SAN JOSE – The Wildcats and Boilermakers are set for an Elite 8 showdown in San Jose on Saturday. Ahead of the marquee matchup, see what Arizona head coach Tommy Lloyd and starters Jaden Bradley, Brayden Burries, Ivan Kharchenkov, Koa Peat, and Motiejus Krivas said as they preview No. 2 Purdue.
Tommy Lloyd:
Lloyd on Arizona’s student athletes:
First, thanks for asking these guys a lot of questions. You can see I’m a lucky dude. Honestly, you guys don’t need to hear from me. These guys are the spokespeople for our program, and thanks for asking those questions and helping people hear what they have to say because they’re awesome representatives of our program and of our university and our community.
Lloyd on if the success he’s had developing international big men helps with recruiting:
“Well, I think a lot. I think anytime you have a track record of doing something, that speaks volumes. I think that’s really important. One of my schticks in recruiting is we’re going to be fact-based. We’re not going to sell you a dream. We’re not going to sell you something we haven’t done before.
When we talk to you about things, we’re going to be very direct. And we’re going to paint an accurate picture of what we think your situation looks like when you play for us. And we’re going to tell you areas we think you need to improve on and how we can help you do that.”
Lloyd on Purdue’s back court in Braden Smith and Fletcher Loyer and what he remembers about the game in 2023:
“I mean, potentially. I mean, I don’t want to rule that out. But it is really impressive. I mean, it’s just really impressive what Purdue’s done. Just how good those players are and how committed they can be.
What I remember about that game two years ago was that I think it was a Saturday afternoon game. We were ranked 1, they were ranked 2 or 3. Every bar in that city of Indianapolis must have been full for hours because those fans came in there lit. In a good way. And it was a lot of fun and it was so loud in that place. I mean, honestly, other than playing at Allen Fieldhouse, it’s probably one of the loudest venues I’ve ever been a part of, and that’s saying something when you’re in an NBA arena.”
Lloyd on Purdue’s continuity and experience and the challenges it presents:
“They just have depth to what they do. I’m sure the way Paint can coach them now, there’s a lot of reps that have already been done, so it can be a lot of conversations. And they have a vast database to draw from of experiences together, and I’m sure he can say, hey, do you remember when we did this, you know, two months ago or two years ago? And he has guys that can recall, and that’s been impressive.
What I’ll say — and Braden Smith is obviously a great player. And Chad from the Pacers, the GM, he called me like when Braden was a sophomore in high school. We have a relationship. I’ve known Chad forever. He used to be at Portland. He’s like, I don’t know, this kid’s a little small. But my son’s playing with him. He plays at my son’s high school. I mean, he’s really good.
So you talk about an eye for talent. That kid was like a freshman or sophomore. For him to be the all-time leader in assists now, I mean, it’s pretty impressive. Kudos to Chad. He definitely identified a good one there, and Purdue found him as well. So it’s been a match made in heaven.”
Lloyd on Arizona’s tradition of a daily word and huddle and that means for the Wildcats’ culture:
“I’m not going to tell you. I mean, that’s our culture stuff. I think it’s important that you have rituals that are meaningful. I think you may be — there’s probably a way you can overdo some of these ritual-type things and maybe it gets cheesy. But I think what’s cool, if you have a group of guys that are willing to put their arms around each other and listen to an old guy like me say a few words, and then we have a little routine we go through.
To do that every day willingly, I think that’s really cool. No one’s too cool to do it. And to me that’s really important.
When you’re with people every day, it’s really important that people can bond and be normal people and not think the mundane things are stupid. So I really value those rituals that we do. I think they’re key components to building a strong culture.”
Lloyd on Purdue’s offensive efficiency:
“Well, you have to be concept-based. I mean, I’m sure they’re pretty good at hiding their calls. So there’s no way you’re going to be able to teach your team 25 play calls and have them go execute it in a day.
