Arizona Wildcats Suffer Ugly First Time Occurrence Under Tommy Lloyd
The Arizona Wildcats knew their schedule was going to get much tougher after they blew the doors off of the Canisius Golden Griffins and Old Dominion Monarchs in their first two games of the season.
With one of the most talented rosters in the nation, the Wildcats were viewed as a championship contender coming into the campaign.
There are likely a few people who are jumping off that bandwagon because of how their most recent outings have gone.
In their third game of the year, they went on the road for a major test at the Kohl Center against the Wisconsin Badgers.
Their defense fell apart, as the Badgers won,103-88, behind 41 points from John Tonje, who made a living at the charity stripe, knocking down 21-of-22 attempts.
After that, the Wildcats returned home for one of the biggest non-conference games of the campaign. They hosted the Duke Blue Devils and potential No. 1 pick of the 2025 NFL draft, Cooper Flagg.
While they performed better on the defensive side of the ball, holding their opponent to 69 points, Duke’s defense was even better.
The Blue Devils did a wonderful job of keeping Arizona out of the open court, allowing only six fastbreak points. The Wildcats pulled down only six offensive rebounds as well, as they were held in check with 55 points scored.
As a result of the back-to-back losses, Tommy Lloyd’s group is now 2-2.
They started the season ranked No. 10 in the country and reached No. 9 after the first week, but they now find themselves clinging onto a spot in the AP Poll Top 25.
They are now No. 24, falling seven spots from last week when they were No. 17.
In the process, they accomplished an ugly first under their head coach.
“The 55 points Arizona scored in the loss to Duke ties for the fewest the Wildcats have scored in a game under Tommy Lloyd (112 games). In the first round of the 2023 NCAA tournament, the Wildcats lost to Princeton 59-55. This was also the first time in the Lloyd era that Arizona lost consecutive games,” wrote the staff over at ESPN.
Certainly not the kind of accomplishment the team wants to set, but it is still very early in the season and there is plenty of time to get things back on track and reach their potential.
They will look to get back into the win column on Wednesday when they start the Battle 4 Atlantis in the Bahamas against the Davidson Wildcats.
This is a strong field, as a potential matchup against the Gonzaga Bulldogs or former center Oumar Ballo with the Indiana Hoosiers looms if they reach the championship game.
