Greg Hansen: Tommy Lloyd beats UCLA's Mick Cronin at his own game, passes big test

Mick Cronin was a lot like Tommy Lloyd as a first-year head coach. Well, except that he was 14 years younger and maybe 14 inches shorter than Arizona’s 6-foot 5-inch, 47-year-old Lloyd.

Cronin was the head coach at Murray State, which isn’t quite Arizona, but Cronin also came from blueblood stock. He learned under Rick Pitino at Louisville, the same way Lloyd learned the game under Gonzaga’s Mark Few.

Once Cronin arrived at Murray State, 2003, he put a new meaning to the school’s nickname, Racers. Murray State ran like a Stingray Corvette. The Racers opened 8-0, scoring 100, 100, 94, 94 and 92 points. When they did lose, it was to No. 11 Louisville and No. 18 Pitt. They finished 11th in NCAA scoring and won a school-record 28 games.

Cronin’s Racers weren’t truly stopped until they ran into what would a year later become Illinois’ 2005 Final Four team, limited to 53 points in an NCAA Tournament loss, at which time Cronin came to understand that a coach has got to know when to hold ’em and know when to fold ’em.

Now Cronin is known as one of the nation’s craftiest defensive coaches, a man who has regularly shut down high-gear offenses the way he neutered Arizona at Pauley Pavilion a week ago.

Thursday night at McKale Center, Lloyd folded the UA’s offense, which ranks No. 3 in the nation in pace-per-possession, and won with defense, patience and with his two offensive specialists, Benn Mathurin and Azuolas Tubelis, on the bench at crunch time.

“If Mach speed is not the right plan to win the game, well then, we’ll slow it down,” said Lloyd.

Even the hard-driven Cronin was impressed, declaring that Arizona’s gameplan was entirely different than it was a week earlier at Pauley Pavilion.

“Their offense was better than our defense for a long time,” Cronin said quietly outside the UCLA locker room. “You almost have to have a perfect game to come back from 17 down.” Arizona led 42-25 and then got serious about working the clock in Lloyd’s most impressive piece of head coaching yet.

020522-tuc-spt-hansencol-p3 — Arizona Wildcats guard Pelle Larsson makes the pass as UCLA's Myles Johnson and Jaime Jaquez Jr. defend during Thursday's second half. Larsson and big man Oumar Ballo combined to play 50 minutes.
Mamta Popat, Arizona Daily Star

In effect, Arizona beat UCLA using UCLA’s approach.

Nine days earlier, Arizona relied on pace and distance shooting. It lost 75-59. It did a lot of running and shooting but got almost nothing for its one-dimensional offense.

But on Thursday, Lloyd changed. The best coaches change. Lute Olson went from the height-dominant “Tucson Skyline” of the early 1990s to a Thunder and Lightning offense of Damon Stoudamire and Khalid Reeves; for 25 years, Olson changed depending on the circumstances.

If Lloyd has passed one test in his first season as a head coach, it’s that he’s not too stubborn to change and, moreso, that he and his coaching staff are skilled enough to teach a team a new way of winning in the middle of a time-crunched schedule. Thursday’s victory came against a far more experienced UCLA team, one that was ranked No. 3 nationally.

“You have to be able to win games multiple ways,” said Lloyd. “I don’t care if we’re running. It’s not an aesthetic for me. It’s about a result.”

020522-tuc-spt-hansencol-p1 — Arizona guard Bennedict Mathurin eyes the basket as he's defended by UCLA Bruins center Myles Johnson during Thursday's first half.
Mamta Popat, Arizona Daily Star

Part of Lloyd’s preparation was to study what his former school, Gonzaga, did to beat UCLA 83-63 in November. The Zags pounded the ball inside, making 19 of 27 baskets inside the 3-point line, which is a remarkable 70%. Nobody, not even UCLA’s veteran Final Four roster, is going to overcome that.

And so on Thursday the Wildcats opened with Tubelis attacking the basket, scoring eight of Arizona’s first 13 points. That had to catch UCLA a bit by surprise; Tubelis was supposed to be limited by a lingering ankle injury. Forget about him, right?

Instead, Tubelis landed the first punch, which empowered both the McKale Center crowd and his teammates.

Cronin had to hope the Wildcats would try to beat them with 3-pointers and the same pace that failed so fully a week earlier. What coach wouldn’t think in those terms, and especially against a first-year coach?

There had not been a real book on Lloyd’s coaching acumen other than the Mach speed stuff. Now there is a Chapter II.

The winning element from Chapter II was that Lloyd took Tubelis out of the game with 10:01 remaining and didn’t put him back in. Arizona led 61-51. Lloyd decided to use seven-footers Oumar Ballo and Christian Koloko for rim protection and interior defense rather than hope Tubelis could score a few more buckets.

Unconventional but effective.

Arizona got a lot of mileage nationally for beating the nation’s No. 3 team, but that’s a temporary buzz. It looks good on paper and sounds good when an ESPN studio host is narrating the highlights, but Arizona has beaten 10 or 12 better UCLA teams over the years, teams with Ed O’Bannon and and Don MacLean and Baron Davis and Zach Lavine.

What mattered Thursday is that Arizona showed it is resourceful enough to win with Pelle Larsson and Ballo combining to play 50 minutes, teaming for 16 rebounds, beating UCLA and its cunning coach at his own game.