Tommy Lloyd has Arizona in Final Four after refusing to budge even as basketball changed around him
SAN JOSE, Calif. — The confetti is down, the celebration continues, and here’s the person responsible for almost all of it, on the sidelines, somehow, all alone.
Here stands Tommy Lloyd – a few steps from the risers, blue and red shreds of soft, festive paper at his feet; and definitely more under his cotton and black Cats zipper – lying around. He has a smile, but not Also big smile.
There are still two games to win.
But he can pause for now to acknowledge the long-awaited return to the sport’s biggest stage for the Arizona Wildcats. The program will head to the Final Four for the first time in 25 years, arriving there with an authoritarian second-half power play against No. 2 seed Purdue that ended in a 79-64 anticlimax. Thousands of people in red, blue and white in the stands are screaming, laughing, crying, celebrating.
Lloyd accepts it.
Less than a minute ago he was giving hugs and greetings to none other than Mix Master Mike, still famous and acclaimed from the Beastie Boys, now a dear friend of Lloyd’s. Life has changed so much, but also not much, for the 51-year-old former Gonzaga assistant, who helped guide two of those teams to the national title game in 2017 and 2021.
Tonight is different. These Gonzaga teams were the brainchild of Mark Few. This is now Lloyd’s job. He has brought Arizona back to the promised land, and while thousands cheer him, he stands humbly alone, just waiting for a reporter to interrupt him.
Of course I had to do it.
Did Lloyd think this was possible all those years ago, when he was a carefree gambler growing up in Kelso, Washington?
“I would say yes,” Lloyd told CBS Sports on the field. “I believed in it 100%. I’ve always dreamed big. I mean, I’m not surprised. I respect the moment, but it’s not the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me in life. I have a big family and I’ve had a lot of good experiences, but I’m a big dreamer.”
For decades, Lloyd imagined what he would do and how he would run a program if ever given the chance. In April 2021, Arizona gave him this opportunity even though Lloyd has never been a head coach. His reputation was formidable as a program builder and international recruiter, but it remained a gamble.
It paid off on Saturday night. Lloyd’s hiring changed Arizona’s trajectory and redefined the upper echelon of the reformed 16-team Big 12.
And as Arizona prepares for a trip to Indianapolis, it has to be acknowledged: Arizona has spent more weeks as the No. 1 team this season and has been the winningest program over the past five seasons because Lloyd has tripled down on its refusal to bend to modern overl conventions relying on a 3-point-oriented offense.
The best coaches, whatever the sport, not only innovate, but they force those around them to adapt according to their convictions. He’s Tommy Lloyd, and Purdue’s dismantling Saturday night was the latest evidence that his style was always going to work.
“It builds confidence,” Arizona associate head coach Jack Murphy told CBS Sports. “I just saw that from first grade to fifth grade. He’s been steady, the same person every day when it comes to work. He doesn’t change, doesn’t get too high or too low. Now he’s very competitive, yes, and I beat him at pickleball. He doesn’t like it. But he doesn’t change and he instills ultimate confidence in everyone, his team and his players.”
In an era where the influence of Steph Curry and the grip of modern analytics on the 3-pointer have never been more inescapable, here is Lloyd’s Arizona program bucking convention and heading toward potentially the best season in program history.
The Wildcats rank 363rd in 3-point shooting rate, shooting beyond the long line just 26.4 percent of the time. Additionally, this team is the first to finish in the bottom five in 3-point percentage and advance to the Final Four since North Carolina did so (with a similar system) in 2008.
The message is always: north-south, go! go! go! Go towards the opponent every time. Drive the ball. Play on two feet as often as possible. The spaces are there, find them and lead your line when space opens up. From there, 3-point options will emerge, but don’t take a good shot when a good shot is waiting for your teammate to die two or three times – and that teammate might end up being you.
“He likes us to call it an insurance policy,” Arizona star senior point guard Jaden Bradley told CBS Sports.
Bradley’s always-reliable stability in the second half was one of the key elements that helped Arizona secure another victory against another ranked opponent, now the 14th of its 36 victories this season.
“Obviously, everyone wants to go play basketball; it’s a big part of the next level,” Arizona assistant TJ Benson said. “That’s all they talk about. But I think early in the season, these guys have been the easiest group to coach that we’ve had in five years, and we’ve had some good groups. But let’s just understand, no, man, we’re going to put our heads down. That’s one of our strengths. We’re not going to let people take that away from us.”
Through four games this tournament, Arizona has averaged a modest 13.3 3-point attempts, the fewest of any Final Four team since 2014-15 Kentucky. Only five other Final Four teams in the last 20 years had a lower average, before the 3-point revolution of evolution.
