high level recruits.
He hopes that the more exciting style of play will also attract
more fans to home games; crowd support is crucial in college
basketball.
So far it’s worked. He recently signed Tre Simmons, a
junior college sophomore, who is rated a preseason fifth-team
All-America selection by Street & Smith. “He’s from
Seattle,” Dollar said. “It’s great to sign a
homegrown product.”
Romar and Dollar hope to sign more recruits in their continued
quest to turn the Huskies into contenders.
Both say they are now on the right track after the initial
turbulence, and Washington could one day be a national force in the
NCAA.
“To become a contender in the Pac-10 might take a year or
two,” Dollar said. “Nationally, we could be a contender
in two to three years, depending on how the personnel floats in our
system.”