The truth, the whole truth, half-truths, shades of the truth and other items admissible as UA basketball news:
ITEM I: Until now, the most daunting nonconference schedules at Arizona were shouldered by, among others, Dick Tomey, who in his first football season, 1987, agreed to a wicked set of arrangements to play what turned out to be No. 1 Miami, No. 2 Miami, No. 2 Ohio State, No. 4 Oklahoma, No. 6 Oklahoma and No. 11 Illinois in his first five Arizona seasons. (The Pac-12 was also loaded then with co-national champion Washington and Top 10 powers USC and UCLA.
If the iron sharpens iron theory works, Arizona benefited. It went 2-4 in those games, but five of them were down-to-the-wire finishes. Voila, Desert Swarm was born. The Wildcats were tough enough to play anybody.
Now comes basketball’s Tommy Lloyd, whose nonconference schedule next season includes defending national champ Florida, plus elite powers UConn, Alabama, UCLA and Auburn. Isn’t that biting off too much?
Arizona head coach Tommy Lloyd looks toward the court during the game against UCLA at Footprint Center in Phoenix, Dec. 14, 2024.
What can’t be ignored is that there is also a possibility of eight games against Top 10 teams in the Big 12; ESPN’s latest preseason Top 25 includes No. 2 Houston, No. 4 Texas Tech, No. 7 BYU and No. 13 Iowa State. That could give Arizona a regular season with 13 Top 25 opponents.
Wow.
The only nonconference schedule in UA basketball history that approaches Lloyd’s 2025-26 maneater is Lute Olson’s 2001-02 team that played 14 games against Top 25 teams: No. 2 Maryland, No. 5 Florida, No. 5 Illinois, No. 8 Kansas, No. 23 Michigan State, No. 23 Texas and No. 25 UConn, followed by seven Pac-10 games against Top 25 teams Stanford, UCLA, Cal and USC.
That Arizona team, with juniors Luke Walton, Jason Gardner and freshmen Channing Frye and Salim Stoudamire, reached the Sweet 16, a “tweener season,” with a 24-10 record.
ITEM II: Arizona’s 1997 national championship point guard Mike Bibby went against the book when he hired a coaching staff last month for his new job at Sacramento State.
Bibby hired his buddies from Phoenix — “Team Bibby” — rather than scour the country for veteran college basketball coaches. It’s risky, but Bibby knows what he’s getting.
Bibby hired his son, Michael Bibby, as assistant head coach. Michael spent the last two seasons as an assistant coach at Desert Mountain High School.
Bibby’s other three assistants are Ray Walcott, who most recently was the trainer at Dime Academy in Phoenix and has been with Bibby in some capacity since 2009; Jason Fraser, the dean of students at Sun Valley Academy in Phoenix and before that head coach at Phoenix’s Skyline Prep; and Greg Moody II, who was Bibby’s assistant coach at Shadow Mountain High School for five years.
Of course, Bibby made his biggest acquisition when Shaquille O’Neal agreed to become Sacramento State’s volunteer “general manager,” which will bring unprecedented attention to the school.
ITEM III: Arizona’s acquisition of 6-11 Senegal prospect Sidi Gueye last week comes with this disclaimer: It could take a while for Gueye to be ready to play regular minutes at Arizona. In his last 14 games for Real Madrid this season, Gueye shot 46% from the foul line (15 of 32), did not make a 3-pointer, averaged 4.9 points and 2.8 rebounds per game.
But Lloyd’s history as a developer of big men like Christian Koloko and Oumar Ballo (and most recently Henri Veesaar) suggests that Gueye shouldn’t be pushed aside. Ballo scored 60 points as a freshman in 2021 and then scored 1,610 the next three seasons. Koloko went from a 2.3 average under Sean Miller to a 12.6 average under Lloyd two years later.
ITEM LAST: This is today’s new “normal” in college basketball’s player acquisition business: New Arizona women’s coach Becky Burke has signed 6-3 freshman Ogheneruona Miracle, who had originally signed with Auburn — then known as Miracle Akpotayobo.
A center from Nigeria, Miracle spent the last four years playing at four schools: Life Prep Academy in Wichita, Kansas; Christian Pointe Academy near Orlando, Florida; DeSoto High School in DeSoto, Texas; and White High School, in Dallas.
What are the odds she plays four years at Arizona?
