Reader poll: Was the UW right to fire Lorenzo Romar?
Published 1:30 am Tuesday, March 21, 2017
I’m a little late with this, but with my new duties at the Herald still not completely hammered out I’ve been thinking about what I should do with this blog, and I decided I’d begin posting a weekly poll. So here we go.
Last week the University of Washington fired men’s basketball coach Lorenzo Romar after 15 seasons. Romar leaves the program as the second-winningest coach in school history, compiling a 296-196 record and guiding the Huskies to six NCAA tournaments. However, this season Washington finished 9-22 — the worst record of the Romar era, including a school-worst 13-game losing streak to finish the season — and missed the NCAAs for the sixth straight year.
The book on Romar has always been that he’s a great recruiter, but not the best in-game coach. He was fired despite the Huskies having one of the nation’s best recruiting class, including perhaps the best high school player in the country in Michael Porter Jr. There’s a good chance the recruiting class will fall apart, with one recruit already announcing he received his release from his letter of intent.
Romar turned around a Washington men’s basketball program that had fallen into the weeds, and by all accounts he’s about the best human being one is ever going to meet. But in recent years the results weren’t there.
So was it right to fire Romar? What do you say?
