What Tommy Lloyd said after Arizona's loss to Kansas State: 'They were the more desperate team'
The depth of the Big 12 was on full display in Manhattan, Kansas as the Arizona Wildcats were dealt just their second conference loss of the season on Tuesday night.
Arizona had multiple chances to beat Kansas State, but couldn't overcome 2-of-23 shooting from the 3-point and 17 turnovers in a 73-70 loss.
"We just didn't play good enough," Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd said after the game. "We didn't play smart enough to win anywhere, especially on the road."
"I think they're a little bit like us — fighting for their season. They were the little bit more desperate team today and you could see that and feel that."
Arizona's leading scorer, Caleb Love, had one of his worst shooting nights of the season, going 3-of-15 from the field and 0-of-7 from the 3-point line. He finished with just six points. Point guard Jaden Bradley also struggled, turning the ball over 5 times including several critical turnovers in the final 4 minutes of the game.
Kansas State point guard Dug McDaniel led all scorers with 24 points.
Arizona (17-7, 11-2) is now one game behind Houston in the race for the Big 12 title. The Cougars (20-4, 12-1) visit McKale Memorial Center on Saturday.
Here's what Lloyd said after the game:
Lloyd On Dug McDaniel's Big Game
"He's talented. He's got confidence. He's got courage. He made some big-time plays down the stretch and hit some really tough shots. And he made them actually look really easy. He gets a ton of credit. Down the stretch of that game he hit two floater bank shots off the right side, and he made them with ease. So those are big-time plays."
Lloyd On Arizona's Bad Turnovers
"They were handsy and they were aggressive and we just didn't play strong enough with the ball. We had some problems early with that in the season, and I think we've done a good job addressing it. We kind of reverted a little bit, but Kansas state gets a lot of credit because they were the one making the plays."
Lloyd On Kansas State Coach Jerome Tang
"I think they're a little bit like us — fighting for their season. They were the little bit more desperate team today and you could see that and feel that. That's what good coaches do. Sometimes it doesn't go as easy as you want early and you keep fighting. We've been through some adversity this year and we fought our way through it. And by no means do I think that it's over. I know there's more adversity coming. As a coach you just want to hang with it. You want to help your team go through it and come out the other side. I think Jerome's done a great job of that."
Lloyd On The Horrible 3-Point Shooting
"You hope you make more than two (3-pointers). Just like I bet they hope they make more than one (3-pointer). I can't tell you why that happened, and I think both teams were gave good effort defensively. It's just kind of one of those nights where it didn't go in. But I'm not going to sit here and dwell on it. I'm not a guy who thinks the only way we win is if we make shots. Does it make it easier? For sure. But to me that's an excuse. That's too easy to use. There's so many ways to win basketball games, and if you're just sitting there saying 'ah well it's on the players to make shots' ... to me that's a little too simplistic."
Lloyd On Caleb Love's Struggles
"He didn't play great. We'll have to go back and look why. I thought he had some good opportunities. I thought he had a few of those threes, kind of towards the end of that game, the second half, I thought looked really good. We're going to hang with it just like we always do and hope for a better outcome next time."
Lloyd On Arizona's Botched Inbound Play
"It's not desperation. It's a play. But JB's got to throw a better pass. He didn't throw a great pass. ... In hindsight now I would have called something different, but we've worked on that play a lot and it's something we feel comfortable running in those situations. It was just kind of a little bit of an errant pass. I mean it's obviously a high-risk play. You're down three with 6 seconds to go. A little bit of desperation, and they call timeout so you're probably anticipating they're going to foul. So if you inbound the ball and dribble it up they foul you, you have three seconds to go. ... It's a tough decision you have to make as a coach. And apparently I didn't make the right one or we didn't execute it well."
Lloyd On The Atmosphere At Kansas State
"Love it. Love it. Let's move on. I love the competition. Love how every night's hard. I've never been a guy that's asked for things easy so bring it on. I can't wait. It was an awesome atmosphere. Can't wait to come back here and play again."
"I'm coaching to win every game, but I'm not dumb. I'm not naive. I know it's hard and I know your opponents try really hard too. And I know it's really, really hard to win on the road in college basketball. I'm not being a Pollyanna or anything like that. I knew it was going to be a hard game today, and I knew that we would be fortunate to get out of here with a win. That was how we approached it and we prepared to win the the game. We just came up short."
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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.