Romar on Simmons transferring

Percy Allen's Q-and-A with Washington Coach Lorenzo Romar included:

...(Did Desmond Simmons leaving surprise you?) “I would say this and I’ll stick with this, nothing surprises me when kids decided to leave anymore. There were 544 transfers last year. And I just keep reading every day there’s 2-3 and sometimes five a day that are transferring. I imagine the final count will be more than 544. It has become a culture that kids transfer. So none of them surprise me.”

(Even though you said you weren’t surprise Simmons left, it still seems puzzling because he was starting. He was part of the culture and he had minutes to improve. So what were his reasons?) “I wonder if we would have had more successful seasons, if he still would have made that decision. I don’t know. But when you’re not doing as well, a lot of times it’s disappointing for a lot of people. When he first came here, he came into a situation where we are in the NCAA tournament his red shirt year. He didn’t get to experience that. Then he wanted a bigger role. He felt like there were things that he could that maybe he wasn’t able to do while he was here. And if he were to go somewhere else, he may get those opportunities...”