Roy: 'Thought Quade Green Loss Would Be Challenging'

Brandon Roy has always been able to see the basketball floor clearly and all of its different machinations.

As an elite player known for his unselfishness.

As a near unbeatable coach.

It's part of who he is and what makes him successful.

For Roy, a basketball team needs a floor leader, an organizer, a coach on the floor, to be complete, and it's no surprise to him why the current Washington Huskies have struggled. You can't toy with this aspect of the game.

"With a young team, you have to be careful with the amount of pressure you put on them," said Roy, the Garfield High coach. "With Quade Green being declared ineligible, I thought that was going to be challenging for our team, even before it fell into the skid. Just watching them, they just needed his presence."

As they enter the final week of the regular season, the Huskies (13-16 overall, 3-13 Pac-12) have lost 12 of 14 games without Green, the Kentucky transfer and sophomore playmaker. He seemingly had this team headed for great things until he sat down with academic deficiencies and everyone imploded without him.

Roy said his 2004 Huskies were noticeably out of sync before they settled on Will Conroy, now a UW assistant coach, as their starting point guard. Coach Lorenzo Romar had tinkered with the position well into the season and that team struggled to win games early before it advanced to the NCAA tournament.

"We needed Will to be on the floor to be that glue for us," he said.

The UW had an abundance of talented players back then, such as Nate Robinson, Tre Simmons and himself, but they weren't sure how to play off each other. Roy sees the same thing happening now.

"Quade was that guy for us," Roy said. "As a fan, you can point at free throws and 3-pointers, and you're going to miss those things in games. ... We lost his organization on the court and his coaching on the floor, and I know as a coach it's hard to replace."