What Tommy Lloyd said about Arizona's NCAA Tournament game vs. Akron
Tommy Lloyd is heading "home."
The Arizona Wildcats (22-11) received the No. 4 seed in the East Region of the 2025 NCAA Tournament and will be traveling to Seattle for their first-round game vs. No. 13 Akron on Friday. Lloyd, Arizona's fourth-year head coach, grew up in Kelso, Washington, about two hours south of Seattle.
Here's a snapshot of what Lloyd said after learning about Arizona's March Madness seed:
Lloyd on getting a No. 4 seed in March Madness
"It's a great sign of respect from the NCAA. ... I'm really proud of our guys and how we hung in there. I think it shows the strength of our conference and kind of the challenges we faced. ... It's good to be rewarded and obviously now we're excited to get to Seattle. We're excited to be in the tournament. And we've got Akron on our mind."
Lloyd on playing No. 13 Akron
"I know coach (John) Groce. He's been around for a long time. I played against him way back in the day when he was at Illinois and I was at Gonzaga. I think they got the better of us. He's a well respected coach and he's done a great job. It looks like they've had a great year. ... Just looking at their statistics, they get up and down, they shoot the three and I know he's always been a a creative coach."
Lloyd on playing in Seattle
"We're excited. I'm not going to get greedy. Now that the tournament's set you kind of have to throw the seeds out. We've got to go play the games. Seattle's not real close to Tucson, but it's on the West Coast and it's a place that some of us are comfortable with, but I don't think that'll have any bearing on the game."
"(Climate Pledge Arena) is a really cool place. I actually haven't been since they renovated it. We played at the old Key Arena. I know downtown Seattle well obviously being a guy from the Northwest. So yeah, I look forward to getting up there and and hopefully my wife can handle all the ticket demands and I can just focus on the business, the task at hand."
"It's good to go back to the place where I'm from, but it's not about me. It's about the program and about us going out and competing. And I'm sure it'll be a place that our fans can get to and hopefully come support us."
Lloyd on Pac-12 connections in the Northwest
"Up in the Northwest we've got a lot of alums and I know that all those Pac-12 arenas felt like we had fans everywhere. We had a great loyal following up and down the West Coast, so hopefully this will be a way for some of our fans up in the Northwest that don't get to see us now get an opportunity to watch us play."
Lloyd on Arizona's run to the Big 12 title game
"We're good. We're a good team. We're competitive with anybody. ... We're not perfect. I think we're a team that continues to get better and we had a really tough end of the season schedule and we had some bumps in the road. Maybe a few things didn't go our way, but our guys stuck with it and getting a championship game against Houston and to have a chance to win it in the last minute ... I mean we're right there, now we've got to get it done."
Lloyd on Arizona's strength of schedule
"Obviously we've been battle tested. ... According to KenPom — that's not the end all be all — but we played the fourth hardest schedule in the country. So we've been tested. We've been tested from November through December through January, February, March. I mean we didn't really have an easy stretch. So this team's been tested and it knows that in order for us to win we know we have to play at our best. If we don't play at our best we're vulnerable like anybody else."
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-029877d49238355bd3388a94f90e3c72.jpg "Ben Sherman")
Ben Sherman has been covering the sports world for most of his 27-year journalism career, including 17 years with The Oregonian/OregonLive. A basketball junkie, March Madness is his favorite time of the year.