Can Tommy Lloyd’s calmness and poise lead Arizona to a title run?

They say a team is often a reflection of its leader. In the case of the Wildcats, they’ve been playing like they’re sailing on calm seas all season long. One of the constants for Arizona this year, whether its leading by 20 or trailing by 20, which hasn’t happened very often, is the calmness and poise from the coaching staff and its leader Tommy Lloyd.

“Well, I think it’s simple. If you want your team to be poised, I think as a coach, you need to be poised. If you want your team to be prepared, you know, you need to be prepared,” said Lloyd in San Diego on Saturday ahead of Arizona’s Second Round matchup with Utah State.

For Lloyd, it really is as simple as he says. He’s not trying to turn the players into coaches out on the floor. He just needs them to execute their jobs. But within that, he and the Arizona staff also understand the value and importance of having a system and players with high basketball IQs that allow the to solve problems in real time.

“So for me, I don’t really complicate it. I’m not trying to make them into me, but hopefully just us being steady and not panicking is comfort for the players. And they understand we’ve got a job to do, and it may not always be perfect.

The last thing, if you want your team to be solution-oriented, you better be solution-oriented as a coach. So that’s kind of, I guess for lack of a better word, the A-equals-B algebra that I use for how I want my team to play on the court. If I want them to do certain things, I feel like I’ve got to be able to model that behavior myself.”

For the guys in the locker room, that calmness and poise is invaluable as the Wildcats push on into March. For better or worse, Anthony Dell’Orso believes teams are a reflection of their teams. When a coach wears their heart on their sleeve, so do his players.

“I’ve said in the past, coaches’ emotions can almost bleed into players. We’ve got a great group here that doesn’t really take that too much. We’re able to kind of go up and down with the game and stay kind of level.”

For Delly, the fact that Tommy Lloyd and the staff are never too animated should help the Wildcats stay poised as the intensity ramps up.

“That’s a big thing, getting into March, especially deep in this tournament. You know, more and more people watching the game, the crowds get louder, environments get tougher. Being able to stay calm no matter what the score is something that can keep you going longer.”

That level-headedness and poise becomes even more important for an Arizona team that features four freshmen in its eight-man rotation.

“The way you play is always a message coming from your coaches and their composure,” said Dutch freshman Dwayne Aristode. “They are trusted to know how to play us and show that confidence. As they are our leaders, they show us we should not be rattled by anything that happens. We’re never too excited, we’re never too panicked.”

Even players like Ivan Kharchenkov, who is a freshman but has been playing professional basketball since the age of 12-years-old, says calmness can lead to confidence for players on the court. Going to war through a monster non-conference and Big 12 schedule certainly helps too.

“Yes, of course. If the leader, if the coach, the head of the snake stays calm, that always gives us a little confidence boost, or just [helps us] to be calm and not have to worry about anything. We’ve been in many situations, so we know how to handle them, so we should be calm.”

For everyone inside the Arizona locker room, the job is simple; take things one game at a time. For the Tommy Lloyd and staff, the mission remains to steady the ship. And for the players, they just need to continue to be “solution-oriented” as Coach Lloyd says. If both sides hold up their ends of the bargain, the Wildcats have a real chance at ending their 25-year Final Four drought.