There’s a sense of urgency for coach Lorenzo Romar to forge a collective identity with a UW men’s basketball team that features nine newcomers.

“Start the clock!”

With a simple command from Lorenzo Romar, the morning workout began inside an auxiliary gym at Alaska Airlines Arena. The red digits on the far wall read 90:00 and begin to tick away.

Players scurried into position on the floor in what felt like a race against time.

UW men’s basketball key dates Oct. 5 Start of practice. Nov. 13 Season opener vs. Texas in Shanghai Nov. 25-27 Battle 4 Atlantis tournament in the Bahamas Note: Rest of the schedule has not been finalized.

This was the third workout for the University of Washington men’s basketball team.

Less than 100 days remain before the start of training camp. In the past, summer brought solace for Romar and was a time to reflect on the previous season’s missteps and shortcomings.

Not this year.

Not with nine newcomers staring at him and a chorus of critics growing louder and asking if the man who resurrected UW basketball a decade ago can do it twice.

Win, and he’s the hero of Montlake once again. Lose, and he may not return to complete a 10-year contract extension that expires in 2020 and pays him $1.7 million per year.

But if time has run out on Romar’s tenure at UW, you wouldn’t know it if you saw him at last Monday’s practice.

At times he was playful, teasing and engaging.

Other times his voice bounced off the walls. He was fiery and bombastic when he stopped a drill and launched into a verbal tirade.

“This jogging stuff is not going to fly!” Romar yelled. “If you are a fast guy and you’re jogging or you are a slow guy and jogging, you’ll be on the bench. Just let me know.

“You run! Sprint to where you’re going! … If you are a real baller, you are always in shape in May, June, July or August. It doesn’t matter. We got to get that right before we do anything else!”

It was one of the first times Romar verbally tore into his new team. When he was done, new assistant Will Conroy, a former Romar standout during UW’s heyday, led an applause as players shouted: “Yes coach!”

Entering his 20th season as a head coach – three at Pepperdine, three at Saint Louis and 13 at Washington – the 56-year-old Romar is working harder than ever.

With an incoming class that includes seven freshmen, his communicative skills and patience will be tested like never before.

Romar likens the challenge to his times as an assistant on the U.S. men’s basketball teams.

“Everybody wants to earn playing time,” he said.

“You have their undivided attention. They’re just eager to make it work and eager to do whatever you ask of them. It has that type of feel.”

Starting over

In many ways, the Huskies hit the reset button.

And maybe a fresh start is what they needed after last season’s 16-15 finish preceded a 17-15 season in 2013-14 and an 18-16 mark in 2012-13.

They are four years from their last NCAA tournament appearance, and their star point guard Nigel Williams-Goss, who led an exodus of players, transferred to cross-state rival Gonzaga. Before departing, he delivered a stinging blow and questioned the direction of the program.

Fifth-year senior Andrew Andrews, one of just three returners, acknowledged the Huskies have a long climb from last season’s 11th place finish in the Pac-12 race.

“We’re not so much different than other teams in Washington history,” Andrews said. “This team has kind of reverted back to the teams of old with length and versatility.”

The Huskies spent most of Monday’s practice learning a familiar play from their old motion attack that will be the staple of their offense.

They’ve scrapped the high-post offense, which averaged 72 points the past two seasons, and opted to install a free-flowing offense from the Brandon Roy and Nate Robinson years that averaged 86 points during the 2004-05 season.

Romar also trashed the read-and-react defense and zone defense the Huskies employed the past two years and recycled their trademark pressure man-to-man defense, which is sure to delight UW diehards.

“We have more athleticism,” he said.

“We have more length. We have more interchangeable parts. We have more guys that can contain the basketball.”

After about an hour of instruction and individual drills, the Huskies split into two teams for the summer’s first team scrimmage.

Andrews and freshman Dejounte Murray paired in the backcourt with sophomore Donaven Dorsey at the wing and newcomers Noah Dickerson and Malik Dime on the front line.

The other squad included five freshmen: guards David Crisp, Matisse Thybulle, Dominic Green and forwards Marquese Chriss and Devenir Duruisseau.

“Take great shots,” Conroy says to Green, a gifted shooter from Renton’s Hazen High with NBA three-point range.

“Not good shots. Great shots.”

Mistakes are made and Romar and assistant Raphael Chillious jump in to correct the players.

Andrews, who is making the switch from shooting guard to point guard, is mostly silent. Later he said: “I want the young guys to hear it from coach first, then I’ll help them out.”

Murray, perhaps the prize of the 2015 recruiting class who was ranked sixth nationally by Scout.com, darts around a defender into the lane. The rail-thin offensive dynamo from Rainier Beach High is unable to finish a layup over Duruisseau, but his uncanny ability to get to the rim serves him well in Washington’s attack offense.

Dickerson and Dime work well in tandem in the post. However, Dime, a 6-9 junior from Senegal, tires late in the workout perhaps because he’s observing Ramadan, the month-long Muslim holiday in which observers abstain from eating or drinking from sunrise to sunset.

Defensive highlights are almost nonexistent with the exception of Thybulle, who Romar described as the most athletic player on the team. In one sequence, the former Eastside Catholic High standout blocked a shot on the baseline before poking the ball away for a steal that led to a fast-break layup.

Crisp finished the possession with a long pass to Chriss who flushed a dunk in traffic, which prompted Romar to enthusiastically commend the big man for running the floor.

“In July no one is guarding anybody the way that we’re going to guard when the season starts,” the UW coach said. “Right now there are many more offensive rebounds than there are defensive rebounds because guys aren’t blocking out as much.”

Hungry newcomers

Romar has never coached a team this young, but believes it’s possible to win big with freshmen.

Duke captured the national title last season with a freshmen-laden squad. Kentucky also did it in 2012 and to a lesser extent Arizona and UCLA have recently dominated the Pac-12 with talented freshmen.

Still, those Division I powerhouses are winning with one-and-done phenoms who become NBA draft lottery picks. Meanwhile, Romar has stocked the incoming class with six four-star recruits (Murray, Chriss, Thybulle, Dickerson, Green and Crisp) according to Scout.com and it remains to be seen if they’re able to resuscitate a program that’s fallen into mediocrity.

Romar often uses the word hungry to describe the newcomers and perhaps separate them from recent UW teams.

“All of those guys are so invested in what we’re doing,” he said. “It’s just refreshing.”

Romar’s immediate task is learning as much as he can about them, while they learn from him.

The Huskies start the season Nov. 13 in China for a historic opener against Texas before traveling to the Bahamas for a nonconference tournament that could pit them against cross-state rival Gonzaga.

The search for chemistry will be a constant theme for this group. How quickly they mesh will largely determine their success.

“Every team is different,” Romar said. “Sometimes when you have some pieces that are in place in terms of personality and skill set, then your chemistry and the magic can happen quicker than some other situations.

“True chemistry comes when everybody trusts one another. … Right now we don’t have that yet because our guys are still learning the system. The first thing we need to do is learn the system. Believe in it and believe in one another.”