Steve Kerr on Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd: 'We're really lucky to have this guy'

STANFORD, Calif. — Nearly 35 years after he left Arizona to begin collecting championship rings around the NBA as a player and coach, Steve Kerr still can’t ignore his Wildcat basketball roots even if he wanted to.

“We’re like a cult,” Kerr said at a UA Foundation event Friday night, noting that former Wildcat star Damon Stoudamire “calls our group ‘88.’ We’ll walk into an alumni event, and Damon will say `88 is here.’ And there’s ‘92.’ There’s all these groups. But we are really connected.”

While Kerr may be known for helping the Wildcats reach the 1988 Final Four, and Stoudamire for doing the same in 1994, the Wildcat cult actually took in an outsider sometime after April 2021.

That was when Tommy Lloyd, Whitman College class of 1998, became Arizona’s head coach.

Kerr told the group of Bay Area UA alums and supporters Friday that he and the Golden State Warriors staff, which includes another “88” member in Bruce Fraser, reached out to Lloyd. They also invited him to hang out after a Warriors game that UA players took in last season, when the Wildcats had two days between games against Stanford and Cal.

The coaches hit it off, apparently.

“The best compliment I can give to Tommy is that … after we got to know Tommy a little bit, (Fraser) said, `You know what? The thing about Tommy is he’s one of us. He’s one of us.’ And we aren’t an easy group to (mesh into),” Kerr said, drawing laughter.

“What I mean by that is that he’s just humble. He’s just a guy who wants to win and be part of it. Last year, his whole staff came into my office and they all came to a Warriors game. We sat there for two hours after our game and drank beers. I mean, this is what it’s about. …

“It’s this connection that we have to our school that just is never going to leave us. It’s in our blood. So when we can have that connection through a coach who feels like one of us, it makes it extra special. We’re really lucky to have this guy. He’s a great coach and a better person.”

Sitting next to Kerr at the event, before rushing off to hold a film session, Lloyd indicated he was grateful for the relationship. Lloyd and Kerr not only both have easygoing personalities that deploy self-deprecating humor but also run similarly free-flowing styles of offense.

On and off the court — and sometimes when those two areas fuse together — they found a common philosophy.

“Steve and I share a lot of similarities in how we approach the game,” said Lloyd, whose team faced off against Stanford on Saturday night. “One discussion was “kind of the art versus science of coaching — and I like the science part, the Xs and Os and stuff — but the beauty is in the art.

“Steve told me one time that ‘the angle of your backscreens doesn’t matter but how (players) feel about you does.’ It’s so true in coaching — how your players feel about you and how you feel about them is what makes coaching special.”

One other thing they have in common: Both were known for their shooting.

At least on different levels.

When emcee Reggie Geary asked Lloyd about being known as “Tommy Gun” as a player, Lloyd cracked that he was really only a “broke man’s Steve Kerr.”

Tough memories

While Kerr is known at Arizona as the on-court engineer behind then-coach Lute Olson’s early successes, including going to that 1988 Final Four, he said Friday he still can’t get away from the Wildcats’ loss in that Final Four semifinal.

Kerr shot 57.3% from 3-point line that season, the first that 3-pointers were a part of college basketball, but hit just 2 of 12 against Oklahoma in the national semifinals. UA lost, 86-78.

“That was a dream season. Nightmare Final Four,” Kerr said. “I’m still having nightmares about that last game, believe it or not. I still think about that game in 1988. It is insane. I mean, my wife tells me, `You know, maybe you should move on.’

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“We should have won it all. We didn’t. But that’s the nature of the tournament. Making it to the Final Four was incredible.”

UA player relations director Jason Gardner, sitting in on the chat as a standout from the Wildcats’ 2001 Final Four team, shared his own tough tournament memory. In the NCAA championship game that season, Gardner famously did not draw a first-half foul on Duke’s Jason Williams despite the fact that Williams basically rode on his back.

Williams had two fouls at the time, so a third would have likely sent him to the bench and limited minutes thereafter. But Williams was able to finish the game with four, scoring 16 points in Duke’s 82-72 win.

“It was a foul. The ref told me I should have stood up to get the foul,” Gardner said. “Every day I think about that foul.”

And just in case Gardner ever doesn’t, others will keep it in his head.

During NCAA Tournaments “my Twitter feed is blowing up from just the foul and a picture” of Williams on his back, Gardner said. “So it kind of never goes away. But that was a great memory to be there. It’s hard to get there.”

It was a story that is now effectively pinned to the “01” faction of the Wildcat cult.

“We’re still in the group chat,” Gardner said. “Richard Jefferson and Gilbert Arenas, even today, they’re on their podcast going back and forth about the game still.”

Home away from home

By now, Cedric Henderson has gotten used to loud, five-figure crowds at McKale Center enveloping him.

But the grad transfer from Campbell experienced something else all together this weekend — that the Wildcats also have pretty strong support at both Cal and Stanford, despite the fact that both schools are roughly 700 miles from Tucson.

On Thursday at Cal, at least a third of the fans in attendance appeared to be cheering for the Wildcats.

“It’s actually amazing,” Henderson said. “You’re on the road, you’re at a place that’s not near home. And you have just as many fans as the home team does? It’s just like, `Wow.’ It’s just a different atmosphere.”

Kriisa had strep

Maybe it helped rest of the Arizona Wildcats in avoiding significant sickness this week that guard Kerr Kriisa isolated and began taking antibiotics Monday for strep throat.

Kriisa missed the Wildcats’ practices on Monday and Tuesday, then practiced in limited form Wednesday before playing 28 minutes on Thursday at Cal.

“He stepped away for a few days trying to recover and get his weight and strength back,” UA athletic trainer Justin Kokoskie said before the Stanford game.

Kriisa had eight assists against Cal but was 0 for 7 from the field.

“He didn’t have his normal energy,” Kokoskie said.