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Romar, Huskies all in on high-post offense

Lorenzo Romar is hitching his and Washington's wagon to the high-post offense.

Kevin C. Cox

Lorenzo Romar was schooled in the high-post offense at UCLA and this season he is bringing the system that brought him a national championship as an assistant in Westwood to Washington. The Huskies' head coach has used principles from the high-post offense before at Washington, but he has never quite gone all-in on it like he has this season.

Flush with shooters and short on guys who can get to the rim, Romar decided to implement the entire high-post offense this season. It's an offense so associated with UCLA -- as is to be expected considering it gained fame during the John Wooden era -- that the first cut in the offense is called a "UCLA cut". But the Bruins don't run it much anymore. Instead, it is the Huskies who are taking up the offense, albeit with mixed results.

The problem with the high-post offense is that it has a lot of reads and it takes a lot of work to get those reads down pat. It isn't easy to learn, as the Huskies can attest to. They have had to scrap it for portions of games, but Romar is committed to it and thinks that by January things will start to come around.

It’s just a matter of us understanding what’s there and what’s not. Until you get all the reads down, you don’t understand where the escape hatches are. You just feel like, ‘I’m in this one area.’ When you really understand what’s going on, it’s easier. You realize, ‘I just have to do this.’ We just haven’t got to where we know those reads yet. But, we will.

If the Huskies can get the offense figured it, they can be very dangerous. If not, they make be looking at another season on the couch during March Madness.