U of A's Lloyd says anti-LDS chant was 'overriding disappointment' after BYU loss

During his weekly media conference Tuesday, Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd rattled off a list of concerns but the Wildcats’ response after their loss to BYU on Saturday was not really one of them.

Instead, Lloyd answered a follow-up question about how his team appeared to be reacting to its 96-95 loss to BYU by going straight to a story that has received considerable national attention: A postgame chant from the Arizona student section that featured the phrase “F— the Mormons” between rhythmic claps.

“My biggest disappointment was the way our fans and students reacted to some of their players coming off the court,” Lloyd said. “There’s no place in in society — let’s just start with that overall — but especially in collegiate athletics, where anyone’s religion or race should become a focal point. Ever. Ever.

“I know (with) BYU, probably it’s not the first time it’s happened to them, and it’s disappointing that it continues to happen. Hopefully with us being full-time members in a conference with them, our fans will learn that it’s just not acceptable. To me, that was the overriding disappointment, more than just the result of the game.”

Arizona AD Desireé Reed-Francois issued an apology via a statement to X about 90 minutes after Saturday’s game, and Arizona officials Tuesday confirmed she has been in discussions with Arizona “Zona Zoo” leaders over the issue.

The Zona Zoo also posted a statement to X on Monday that said it has “taken steps” internally to prevent such an incident in the future.

“As a university organization, we are committed to the university’s core values, including integrity, compassion, inclusion, and adaptation,” the Zona Zoo statement read. “We recognize and acknowledge that members of our Wildcat family, including some our student-athletes, are members of the LDS faith. Fostering a positive environment where all students feel accepted and welcome is a top goal of the university and the ZonaZoo leadership.”

While saying he’s mostly “sticking to the basketball side of things,” Lloyd said he did have conversations with Reed-Francois about the incident.

“Desiree is handling that… so I think it’s been dealt with in a number of ways,” Lloyd said. “That still doesn’t erase that it happened. So let’s learn from it and move forward. Every person on this face of this Earth deserves respect. And obviously that was not a sign of respect.”

During his news conference Tuesday, Lloyd also expressed:

– Concerns about Saturday’s postgame handshake line, in which UA’s Caleb Love and BYU’s Mawot Mag appeared to get heated at each other, with two UA walk-on players guiding Love back out of the conflict. Lloyd said he was aware of the incident but that he still liked having handshake lines in general.

“Could you avoid those things by just eliminating something? Does that make us a better society?” Lloyd said. “Why can’t you go shake hands with someone who .. either they kick your ass, you kick their ass, they’re on the fortunate side, you’re on the unfortunate side. How hard is that to do?

“You want to avoid these one off situations, but I also think it’s a great opportunity to show class, to show compassion, to show respect. So I’m always going to err on that side.”

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– Concerns about the timing of Utah’s decision to fire coach Craig Smith on Monday, two days before the Utes were scheduled to arrive at McKale Center.

“It’s tough. I feel for them, and I feel for the players,” Lloyd said. “I feel for the coach, I feel for his family. You know, I’m not an administrator. I don’t know why it makes sense to make a move in-season. What is that saying to the kids? What is that saying to the coaching staff? But again, people make decisions for whatever reason, and I don’t need to be wasting my energy speculating on why or whatever they’re doing.”

If the decision was at all timed so the Utes might rally Wednesday at Arizona — a win Utah would desperately need to get near the NCAA Tournament conversation — Lloyd said that didn’t make sense to him.

“You can rationalize that however you want,” Lloyd said. “Craig Smith’s a good man. I know that. And he’s a good coach. Maybe it hasn’t gone exactly how they all had hoped. But I don’t know the ins and outs. I’m not gonna guess to know the ins and outs.”

Although Utah elevated assistant Josh Eilert to interim head coach, the same role he held last season at West Virginia after coach Bob Huggins’ messy departure, Lloyd said that wouldn’t drastically change the way the Wildcats prepared for the Utes.

“I don’t think they’ve had a lot of time to react,” Lloyd said. “I don’t know. Maybe they’ve put in an entire new offense and an entire new defense in 24 hours, and if they did, good for them. But it’s just business as usual for us.”

– The end of his concerns about a defensive call against forward Trey Townsend with three seconds left Saturday that led to two game-winning free throws by BYU’s Richie Saunders.

Lloyd said he spoke with “people that are affiliated with our league” but declined to say exactly who those people were.

“I’m not going to share my discussion with the officials because I do have a lot of respect for the officials, and they are trying hard,” Lloyd said. “I’m going to stand by what I said: In a physical game and a physical conference, over the course of my entire life, watching a lot of basketball games, you just don’t see a lot of games end like that.

“I thought Trey played really good defense. I thought the guy stopped. I thought the guy turned his back. I thought the guy started pivoting and had no outlets to pass the ball to and in a desperate moment, kind of threw up a little scoop shot and there was obviously some contact on the lower body, and the ref made a decision.

“So I’m living with it, and I’m moving on. Do I like it? No. But I also learned you don’t always get what you like in life. So as a competitor, I’ve just got to move on. I talked to who I needed to talk to, and they talked to me. Conversation was had. And I think we’re good.”