Greg Hansen: Endearing, engaging Tommy Lloyd is the Star's top sports figure of 2022

Tommy Lloyd was enjoying lunch on the outdoor patio at a midtown restaurant last spring when a man walked by with his 4-year-old son. Lloyd noticed the boy was wearing an Arizona T-shirt.

Arizona’s men’s basketball coach stood, shook hands with the little boy’s father and was told the boy is named Lute.

Smiling broadly, Lloyd knelt and engaged Lute in conversation.

“I’ll see you in about 14 years,” he said. “I’ll save you a scholarship.”

Such is the demeanor of Arizona’s basketball coach. He is cool. He is endearing and genuine. What you see is what you get, and what you see is a man who leads the Pac-12 not just in victories but in engagement.

The former biology major from Walla Walla’s academically-challenging Whitman College is the Star’s choice as Tucson’s leading sports figure of 2022.

Lloyd is 48, the age at which Lute Olson became Arizona’s basketball coach in 1983. I asked Lloyd about that coincidence a few months ago and he said: “let’s not go there.”

He is unafraid to say he is trying to uphold Olson’s standards and doesn’t shy away from the basketball dominion he inherited. But compare him to Olson? Check back in 15 or 20 years.

“When you sit in my seat and you’re trying to drive a culture, there are standards,” he said after an uninspiring victory over Montana State last week. “We’ve got to meet those standards no matter who we’re playing.”

When Lloyd was hired in the spring of 2021, one of his most revealing moves was that he didn’t surround himself with a yes-man or two.

Instead, he phoned Steve Robinson, who had spent 28 years as Roy Williams’ assistant at Kansas and North Carolina, and another decade as a head coach at Florida State and Tulsa. Lloyd sought excellence, not compliance.

The two men, who barely knew one another, had nothing and everything in common.

“What impressed me — what impresses me — is Tommy’s competitive fire,” says Robinson, 64, who has been part of three national championship teams. “He has the ability to see not just the big picture, but the entire picture. He has the kind of personality that brings people together. A great planner. A great strategist. A great recruiter.

“I always say Tucson is lucky to have him, but Tommy would correct me. He would say he is lucky to have Tucson.”

Lloyd is humble, passionate and caring. Those are three words that don’t often intersect in the man-eats-man world of college basketball, where so many coaches stalk the sidelines stomping and shouting, devoured by the pressure.

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He has not gotten a technical foul through his first 50 Arizona games, not even close.

“Why would I want to get a technical foul when I can’t score a basket, so why should I be costing us points?” he said. “I probably have cost us enough points with the coaching decisions I’m making, so I don’t need to be like literally costing us points. The referees for the most part do a great job. They really do. I’m sure I will get a technical foul someday. It’s not at the top of my agenda.”

Lloyd’s approach is about winning, about developing players, not about creating a hey-look-at-me storm on game days.

I recently asked Arizona junior center Oumar Ballo if Lloyd has a hidden side that the public doesn’t see at practices or in the locker room.

“He treats me like a son,” said Ballo. “I’ve never seen him treat anyone unfairly. He tells me he loves me and I love him.”

In his first season at Arizona, Lloyd swept the national Coach of the Year awards, selected by the Associated Press, the NABC and the USWBA as the nation’s top coach.

Arizona went 33-4, won the Pac-12 regular season and postseason championships, and did so without a top-50 recruit on the roster. He is 12-1 this season with only one top-50 prospect — freshman guard Kylan Boswell — despite losing the Nos. 6, 18 and 33 overall picks in the NBA Draft.

That’s 45-5 in his first 50 games, which hasn’t been bettered by any college coach since 1914. But it’s not about the first 50, it’s about the next 100 or 200, or if things go well, the next 500.

Olson went 589-187 over 25 Arizona seasons. He passed not only the test of winning and losing, but the test of time.

Lloyd has plenty of time. Given his enthusiasm for the game, given that he is in Year 2 as a head coach, it wouldn’t be surprising if Lloyd coaches until he’s 65 or 70. He’s got the demeanor to age well.

It’s not like he’s eating himself up, tossing and turning after an unexpected 81-66 loss at Utah earlier this month. I asked Lloyd if he loses sleep after sloppy performances and he laughed.

“Nope. Sleep Number,” he said, describing the mattress he sleeps on. “You’ve gotta get it. Unbelievable. Yeah, I sleep pretty good. I might not sleep long, but I’ll sleep pretty good usually.”

Sweet dreams, Tommy. You’ve earned them.