Arizona Wildcats Head Coach 'Excited to Prove It' in Nearing Big 12 Debut
The Arizona Wildcats men's basketball program is no stranger to success on the court.
Just last season, head coach Tommy Lloyd helped lead the program to the Sweet Sixteen round of the NCAA Tournament, the program's 20th time advancing that far, and the seventh time to do so since 2010.
Lloyd has only been a head coach for four years, all of them coming with the Wildcats, and his tenure has seen the team have three consecutive seasons of 27 or more wins, with 14 or more conference wins in each in the now-defunct PAC-12 conference.
A new challenge awaits Arizona and their head coach as they will now be a part of the Big 12, a conference with even more college basketball powerhouses, and one that the Wildcats have been predicted to finish the season with the number five seed in the conference tournament.
“I’m excited to prove it,” Lloyd said to reporters at Big 12 media day on top of the court the conference tournament will be held on, “I’m excited to see what this Big 12 thing is about."
Arizona will also have the added pressure of opening the season ranked as the 10th-best program in the country, their highest season-opening ranking since 2017-18.
They will have to overcome all of that with only one starter returning from last year's PAC-12 championship team, guard Caleb Love.
While the Wildcats do have other players from last year's roster returning who look to play a big part in the team's success this year, Love, a fifth-year senior, looks to be the leader of the program on the court.
Love averaged 18.0 points, 3.4 assists, 4.8 rebounds, and 1.2 steals across 32.2 minutes per game in 36 games for his first season with Arizona after transferring from the University of North Carolina Tar Heels.
The points came on 41.3 percent shooting with a 33.2 clip from beyond the arc, his best all-around shooting season yet in his collegiate career.
Lloyd expects more improvement from the guard ahead of their Big 12 debut.
"He had a great year for us last year," Lloyd said, "it didn’t finish the way any of us wanted, but he’s really attacked this year with the mindset of let’s see if we can change a few things."
The Wildcats are always a program to watch for in the college basketball landscape, and their addition to the Big 12 should not change things.
We are on the precipice of yet another promising season for Arizona, and head coach Tommy Lloyd is up for the new challenges.