You probably have to hone in on what you do well and try to break it down into concepts in how you guard that and go out — I think this time of year, you know, I’m sure there will be some adjustments made by both staffs. But both teams are here for a reason, because they’re probably really good at doing what they are good at doing. So you’re going to see two teams try to come out and assert their will on each other tomorrow. And I’m sure it’s going to be a heck of a battle.”
Lloyd on his history recruiting Lithuania and the relationships he has overseas:
“Yeah, I think I still have a headache from having dinner with Arvydas Sabonis. And there’s some parts later that night I don’t remember. Listen, Lithuanian people are great people. What an awesome story.
If you guys have never seen the — there’s a documentary out there called “The Other Dream Team.” If you love basketball, it’ll literally bring tears to your eyes. It’s about when they basically gained their independence from the USSR and had that magical run in the ’92 Olympics. It’s awesome.
Just awesome people. I’ve got great relationships with a lot of them over the years. I’m thankful for those. I’m thankful for those experiences.
I’m honestly thankful for all my travels over the years. I think it’s really helped shape me as a person and as a coach.”
Lloyd on the leadership on and off the court from Tobe Awaka:
“I have more people come up to me and tell me Tobe Awaka’s their favorite player. I think that’s so cool. He’s just — these guys were great up here, and he would add to that list, and maybe even be better. He’s so thoughtful, so mature. He’s about the right things.
Honestly, he’s been a real asset to our culture, and honestly, I felt we’ve always had a pretty good culture. I think he’s a key component for taking it to another level, on and off the court.
So love Tobe. I wish I could coach him forever. And hopefully we can find other ones like him in the future, because they make my job awesome, and they make coming to work every day special.”
Lloyd on what it would mean for Arizona to return to the Final Four:
“It’s not going to change my life. I’m pretty fortunate, regardless of the outcome tomorrow.
But I just think it’s going to be a great moment of collective joy for our entire community. I think that’s really powerful. If you get millions of people that can smile at the same time and cheer together, that’s powerful stuff. That’s the compound effect.
And that’s what I would be most excited for. Winning the game would be great. But the collective joy it would give our community, it would be more special than just the win by itself.”
Lloyd on when he noticed this team’s will to win being different than previous years:
“I think right away. I mean, right away. When we got on the court together, obviously, we saw there was a lot of talent there. It was going to be dynamic in how we kind of approached the game in that it was just going to put a lot of pressure on our opponents. We knew the kids we’d recruited. We knew the kids who were in the program. But when you got them all together, everything just made sense.
I’m not surprised we’re sitting here. Not at all. And I think we’re exactly where we should be, and now we’ve got to go put in the work and probably have some good fortune on our side as well to hopefully take the next step.”
Lloyd on if there is anything the coaching staff does to help the team bond and getting closer:
“I’m sure they do some stuff that I don’t even know about. But I think one of the things that we really try to do throughout the year and especially early in the year, is we talk to each other. We have meetings. We have breakout groups. We talk, we get to know each other. Everyone gets an opportunity in front of the team to tell their story. I think that’s important stuff.
We want people that are, when they’re feeling a certain way, to be able to communicate it with their teammates, and we want people to, when they see someone struggling, to be comfortable to go pick them up.
So to me that’s just a really important thing we do, is just creating opportunities for people to talk to each other in a meaningful way.”
Lloyd on lessons he’s learned from Mark Few on how to approach high stakes games like this:
“Be normal. Be normal. Be yourself. I think having a consistent approach is the most important thing. And I think if your team saw you change now or become uptight now, I don’t think that would be good messaging.
So Coach Few, you guys — I don’t know what you guys think of him or what you know about him, but he’s a great guy. But he’s really private. He’s really low-key, and he’s really smart. So I just think that I always appreciated that about him. He never made these moments about him, ever. Never made anything about himself. I think I learned a lot from him and how to carry myself and how to conduct myself.
And I think repetition’s been a great teacher for me as well. This is my fifth year being a head coach, and I’ve only been a head coach at one place. And if I want my players and my staff committed to development, I better be committed to developing myself, too. So I spend a lot of time trying to get better myself. I think the combination of those two things has been effective.”
