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5 questions with Arizona’s Tommy Lloyd

Tommy Lloyd’s head coaching career is off to a blazing start. After spending 20 years as an assistant to Mark Few at Gonzaga, Lloyd is a combined 61-11 during his first two years as the head coach of Arizona. I caught up with Lloyd this week in Tucson to discuss his instant success as a head coach, last March’s NCAA Tournament loss to Princeton, and much more.

Jon Rothstein: What’s the biggest thing that you know now about being the head coach at Arizona that you didn’t know two years ago when you took the job?

Tommy Lloyd: I think I knew that it was a big deal obviously because it’s Arizona, but now having sat in this seat, I see how big our program and our program’s success is to the community here in Tucson. It’s really cool.

Rothstein: You’re a combined 61-11 in your first two years as a college head coach. How have you had that much success out of the gate considering the fact that you weren’t a head coach prior to taking this job?

Lloyd: I mean first off, I took a great job. I think you want to hit that first. And then second, I think I waited. I waited for a great job. It wasn’t like I was holding out for Arizona to offer me the job. I was coaching at Gonzaga and thought that I would be the next head coach at Gonzaga. Things change. The first couple of years here, we just kind of put our heads down and worked. I didn’t try and get out ahead of myself. It was a lot of day-to-day stuff. Now I feel like I’m finally able to take a little bit of a breath and take a step back and have a better grasp of how things work here and work at this level. I think now I can really start building something here that fans can be proud of in the future.

Rothstein: I know that you were a part of a staff at Gonzaga that lost in the national title game twice, but where does the loss to Princeton in last year’s NCAA Tournament rank among the most difficult defeats that you’ve experienced in this profession?

Lloyd: I think there’s a lot more difficult things in life than losing a basketball game. You’ve always got to keep that perspective, but when you coach and you’re obsessed with it and obsessed with the game — it hurts. It’s painful. I was more disappointed for our players and for our fans. I know one of the parts of building a great career is hanging around long enough to take a bunch of swings. That’s how you’re going to get opportunities. You look at how long that it’s taken great coaches to be successful in terms of getting to the Final Four and winning a national title — the numbers are staggering. But you have to keep trying to get back up and get better. For me, my approach has been that we were obviously heartbroken, but I wasn’t broken. I immediately thought that I needed to find out ways to increase our margin for error so that in a game like that we give ourselves more chances to win and we’re more prepared and we’re better. That was my mindset. I’m thankful for what Princeton did for my coaching career — that’s how I’m approaching it. I know that I’m doing everything I can to be better from it, but Princeton deserves a ton of credit. They went out and made it happen. They could have lost a close game and we would have moved on and no one would be talking about it now, but would that have allowed me to grow the way that I want to grow as a coach? I don’t know. I’ve approached it like it was good for Princeton and a tough one for us, but we’re going to be better for it.

Rothstein: You return three veterans from last year’s team in Pelle Larsson, Kylan Boswell, and Oumar Ballo, but you bring in several key newcomers headlined by transfers Caleb Love (North Carolina), Jaden Bradley (Alabama), and Keshad Johnson (San Diego State). Who from that group makes the biggest impact?

Lloyd: As our roster was shaking out, I felt like the foundation of Kylan (Boswell), Pelle (Larsson), and Oumar (Ballo) — that foundation was really something solid to build with. I felt like it wasn’t an exaggeration that those three guys with some other guys supporting that nucleus could be a top-10 team. We were able to go add some really good players in the transfer market that we really valued. Jaden Bradley was someone who we recruited very hard the first time around and he’s a great fit for our culture and I think he’s going to do really well here. Keshad (Johnson) filled a need. We lost Azuolas Tubelis and we needed a dynamic guy in that spot. Keshad (Johnson) is going to do it differently than Azuolas (Tubelis) did, but I think he’s going to have a major impact. And Caleb (Love) was kind of the last addition, but I think he put us over the top talent wise. Now, having a lot of talent and building a team are two different things, but we have a lot of talent and a lot of pieces in place and I’m excited.

Rothstein: This is the final year of the Pac-12 and Arizona will be going to the Big 12 for the 2024-25 season. That opens the door to keep existing rivalries open moving forward during the non-conference portion of the schedule. Is that something that you plan to explore?

Lloyd: For sure. Mick (Cronin) and I have had those conversations, but we haven’t been able to firm anything up yet. I think that Arizona playing UCLA would be a rivalry that would be good for West Coast basketball and basketball in general. What I’m excited about is we kind of have a two-year cycle. This year is the last year of the Pac-12 and next year is the first year of the Big 12. I think this creates a lot of excitement. You may be a little nostalgic this year because it’s the last go around for the Pac-12, but you hope to give great efforts and then next year, it’s a new beginning. I think it’s a really exciting time for Arizona and I’m thankful these changes have happened after I’ve been here for a bit because now I feel like I’m better prepared and more positioned to take us to the next step.

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