Wednesday brought the end of arguably the most successful era of University of Washington basketball. Although it did not feel that way the past five years, missing out on the NCAA Tournament each of those five and making some token appearances in the NIT and CBI. But we don't hang banners for those tournaments, and appearing in them don't go on the resume.
What is unfortunate, is that Romar has left the Husky basketball program exactly how he found it,without many positive prospects. Star freshman Markelle Fultz has already announced he will be entering this summer's NBA Draft, and ROmar's highly anticipated recruiting class is already starting to unravel.
2018 commit Jontay Porter has already decomitted, showing that the Porter family was nothing more than a packaged deal, with his father Michael Porter Sr. leaving for an assistant coaching job at Missouri now that he will no longer be on a Romar-led UW staff.
More importantly though, signs are pointing to 2017's top-ranked recruit Michael Porter Jr. reneging on his commitment to the Huskies. UW athletic director has said that she will allow any commits to reopen their recruitment, and Porter Jr. has already removed "UW commit" from his Twitter page.
Considering what may lie ahead, former UCLA and St. John's coach Steve Lavin was rumored to have been a possible replacement. However in the end the job went to Syracuse assistant Mike Hopkins, who was slated to replace the legendary Jim Boeheim on the Carrier Dome sidelines, but said now was the right time for him to move into a head coaching role. Now he's faced with the unenviable task of any new head coach of a program, keeping the previous coach's recruiting class in tact.
That should not be too hard, because it is highly unlikely that Romar goes to another school, or perhaps a school the stature of Washington at least. Therefore Hopkins won't have to worry about Romar luring any one over to a new school, rather he has to worry about an assistant coach that happens to be father of two top 100 prep recruits.
For all the failure of the last half-decade, Romar did lift the program into national prominence. A couple Sweet 16 appearances, numerous NBA Draft picks and made Montlake a must visit for any top recruit growing up on the West Coast and even beyond. Say what you want, but fans owe Romar nothing but gratitude for what he did over his 15 years in Seattle.
Photo: Flickr/Dave Sizer
The last five years have been painful, but it's good to remember the good times. Romar stayed a class act, and he brought some life to a Bball city that is still aching over the loss of the Sonics. Roman tried to take it to the elite level, Calipari-style, and you cannot fault him for shooting to the very Pinnacle like that. You gotta admire a guy who doesn't settle for very good, but pushes for more.
Although I write from New England, 3000 miles away from most of you, I rooted for Lorenzo Romar as a player in the late '70's. I applauded his courageous decision to forego two years of NBA salaries to play for Athletes in Action, providing a chance to share and demonstrate his faith with hundreds of thousands (at least) of fans in the process. For 15 years he has been not only the most successful (W-L; X's & O's; recruiting) coach in Huskies history (Marv Harshman notwithstanding) but also the moral conscience of college basketball. He is the reason the presumptive #1 draft pick travels across the country to work with him for a year, despite his weak legacy roster and the distance from home. Same thing for next year's #1 pick, who moved to Seattle one year early.
I understand pressure from boosters, but I also admire someone with a high graduation rate, whose players express their love and respect in the face of even losing records. If college basketball is primarily about developing young men to be upstanding citizens, then Coach Romar scores 10/10.