Lloyd on what Purdue has been excelling at lately:
“Yeah, we’re going to come out — I’m joking. We’re going to full-court press and trap everywhere. No, they’ve just been playing really well. But they’ve been — I didn’t follow their season super close. I know they’ve been obviously a great program and a good team all year.
When they pop up on TV and you’re sitting on the couch for a few minutes, you watch throughout the season, but nothing more than that.
Just kind of looking at their season a little bit, looks like they hit a few rough patches. And I don’t know if there was injuries or just a little bit of fatigue of the season, or scheduling can hit you too. We found that in the Big 12. Sometimes these schedules get back-loaded a little bit, and it’s a gauntlet. I mean, that can create some tough stretches in the season.
I mean, they look like the team right now everyone thought they were going to be at the start of the year. I’ve been really impressed with what they’ve done. And to go win the Big 12 Tournament and come play the way they have in the NCAA Tournament, it’s been really impressive.”
Lloyd on Pacers’ GM Chad Buchanan giving him an early scout on Braden Smith when he was in high school:
“Well, no, I never followed up. So, you know, but let’s not act like I was going to beat Purdue recruiting him either. So it was probably a moot point.
Chad has had a lot of players I’ve coached, whether it’s been Andrew Nembhard or Ben Mathurin. So we’ve had a lot of communication over the years, and he was in Portland for a number of years.
And I think he just called me, and we were talking about players. And he mentioned this kid at his son’s high school. He was a heck of a young player but just a little small. I never have forgotten about that.
And I never followed up on it. I don’t know if I was transitioning between Gonzaga and Arizona at the time, but I’ll say this, the kid made a heck of a choice. And the guys at Purdue were really smart for choosing him, because he’s been awesome to watch.”
Lloyd on if he’s had to soften his message in recruiting and coaching in recent years:
“I think international kids want — it’s a little bigger jump for them. So I think just the comfort of knowing that they’re going to play for a coach who is experienced in that area in helping them transition is important. But I haven’t changed my approach in recruiting at all, or evaluating. Not one bit.
We have honest conversations. If I can’t — it doesn’t mean I don’t go at people or anything. Just, hey, here’s where I think you’re at. Here’s how I think you fit in. Here’s what you can get better at. Maybe here’s how we can help you. Those are the conversation.
I don’t go into these conversations saying man, you’re going to be an NBA all-star and we’re going to just let you do whatever you want. I mean, that’s not how we recruit. We don’t want guys like that. We want guys that want to come to be a part of something bigger than themselves and also individually have big dreams and understand that it’s not all about them.
So to me, having that honest approach is a great barometer for me to get the kind of character we’re hoping to get in our program, because the guys that don’t want to be a part of that, they self-select out. They don’t text me back or call me back, which is great. And they can go have success doing it their way at their own places, and I wish them nothing but the best.
I think it’s really important just to, I guess, for lack of a better word, don’t sell your soul in this recruiting thing. One thing I always think about is just the continuum of talent versus dysfunction.
And I don’t want to build a team where I’m just trying to accumulate talent to overcome the dysfunction that comes with the talent. There’s always going to be dysfunction. We’re human beings. But one of the things we really try to do is limit as much dysfunction as possible and get the most talented, least dysfunctional people we can get in our program.
We’re not perfect by any stretch. So this is not a holier-than-thou speech, but, I mean, that’s kind of how we’ve always approached it, and it seems to be working.”
Lloyd on the impact of Wildcat Nation in the Sweet 16 and what he wants from them on Saturday:
“They were great. They were great. But I know this, they’re going to have their hands full tomorrow because the bars in San Jose are going to be full of Purdue fans. Like I told you earlier. So our fans need to get up early and get to work and let’s have some fun in here tomorrow. It should be a great day.
But obviously Tucson’s got a special place in my heart. These last couple of weeks, to be honest with you, I haven’t been getting out much. It’s been nice. It’s been nice just to be at home kind of hanging out, not realizing there is all that excitement going on. So I can just kind of focus on the task at hand.
