Even for a self-described day-to-day, game-to-game guy like Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd, there’s a big picture going on now that can’t be ignored.
– Iowa State, after jumping right behind the No. 1 Wildcats atop the Associated Press Top 25 poll in part because it waxed then-unbeaten Purdue last month, kicked away not one but two games last weekend.
– Michigan, having blown out nearly everyone, including then-unbeaten Gonzaga, slipped in a home loss to Wisconsin.
– The otherwise-perfect résumés of Houston (to Tennessee), Duke (to Texas Tech) and UConn (to Arizona) include one loss each, albeit respectable ones.
All that leaves only three teams undefeated entering this weekend: Arizona (19-0), Nebraska (19-0) and Miami of Ohio (20-0).
Even for a sport in which real pressure exists almost exclusively in March and April, that’s a tricky pedestal to be sitting on.
So when asked if being undefeated this late into a season created any added pressure after Arizona beat Cincinnati 77-51 on Wednesday, Lloyd said it was a great question.
“I think it's really important to just keep it in perspective,” he said. “I mean, we've literally taken these games one by one, and we've been able to come out on the right side of them. Obviously, we have a really good team, but we're building for something bigger.
"My message to the guys this week has been that two things can be true: You can be doing great, but you still have to get better.”
Arizona head coach Tommy Lloyd, left, and associate head coach Jack Murphy try to get the Wildcats over to the bench for a talk during a stoppage in the game against Cincinnati, Jan. 21, 2026, in Tucson.
Lloyd also said "the winning shouldn’t feel heavy,” but that he couldn’t speak to how his players feel about it.
For what it's worth, the two players that UA made available for comment after the Wildcats’ win over Cincinnati pretty much blew the undefeated talk aside.
“If I see it, I don’t really think about it,” wing Ivan Kharchenkov said. “We’re trying to win every game and it just happens we're 19-0. We want to keep it going.”
Guard Brayden Burries said it helped that the Wildcats have a “pretty tight circle” that helps them keep focused.
“I don't really look at it too much because I feel like we haven't really, really won anything,” Burries said. “It’s like, be happy because we're undefeated, but we haven't really accomplished what we want to accomplish yet. We’ve still got a lot to improve on.”
Arizona guard Brayden Burries (5) during the first half against Cincinnati, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026, in Tucson.
Their ride through the Big 12 so far has helped get that message across.
While the Wildcats have won all six conference games they have played so far on their backloaded schedule, they have still found plenty to work on. They were bullied and foul-plagued at TCU, struggled to put away ASU at home, needed Jaden Bradley to hit 9 of 10 free throws in the last 77 seconds to put away UCF and hit just 3 of 13 3-point shots against Cincinnati on Wednesday.
Now, the Wildcats face a mental and physical challenge: In hosting West Virginia and its slow-tempo, defensive style on Saturday at McKale Center, Arizona might have to figure out a way to survive the sort of defensive slog that marked the first half of its win over Cincinnati.
West Virginia (13-6, 4-2) runs the eighth-slowest adjusted tempo in Division I, according to Kenpom, and is holding opponents to an average of just 63.1 points per game (though 70.0 in Big 12 competition).
Under first-year coach Ross Hodge, a former assistant for now-Texas Tech coach Grant McCasland, the Mountaineers also keep opponents to the 10th-lowest two-point shooting percentage in Division I, just 45.0.
“He's just one of these guys that knows how to win basketball games,” Lloyd said. “His teams always have a real identity on the defensive end of the floor, and offensively, they're a team that usually gets a shooter or two that can knock down multiple 3s, and then they try to get you in a possession game.”
West Virginia head coach Ross Hodge watches from the bench during the first half against Iowa State, Jan. 2, 2026, in Ames, Iowa.
So that’s the physical challenge. But there’s also a mental challenge: Two days after hosting West Virginia, the Wildcats are scheduled to play at BYU in a widely anticipated Big Monday showdown.
That’s where it could help the Wildcats to stay focused on the day-to-day, and not overlook the Mountaineers, if they can.
Lloyd said his team would “absolutely not” change anything in its approach this weekend, even with the big game at BYU so quickly ahead, though he acknowledged that it’s tough playing in a conference that is so big that teams only face three others twice during the regular season.
“In the Pac 12, you would play most everybody twice, and a few teams you'd only play once,” Lloyd said. “But the teams you only played once, you'd played them seven or eight times in the previous years before, so you had a comfort in preparation.
"(The Big 12) just makes it a little tougher in that everything feels like it's a new a new prep. It's a little tougher to get a rhythm.”
It's possible all that means Arizona could stumble in one of its next two games, or maybe not.
But either way, it’s only January.
“The most important thing is that if you lose, you're able to respond. It's not the end of the world,” Lloyd said. “If you end up losing your last game of the year, it's always going to be devastating.
“But these other ones, you’ve just got to keep it moving. There's no time to put your head down. And a loss could be a great opportunity to learn. It could be a great attention getter. It could be a catalyst for your next growth spurt."
