TUCSON – Arizona Basketball lost consecutive games under Tommy Lloyd for the first time on Friday, falling 69-55 against Duke. The Wildcats scored their fewest points since their 2023 NCAA Tournament First Round loss to Princeton, and now sit at 2-2 on the season. Before Arizona heads to the Bahamas for the Battle 4 Atlantis Tournament next week, see what Tommy Lloyd, Jaden Bradley, and KJ Lewis had to say postgame following the loss to Duke.
Tommy Lloyd
On his immediate reactions and takeaways postgame following the Arizona loss to Duke:
“We obviously coming off another loss, we had a week where there’s a sense of urgency and we felt like we were addressing things. Just to come out, and we didn’t play great, so now we need to take a step back and figure out why. Are there some schematic problems? Are there some problems with how our personnel is kind of put together? And those are the things we’re going to take a look at. I love the guys, I like the plan, but obviously when it’s not going as well as you would like, you’ve got to be honest with yourself and try to figure it out. We’ve got to figure out what our certainties are, the things we have to have, and then over the course of the next couple days, if there’s adjustments we need to make, we need to figure out what those are.”
On Arizona’s offense slowing down in the second half:
“They did a good job pressuring our bigs and making our wing touches a little bit harder. We’ve always been a program that’s been pretty good in transition, and we’ve got to get in transition a little bit more, and then when we get opportunities, we’ve got to cash in on them. That’s something we’ve been working on, but you get into these games and maybe some of the decisions by the players haven’t been where I would hope they would be – playing on two feet, using a fake, instead of going for all for nothing plays all the time. That stuff we’ll continue to look at and see if we can get better.”
On Caleb Love’s tepidness to shoot or be aggressive offensively:
“Obviously, we all know Caleb, [he] has a well documented story and he’s my guy. He’s not playing great right now, I’ve just got to be 100 percent honest. But it’s my job to hang with him because this isn’t the NBA, there aren’t trades, you’re not releasing guys. I know this, Caleb’s had so much success in college basketball, if we hang with him, it’s the right thing to do and we’ll be rewarded for that. So, I’m going to hang with him and trust that better days are coming.”
On continuing to schedule home-and-home series with Duke:
“For sure, I would love it. I think Jay Bilas had the best quote of all. I was talking to him today, obviously he’s a great guy, and we know he’s a ‘Dookie’, but he’s also a great guy, and he told me that he wishes college basketball had a little bit more of the NBA feel to it where you play these big games and you win them or you lose them, and you get on to the next one, and college basketball’s not like that. When you’re at a program like Duke or Arizona and you lose a game, panic ensues. For me, I love playing in this. I don’t know how well I’ll sleep tonight, maybe good, maybe bad, I don’t know. But, I love the opportunity of playing Duke at home and I wish we had more opportunities to do this stuff and we weren’t so fearful of losing, because if you’re fearful of losing, you’re never going to take the opportunity for a great environment like we had tonight.”
On balancing patience with seeing results four games into the season:
“There’s not patience, there’s a massive sense of urgency. Let’s call it what it is. You ain’t going to see me out on the town tonight. I got work to do, so let’s get to work. Let’s see where we’re at in a month, and if we’re still struggling, you know what I’ll do, I still got work to do, but I’m going to get to it.”
On KJ Lewis’ postgame comments (below) regarding the Arizona standard and the newcomers on the team following the loss to Duke:
“Listen, everyone has a standard and I’m not going to single out newcomers or returners. We all got to get better. I mean there’s no one – I told our guys that today. Not one person in our locker room is pointing a finger at someone else. Everyone’s looking internally first, and then secondly, looking at the group. That’s it. I don’t think that at all.”
Jaden Bradley
On if Arizona can use the loss to Duke as a motivator, or if it will put it in the rearview mirror postgame:
“We’ve got to use this to help us bond as a team. We’re only four games in. It’s a long season, so we can’t let this discourage us. You’ve just got to come together tighter in these moments and really rely on our brothers. Just playing hard and doing what coach says. We had a great game plan, we just on our end, we didn’t execute, we let them score easy buckets. So, we’re just going to continue to grow as a group.”
On Duke’s half-court defense preventing Arizona from playing with the flow it wanted:
“They threw some different things at us. You know, they’re pretty athletic, one through four, and five man is pretty, you know, shot blocker down there. So, we just got to do a good job recognizing the coverage and executing.”
On the stability of Arizona’s rotations four games into the season versus last year:
“It’s going to be different. Different team, different players, but I love this group that we’ve got. I feel like we’re going through a little rough patch right now, but we’ve got everything it takes – the right support, the right members on our staff, the right players to figure this thing out and turn it around.”
KJ Lewis
On Duke’s half-court defense preventing Arizona from playing with the flow it wanted:
“With the five ball scheme, they were – hedge, hard hedge, make us get the ball out our hands quick. One through four they would switch, and then anytime we got a switch and enter to the post, they would trap. I think we just got to do a better job moving without the ball, being stronger with the ball, and just different ways to be effective in the offense.”
On balancing patience and new players’ development with immediate results on the court:
“The guys that have been here last year just trying to get all the new guys on the same page and get them to the standard of Arizona Basketball. Again, it’s a new atmosphere, new system for them, so from the coach, down to the vets, we just got to be better as a group to help them fit right in to what we want to do.”
On if Caleb Love has been frustrated with his performance in the losses at Wisconsin and against Duke:
“No, Caleb’s All-American for a reason. He has ultra confidence and we have ultra confidence in him. Again, it’s only the fourth game of the year. We knew any team we’re going to play is going to throw different things at him, and it’s our job to help him get open looks and find a rhythm. So far we haven’t been doing that for him, so I really, I feel like we, me and JB, we take kind of most of the blame for his frustration because we’ve got to do a better job of getting him open off the ball.”