That’s been my mindset. And that will probably continue to be my mindset. I don’t know, if things somehow someway go well, you might not see me out much next week. I might just be hanging out in my little hideout in those foothills up there.”
Jaden Bradley:
Bradley on how Arizona connects off the court:
“Right now, the guys are big into FIFA right now. I don’t play. 2K, probably the best on the team at that. And just different, Uno sometimes, and other stuff, other games like that.”
Bradley on his recruitment to Arizona and the messaging from Tommy Lloyd and the staff:
“I would say I was coming out of the transfer portal, it wasn’t really talked about getting to the Final Four or anything. It was just talking about just being a better player, just the culture, the Arizona history, just coming and being part of something bigger than yourself.
These guys here are great people on and off the court. You want to surround yourself with other great people and great players to help elevate your game for the next level. And that’s something that I feel like I can do at the University of Arizona.”
Bradley on what Tommy Lloyd’s motto of “figure it out” means to him:
“For us players, I feel like I could talk for most of the guys up here, figuring out means, like, in terms of practice, you can obviously go through a lot of different situations, scenarios, but you can’t just kind of — the game, you can’t make it feel like the game.
So you get in the game. You’re in the trap or something. You’ve just got to figure it out. Use your fundamentals, your swivels, your pivots and all that stuff. He doesn’t know how it’s going to get done; you just gotta make it happen.”
Bradley on what he remembers about facing Purdue in 2023:
“Very talented team. Like Mo said, well-coached, very experienced team. We’re a different team. We have a different group, but we’re excited and ready to get after it.”
Bradley on the fun he is having in the NCAA Tournament so far:
“Winning is always fun for me, just to go out there and go out there with my brothers, going to war and playing the game that we all love. It’s always fun. It’s exciting. Because this time in the month, like, no games are guaranteed. So just to be able to advance and still be able to connect with this group of guys, because when it’s over, everybody’s going to go their own different ways, so it’s going to be special just to keep playing in times like this.”
Bradley on facing two of the best point guards in Darius Acuff Jr. and Braden Smith this weekend:
“You know, as a competitor, you always want to play against the best of the best. I feel like at this stage I’m able to do that. I definitely don’t look at it as a one-on-one match-up or anything. It’s 5-on-5, and we’ve got subs and we’ve got great guys off the bench. So we just follow the game plan and go in and try to win a basketball game.”
Bradley on the nerves and comfort level he’s feeling as the stakes continue to get raised:
“The coaching staff does a great job of making sure, like Ivan said, like being in the moment. So we do a good job of that, taking it game by game, and just being excited to play. Like I said earlier, these games from here on out are not guaranteed. So we’re just excited to play.”
Brayden Burries:
Burries on Jaden Bradley claiming he’s the best NBA 2K player on the team:
“Definitely, we play 2K a lot. Last time we played, I believe I beat Jaden. But no, we had a tournament, though. We did have a 2K tournament. This was actually my partner, Ivan. We made it to, what was it, Elite Eight or Final Four? Elite Eight. We didn’t win it all. But we were really competitive.”
Burries on how young people can get to the position he is in today:
“I’d say getting here was just keeping a small circle, having good people around you. I really believe that you are who you hang around. My parents do a great job surrounding me with great people around me. Just going through hard times, you know, just trusting it will get better. Praying a lot, and honestly, just never get too high, never get too low. Just be where my feet is.”
Burries on how the veteran leadership has helped Arizona’s trio of freshmen grow this season:
“We have great leaders on our team. They did a great job. When the game got a little chippy, their leadership came in very handily, brought us in, told us to just be smart, continue to play basketball the right way. And that’s what we did.”
Burries on buying into Tommy Lloyd’s coaching style and system:
“Coming here, I actually didn’t know too much about the play style. I just knew what Coach Lloyd told me, that he believed in me, and I believed in him. Part of it was just coming here. I found out that he likes to play inside/out, just being coachable, being able to adapt as a player and just try to see my way out there.”
Burries on Tommy Lloyd meeting players where they are and how its impacted his development:
“I really appreciate Coach Lloyd. You know, he’s been there every step of the way. He doesn’t care whether you play great or whether you play bad. He’s going to be there for you. He cares for you more as a person than just a basketball player. I really appreciate him.”
