This Oregon trip, Tommy Lloyd banking on tough love as elixir to Arizona's efficiency woes

When asked in the preseason to name the Tommy Lloyd phrase that sticks in their heads the most, one of the more popular answers Arizona players told the Star was “I love you, but...”

Midway through the season, the “but” part has arrived.

Arizona is at a potential inflection point this week, coming off three sputtering offensive performances in a row and heading into what is traditionally a difficult road trip at Oregon State and Oregon – and with USC and UCLA scheduled to visit McKale Center next week.

Can the UA go back to being the nation’s most efficient offensive team, as it was through its first 14 games? Or are the Wildcats trending closer to the under-40% shooting and 66.7 scoring average they posted over their past three games?

No doubt Lloyd prefers the former. So he called his veterans aside on Monday for a little chat.

“We just talked about standards,” guard Pelle Larsson said. “The ones we set for ourselves and how we can change a couple of things.”

While the doors to that conversation were closed, all evidence suggests clipboards weren’t snapped, things weren’t thrown, and screams weren’t heard. Certainly that’s not the sort of thing you usually see with Lloyd, the Wildcats’ affable second-year coach.

But if Lloyd told them he loved them, he also told them some other things that probably weren’t easy to hear.

It was tough love.

“I coach them hard. I know you guys aren’t around for a lot of that,” Lloyd said Wednesday, during a brief media interview after the Wildcats practiced. “But I also do love them, and both can be true.

“What is that old line from that soccer coach TV show (Ted Lasso), you know, `I can’t be your mentor if I’m not your tormentor.’ You definitely have some of that going on for sure.”

If so, then what does Tommy the Tormentor look like?

After the Wildcats lost 74-61 to Washington State on Sunday, UA guard Kerr Kriisa said Lloyd’s address “stays in the locker room” but also said that Lloyd “loves us no matter what.”

Hmm. So what was it really like?

Larsson, the player UA picked to be interviewed Wednesday, added some insight.

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“Everyone’s human. Everyone’s gonna get mad and raise their voice,” Larsson said. “But it’s never been something personal. I think we all know that. So it’s nothing you’d take to heart. It’s just basketball. He’s just coaching us. So we don’t really take offense to that stuff.”

Besides, Larsson said, the Wildcats have high standards, too. They’re still ranked No. 9 in the Associated Press Top 25 and still 14-2 but those two losses have already put them two games behind UCLA in the Pac-12 standings.

“We probably get mad at ourselves before he gets mad at us or he shows that he’s angry,” Larsson said. “But it’s just that trust that we have to step it up, and he doesn’t have to yell at us at every timeout to get us going. We kind of handle that ourselves sometimes.”

Whatever the delivery, it was clear that Lloyd is looking for the Wildcats to restore an offense that dropped from No. 1 in offensive efficiency to No. 5 after a 70-67 win over Washington and their loss to WSU last week.

But even though shooting guard Courtney Ramey hit just 2 of 13 shots between the Wildcats’ two games last weekend, and point guard Kerr Kriisa was a combined 5-for-19 from 3-point range, Lloyd said he didn’t plan to shake things up in his rotation or starting lineup.

“Nothing crazy,” he said.

Still, Lloyd indicated those kinds of numbers from the guards won’t cut it, either.

“They got to play better. They got to pass better. They got to read the game better,” Lloyd said. “They got to grow up a little bit.

“I know traditionally we’ve done a good job, trying to teach them how to play and maybe that slipped a little bit. Maybe that’s on the staff and myself. We’ve got to tighten it up with them and then they’ve got to know what the expectations and the standards are. We’ve got to help them get there.”

Lloyd said Ramey needs to play with “more force, more confidence” and, when asked if he thought the Wildcats’ low shooting percentages stemmed from a lack of aggressiveness or a lack of movement — or something else — Lloyd said it was probably all of the above.

“There’s probably 100 right answers,” he said. “At the end of the day, we’ve got to be aggressive. We’ve got to be in attack mode. You’ve got to play with confidence and that’s what we’re trying to re establish.”

Rim shot

After center Oumar Ballo struggled last week after being hospitalized with an undisclosed illness, Lloyd said Ballo has practiced regularly all week. “Oumar’s a player that we’re counting on and he’s delivered for us over and over again,” Lloyd said.