PULLMAN, Wash. β Because UA coach Tommy Lloyd spent 22 years up the road from Washington State at Gonzaga, the Zagsβ influence on his coaching style has been an obvious point of discussion.
But another major influence sat in the first row of seats behind the Wildcatsβ bench at Beasley Coliseum, surrounded by a few friends who wore the yellow-and-black of β¦ the Walla Walla Community College Warriors.
βTommyβs probably never told you this, but we had a 7-footer (Ryan Chilton) when he played for us,β said Jeff Reinland, the longtime Walla Walla CC coach who had Lloyd there and at Kelso (Washington) High School. βWe did a lot of high-low with him and Tommy, a lot of two-man stuff. Tommy was on the outside, but he could post too.β
Now Lloyd runs his own high-low offense with Azuolas Tubelis and Oumar Ballo, while also deploying screens with the same sort of heavy frequency that Reinland uses.
βLots of similarities,β Reinland said before Thursdayβs game. βLots of big-on-little screens, so your five man is the screener for your point guard. That puts a lot of pressure on the defense. They canβt really switch it, and if they do youβve got a mismatch. Lots of things like that.β
Reinland said he wasnβt surprised to see Lloyd take his system to the heights he has already, receiving multiple national coach-of-the-year honors last season and guiding the Wildcats to the No. 6 ranking so far this season.
Maybe thatβs because thereβs one other similarity between Lloyd and Reinland: Their personalities.
βTommy was always a good player, and we made him a lot better,β Reinland said. βBut the thing about Tommy that you see with his coaching β and it kind of scares me, because it reminds me of myself β is heβs just an intense competitor. Youβve got to have that along with being good.β
FS1 shift
Sometimes going with remote broadcasters this season, Fox decided less than a week before Thursdayβs game to send Seattle-based veteran play-by-play announcer Rich Waltz to work Thursdayβs game in person with Tucson-based former Wildcat player Matt Muehlebach.
If that was good news for viewers, it was also for the announcers themselves. Waltz said he and Muehlebach worked a game together about six years ago but not since then.
βWhen we saw our names on the list, we texted each otherβ right away, Waltz said.
While Muehlebach arrived from Tucson, where he is also an attorney, Waltz hustled up to Pullman after working San Diego Stateβs 85-75 win over Utah State for CBS Sports Network on Wednesday in San Diego.
Packer passes
The CBS analyst for the Wildcatsβ 1997 national-championship victory, Billy Packer, died at age 82 according to a tweet from his son, Mark.
A former standout player for Wake Forest in the early 1960s, Packer went on to offer analysis for every Final Four between 1975 and 2008.
Players vs. Cancer
With Coaches vs Cancer holding its annual awareness event β officially dubbed βSuits and Sneakers Weekβ β WSU coaches wore suits and also had a player warming up β¦ while actually fighting cancer.
WSU guard Myles Rice is sitting out the season after being diagnosed with Hodgkinβs Lymphoma in September. However, Rice has been able to travel with the Cougars and even participate in warmups while undergoing chemotherapy every two weeks.
A WSU spokesman said arrangements are typically made so that Rice can get chemo treatments when the Cougars are home, enabling him to travel with them on other weeks.
Sleepy time
While Washington State represents the single-most time-consuming place to reach in the Pac-12 for Arizona, the Cougars didnβt have it easy this week either.
They had to play at Colorado on Sunday, going down to the wire in a three-point loss, then came back late that night to Pullman.
While they were able to charter, allowing the Cougar players to get to class on Monday, they didnβt get to take a full day off with no class or practice.
βItβs hard when you donβt get that one day off,β WSU coach Kyle Smith said. βWe were off (of practice) Monday, but you donβt get that total day off where youβre able to kick back and watch football or whatever.
βDefinitely that Sunday-night game is tough. Itβs good for our TV package and our league, but it makes it tricky.β
Quotable
βAre you crazy? He can score and rebound so easily. And heβs fast.β
β Smith, speaking on his weekly radio show about what he tells NBA scouts who arenβt big on UAβs Azuolas Tubelis