Burries on the nerves and comfort level he’s feeling as the stakes continue to get raised:
“Nerves, I don’t think it’s like too much nerves. Just trying to go out there, have fun, be coachable, be a great teammate. Win the game. Just taking it day-by-day, just being where our feet is, not getting too far ahead or worrying about the past, just being where our feet is, honestly.”
Ivan Kharchenkov:
Kharchenkov on buying into Tommy Lloyd’s coaching style and system:
“One thing Tommy always likes to say is not to settle. He always likes to take a good shot, always likes to put full pressure on the big guys in the paint. And that’s the biggest thing we had in the preseason, you know, and don’t settle. You know you don’t have to take the first shot possible, play one side to another side. And our big guys are doing a great job ducking in and giving us a land to lay in. So probably don’t settle.”
Kharchenkov on the nerves and comfort level he’s feeling as the stakes continue to get raised:
“I think being nervous is the wrong word. It’s more being excited to play. And you really should not be nervous because as long as you’re doing whatever you did the whole season long and it worked, you should keep doing it, especially playing with full effort and full energy.”
Koa Peat:
Peat on choosing to play basketball with his family’s history of playing football:
“I played a lot of sports growing up, baseball, football and basketball. So from a young age I was playing a lot of sports, around a lot of athletes in my family.
But honestly, I just truthfully fell in love with basketball. Especially during quarantine, all I was doing was training and just working out and really working on my body. And I slimmed down a little bit, and I just thought basketball was like the best choice for me. Especially now you could play a long time playing basketball. Football’s a different story. I had great support from my family members in my choice in playing basketball, and I think I’ve made the right choice, for sure.”
Peat on the opportunity to end Arizona’s Final Four drought as a State 48 native:
“Honestly, truthfully, I didn’t really watch a lot of basketball, college basketball growing up. I was more into like watching my brothers in football and my sisters playing college basketball. But I think from the history now, you had to do some studying when you’re making your choice on what college you’re picking.
So I saw a lot of the past legends that played for Arizona, and Mike Bibby, he was a big mentor to me. He went to the Final Four, won the championship. When you put on the Arizona jersey, you know you’re playing for people that played before you. So it’s bigger than yourself; it’s the program.”
Peat on Tommy Lloyd meeting players where they are and how its impacted his development:
“It’s been huge. Coach Lloyd’s a great coach. He won’t say it, but I think he’s one of the best coaches in the country. He’s really big just trusting us on the court, letting it be a player-led type of team and letting us make reads. And the development over the summer was great. Especially for me, you know, playing with him on Team USA and then now Arizona basketball, it’s been great for me. I’m just blessed to have such a great coach in Tommy Lloyd.”
Peat on the nerves and comfort level he’s feeling as the stakes continue to get raised:
“I think the Big 12 Tournament definitely helped us get ready for this tournament. Especially playing some of the best teams in the country and then just trying to take it one game at a time and just put our full focus on Purdue now, and just take it one game at a time.”
Peat on what he learned about himself when missed time due to injury:
“What did I learn about myself? I mean, I think I learned more about my team more than myself, just seeing my team go out there and be great without me. They stepped up. A lot of guys stepped up. Ivan, Delly, Mo, Tobe, everybody stepped up, and they played big for us. We had some good wins when I was out. And to have me back now it’s been special, playing with these guys. They welcomed me back with open arms, and we’ve been hooping since I’ve been back. So it’s been fun.”
Motiejus Krivas:
Krivas on what he remembers facing Purdue in 2023:
“We played in Indiana and we were number one, and they kind of came after us. I remember that they’re a well-coached team. They still have the guys from that year. So they have a lot of options on offense and defense, so really excited to play in it.”
Krivas on Tommy Lloyd’s history of developing international big men:
“I mean, he was coaching Azuolas Tubelis, Domantas Sabonis, great players from Lithuania. When you see they have full trust in Coach, it makes the decision way more easy.”