About 90 minutes before tipoff of Thursday night’s game against Washington State in Pullman, UA coach Tommy Lloyd wandered out the service entrance of Beasley Coliseum, where he was expected to greet a number of friends and family from his 22 years in Spokane.
Arizona’s first-year coach had plenty of chances to catch up.
The Wildcats spent Wednesday night in Spokane, as they customarily do before facing WSU, allowing Lloyd to meet in person with some of his former fellow staffers at Gonzaga.
Arizona players even held their pregame shootaround Thursday at Gonzaga’s practice facility, then made the 90-minute bus ride to arrive at Beasley Coliseum about about two hours before tipoff.
Lloyd’s wife, Chanelle, and daughter Maria also made things feel like home for Lloyd, making the trip with the Wildcats.
Barry Tompkins
Barry’s back — and Dan, too
While Ch. 11 carried Arizona’s game against USC last Saturday with its broadcasters working remotely, the veteran Bay Area team of Barry Thompkins and Dan Belluomini made the trip to Pullman to work the game in person for Fox Sports 1.
Thompkins, 81, is a member of the International Boxing Hall of Fame for his boxing commentary and he’s been associated with the Pac-12 basketball for nearly four decades.
Belluomini both played and coached at San Francisco.
Best wishes to Baynes
The Cougars honored injured former WSU standout Aron Baynes in several ways before Thursday’s game: He was saluted over the public-address system before the game, while white “BAYNES 11” signs were put into several hundred seats for fans to wave. The Cougars wore white No. 11 warmup T-shirts that all said “BAYNES” on the back.
It’s been a harrowing recovery for Baynes, who suffered a neck injury last summer at the Tokyo Olympics while competing for his native Australia. He remained in a hospital for the rest of the Olympics and was taken by a stretcher off the plane upon his return to Australia. He hasn’t played since.
Baynes scored 1,064 points and collected 653 rebounds over a four-year career at WSU between 2005-09 and 2008-09, and then played overseas before beginning a nine-year stint in the NBA in 2012-13. He played for the Suns during the 2019-20 season, starting 28 of 42 games.
Cougs wanted more size
Although Washington State starts 6-foot-11 inch freshman Mouhamed Gueye and 6-10 Efe Abogidi, coach Kyle Smith was lamenting that he still wouldn’t also have 6-10, 250-pound sophomore Dishon Jackson to match up with Arizona.
“He’d be really helpful on Thursday, I know that,” Smith said.
But Jackson, a former UA recruiting target out of Oakland, wasn’t available after suffering an eye injury on Jan. 8 at Utah.
And, yeah, he might have helped the Cougs. In the first half alone, Azuolas Tubelis had eight points and four rebounds while Christian Koloko had five rebounds and Oumar Ballo had four points.
Aiken’s wild ride went through Pullman
Thursday’s game also might have been a homecoming of sorts for UA forward Kim Aiken, whose oddly winding path since leaving Eastern Washington last spring included a stopover at Washington State.
Aiken committed to the Wildcats in April a day before Sean Miller was fired, then decommited and enrolled at WSU instead. He worked out with the Cougars until he was notified in late July that he wasn’t accepted into its graduate program for political science.
New coach Tommy Lloyd invited Aiken to try Arizona again. Aiken enrolled instead as a graduate student at Arizona … but only played in seven games before disappearing for what UA has only called a personal reason.
Smith left no doubt earlier this week that he wished it had worked out for Aiken at WSU.
“I really thought he was going to be an integral part of our deal,” Smith said. “Just with his maturity and ability to defend inside. It just puts more pressure on a guy like Mouhamed Gueye to come into form and that’s hurt our depth.”
Rescheduling madness
Arizona is hardly the only Pac-12 team with pandemic-induced makeup games cluttering its schedule lately.
The Wildcats already had to take a three-game road trip that culminated in a 16-point loss at UCLA on Jan. 25, then learned earlier this week they would have to squeeze in a March 1 game at USC in between their Utah-Colorado road trip and a final pair of home games against Stanford and Cal. That will give UA five games over the final 10 days of the regular season.
Washington State, meanwhile, kicked off a gauntlet of its own on Thursday.
After hosting Arizona and ASU this weekend, the Cougars will play at Oregon next Monday, return home to Pullman, then leave next Wednesday to play at UCLA on Feb. 17 and USC on Feb. 20 in Los Angeles.
“It’s just weird,” Smith said before Thursday’s game. “But Colorado went through it, some other teams went through it at different times. UCLA caught Arizona on a good little stretch there. Everyone has had to deal with it.
“Hopefully, we’ll be tough and conditioned enough to play through it.”
The big number
0: Of 12 3-point attempts made by Washington State in the first half Thursday.
— Bruce Pascoe