It’s not that Lloyd’s team can’t shoot the 3 — at 36.7 percent, they rank 37th overall, solid but not spectacular — it’s that they get the win by most other means.
Two years ago, when Arizona left the Pac-12 for the Big 2, Benson went to Lloyd and they discussed the need to change and look at the 3-pointer due to the league upgrading. Lloyd was open but he went back to his style: tough players with incredible conditioning who magnetize the paint instead of floating around the perimeter.
Freshman Brayden Burries said, “Coming here, I didn’t know much about the style of play. I just knew what Coach Lloyd told me, that he believed in me and I believed in him.”
Burries has gotten off to a slow start this season. In June, he will be a lottery pick in the NBA draft.
“He is who he is and who he’s always been,” Benson said. “Gonzaga was that blockbuster basketball. Ultimately, we had a lot of good players who are good at putting their heads down, getting to the paint, and then making plays with their teammates or for themselves.”
And it showed again Saturday evening, especially in the second half. The game was really good until it wasn’t. The SAP Center was tense… until Arizona cut the relay and escaped down the home stretch. At halftime, it looked like Purdue might pull off the upset and advance to a second Final Four in three seasons. The Boilermakers drained seven 3-pointers in the first 20 minutes and had a seven-point lead over Arizona going into the break.
Arizona picked up the pace, shooting just 3-pointers when necessary (4 of 9) and ultimately overcame its sixth halftime deficit of the season — and its largest NCAA Tournament halftime deficit in program history.
“We went back to our plan A,” Lloyd told CBS Sports. “We kind of got lost on offense at the end of the first half. We put JB (Jaden Bradley) on Braden (Smith) instead of Ivan Kharchenkov, and JB was incredible chasing him through everything.”
The Wildcats held Purdue to just nine points in the first 10 minutes of the second half and outscored them 48-26 overall after the break. The 22-point differential was Purdue’s worst of the season — and that’s after Purdue had averaged 81.4 points in its previous seven wins before Saturday night. Arizona held it 17 below that number.
Purdue coach Matt Painter put it bluntly Saturday night when he said, “Sometimes people don’t understand these great teams, they just cause problems.” »
Arizona is a 40-minute problem every time he adjusts.
The defense is the best of any team Lloyd has coached, both at Arizona and Gonzaga. The Wildcats are No. 1 in defensive efficiency. After Purdue’s senior core of Braden Smith, Fletcher Loyer and Trey Kaufman-Renn averaged 58 points on 55 percent shooting in the previous three games, Arizona held them to 31 total points on 31.6 percent shooting.
This group has won its last four games by an average of 20.5 points, the sixth-best margin of any Final Four team since 2000.
“We have the personnel to do it, the will to do it, and I know how to coach him,” Lloyd said. “I think that’s where my strength lies as a coach. … You just have to stick with it. You can’t give up on a mission, you know? You just can’t. That’s not how you win.”
This team showed who they were in the season opener, when they shot 2 of 5 from 3-point range and beat defending national champions/future No. 1 seed Florida 93-87. Koa Peat had perhaps his best freshman debut statistically in this game, with 30 points, seven rebounds, five assists, three steals and a block.
Peat won the West Region MVP award by averaging 17.5 points and 6.8 rebounds over the final four games of the tournament. It’s not a stellar stat line, but it’s Arizona basketball. The Wildcats had six players score at least 14 points in Arkansas’ 109-88 Sweet 16, becoming the first team to accomplish the feat.
“Tommy has done an incredible job of building culture, building teams and finding the right combination of guys,” Jason Gardner told CBS Sports. Gardner occupies a special place on this staff. He was part of the last team to make the Final Four in 2001.
“To come back here,” Gardner said, “it takes camaraderie. It takes an incredible staff. It takes guys to buy in. It takes guys to share the wealth. It takes the community, the fan base to rally around you when times are tough. It takes everyone.”
Lloyd won 148 games in his first five seasons, easily a record for the best five-year start to a head coach in men’s college hoops history. He did it with the belief that freshmen can get you there too. It’s a prime place to recruit, and only a handful of schools get to try it. But above all, he did it with conviction, without bending to convention.
It’s living the dream.
And the dream is not over.
“I’m looking forward to taking a few days off, waking up for a bit, and then let’s start preparing for the next one,” Lloyd said before heading out to reunite with his family on the field.
A calm, relaxed and unwavering belief. You can’t pretend. Arizona is not a dream. This team is as real as it gets and should be considered the favorite to win two more in Indianapolis.
