Huskies’ lead Dawg

SEATTLE — University of Washington men’s basketball coach Lorenzo Romar carried a sense of calm into Friday’s opening practice of the 2011-12 season, despite the swirling questions that plagued his Huskies.

He’s well aware of the fact that he lost the top three scorers from last year’s team,

including go-to playmaker Isaiah Thomas. He knows the Huskies have more freshmen on the current roster (eight) than he does upperclassmen (seven). And he’s still dealing with the news that one of his few experienced players, senior Scott Suggs, will miss eight weeks following knee surgery on Friday

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Despite all of that, Romar can rest easy knowing that he’s got his Rock of Gibraltar back on the court. Junior point guard Abdul Gaddy has that kind of effect on Romar’s psyche.

“Abdul, as I’ve always said, is the calm in the storm,” Romar said Friday, just before taking the court for UW’s first official practice of the season. “He’s always been that way.”

Despite playing 22 games, winning 14 of them, taking home another Pac-10 Conference tournament trophy and making it all the way to the Sweet 16 last season without Gaddy, the Huskies missed their floor leader at times last winter. The Tacoma native and cornerstone of the Huskies’ 2009 recruiting class tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee during a January 4 practice and didn’t play a game after that.

Now he’s back, and the young Huskies are sure glad to have him.

“It’s another vet,” sophomore swingman Terrence Ross said. “It’s someone who can not only tell the freshmen what to do but also show them.”

Added teammate C.J. Wilcox: “With all the young guys we have, he’s definitely going to be more vocal and take charge in that role.”

No one is happier that Gaddy is back than Gaddy himself. The 6-foot-3 point guard hated watching last season from the bench but has grown to appreciate the process

“It helped me because I got to watch the game from a coach’s perspective,” he said last week. “I saw the game in a different way. I saw it from coach Romar’s perspective. And it also helped me because I know that every time I go on the practice field, I have to go 100 percent all the time — because you never know. My season was done in a split second.”

Gaddy is, believe it or not, the Huskies’ returning leading scorer this season, having averaged 8.5 points per contest in the 13 games he played last year. He was just starting to come into his own as a scorer after spending most of his freshman year distributing the ball and learning on the fly.

When the injury occurred in a January practice, Gaddy was establishing himself as a key complimentary scorer on a team that relied mainly on Thomas and big man Matthew Bryan-Amaning for points.

“He was playing great basketball,” senior teammate Darnell Gant said last week. “It hurt to see him get hurt like that. But now he’s back, he’s past that and I feel like this year he’s just going to be better.”

The grueling rehab Gaddy put himself through over a seven-month span seems to have paid off. He said he doesn’t even think about the knee anymore, and his confidence is as high as ever.

“My injury doesn’t even bother me anymore,” he said. “I just have to do a lot of stuff to maintain for it. I’ve gained a lot of confidence with playing. I’ve been playing for the last two months, so I think I’ve pretty much got all my confidence back in my knee.”

Romar said that he has seen no signs of rust in his junior point guard.

“When you see Abdul play — not in a month; right now — someone would have to remind you that he had ACL surgery done to him,” Romar said. “He’s just as quick, if not quicker. He already plays with a lot of poise. You can just see he’s been in college for awhile. You can just see his experience; it’s on his sleeve. He’s wearing experience, when you see him. He’s playing with a lot of confidence right now.”

Gaddy’s teammates have noticed as well.

“I feel like he never left, like he never stopped playing,” sophomore guard C.J. Wilcox said. “He’s gotten a little bit quicker, he definitely sees the floor the same and his shot has gotten a lot better. So I think he’s gotten better.”

While the Huskies added a high-profile freshman point guard in Tony Wroten Jr., a star from Seattle’s Garfield High School, Gaddy is not so much threatened by him as he is excited to play alongside the young phenom in the same backcourt.

“We could play off each other,” Gaddy said. “He reminds me of Isaiah in a lot of ways. He’s not Isaiah, but he reminds of him in a lot of ways.”

Gaddy didn’t get to play alongside Thomas when the former star’s career ended with a run to the Sweet 16, but he isn’t looking back on what could have been.

“I was hurt when I found out I couldn’t play the rest of the year, but I had to move on as quick as I could,” he said of last season. “I had coach Romar there to support me. He talked to me a lot, told me: ‘It’s not the end of the world. You’ll be back. You’ll be able to play.’

“A lot of people lose perspective in that: you’re just lucky to be able to play again. I’m being humble and knowing that I’m just lucky to be able to play again.”

And the Huskies feel lucky to have him back.

“Abdul,” Romar said, “is a big part of this team.”