SEATTLE – The Washington men’s basketball team is preparing to go on the road once again and the frustration level is high in practice. And that’s just how coach Lorenzo Romar wants it.
Yes, there’s frustration that the Huskies are 0-6 away from Hec Edmundson Pavilion. But that’s not where Romar wants the ill feelings to come from. No, the Washington coach wants that feeling to stem from how the practice is going.
Maybe he’ll call traveling over and over and over during a scrimmage. Maybe a ball that clearly should go to one team goes to another. Maybe the losers of a scrimmage have to run and run and run.
Anything to make things as uncomfortable as possible. After all, that’s what playing on the road is all about, isn’t it?
“You try to create situations that aren’t fair, that are uncomfortable,” Romar said. “You try to put players in the situation where their circuits are about to blow. Because on the road, that’s what happens. The crowd is against you. The home team is playing at a high level. You feel like maybe you’re not getting the right calls. … So you start to get stressed. You try in practice to put guys in situations so they come to a point where nothing fazes you.”
Washington obviously hasn’t reached that point yet, but it must pull things together quickly if the Huskies (13-7, 3-6 Pacific-10 Conference) hope to make a run at the NCAA Tournament. Washington gets a chance to break its road woes at 6 p.m. today when it plays at Arizona State (6-14, 0-9).
Washington’s road woes have been the most talked about aspect of what so far has been a disappointing season for the Huskies. While Washington’s young players have performed well at home where they are 13-1, being away from Hec Ed has proven to be a headache.
“It’s a lot different than playing on the road in high school,” freshman forward Quincy Pondexter said. “A lot of things change and you have to deal with that. … Maybe some shots you make in Hec Ed you don’t make on the road. Don’t expect to get applause from the crowd after you get a good bucket. To get any kind of momentum is really hard.”
Certainly relying primarily on freshmen and sophomores has had an impact on the Huskies on the road. Washington seems to allow a hostile crowd and the pressure of late-game situations affect it more than a veteran team. But UW captain Jon Brockman said when it comes down to it, the youth of this team doesn’t matter.
“The NCAA Tournament doesn’t care, the Pac-10 doesn’t care, no one cares that we have young guys,” Brockman said. “We just have to suck it up. There’s a lot of other young players in the conference and the nation that are doing well and seem to be getting over those humps.”
In an effort to simulate the conditions of a road game, Romar has taken to playing mind games with his team in practice. He’ll call technical fouls for nothing. He’ll change the score for no reason. He’ll call phantom fouls.
“Just things where they begin to take their mind off of what’s going on and their jobs and begin to get distracted by something else,” Romar said. “That’s what the road ends up being. No one is yelling on your behalf. Maybe you don’t get the calls you thought you should have received. And the other team is playing lights out basketball. You’ve got a lot of things stacked against you.”
Brockman said the practice ploy does work to simulate road conditions, but it’s up to the team to transfer those feelings in practice to a game.
“You have to huddle up and say, ‘Listen, us five right here, we’re alone right now. They’re not going to give us any calls, they’re not going to give us any slack, nothing’s going to be easy,’” Brockman said. “It’s something we just have to fight through.”
The Huskies have been close on the road. They lost in overtime to USC and California and held a late lead against Stanford. Washington is also coming off of back-to-back home wins against No. 7 Oregon and Oregon State, giving it some momentum heading to ASU, which has lost 10 in a row, and Arizona, which has lost five of its past seven. But until the Huskies find a way to win away from home, any talk of a postseason berth is nothing more than words.
“Until we go on the road and win a game, it’s something that we’ve got to get over the hump,” Romar said. “We’ll feel a lot better when we can finally win a road game.”
“We can talk all we want, we can say whatever we want, but until we get it done on the road, it’s all just talk,” Brockman said. “And talk doesn’t take you very far.”
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