Even with the summer recruiting period over and his first Arizona basketball roster all but finished, time is still tight for Tommy Lloyd.
That’s how things go when you become the new Arizona basketball coach just as the doors to the transfer portal were completely blown open last spring.
“I tried to cram a bunch of things into this week because I’m taking off next week for a little vacation,” Lloyd said. “Next week, hopefully, I get to breathe a little bit.”
When he returns, Lloyd will greet a roster of 12 scholarship players.
Eastern Washington transfer Kim Aiken committed to the Wildcats on Monday. Paris freshman Adama Bal, the only other Wildcat who has yet to report, is scheduled to arrive before the start of the fall semester on Aug. 23.
While the Wildcats still could add one more player, the short time window before classes start suggest that isn’t likely.
“It’s probably a little late to get someone into school, but I guess you never know,” Lloyd said.
Lloyd said his “No. 1 option” as of now is to stick with 12 players, keeping one scholarship open in case a suitable transfer candidate pops up in November or December. Programs that don’t have an open scholarship entering the fall can only offer midseason transfers a chance to walk on for a semester.
With their current roster, the Wildcats still lack an experienced full-time point guard. They do, however, have several combo guards who can play on the ball and have expressed interest in doing so next season — including Georgia transfer Justin Kier, Utah transfer Pelle Larsson and returning sophomore Kerr Kriisa.
Also on the perimeter, UA will have big sophomore wings Bennedict Mathurin and Dalen Terry plus 6-foot-5-inch freshman Shane Nowell, Bal and returning sophomore Tautvilas Tubelis.
Aiken, the newest Wildcat, adds a combo forward presence to a post group that includes sophomores Azuolas Tubelis and Oumar Ballo plus junior Christian Koloko.
Barring a rash of key injuries, it’s a complete enough roster that the Wildcats will likely be expected to at least compete for a top four Pac-12 finish.
“From just getting the job in mid-April, and in this day and age of college basketball, I feel really good about our roster and where we’re at,” Lloyd said. “I love all the guys individually. I think they’re gonna be people and players that this community will embrace and be proud to watch.
“And I feel like we can be a pretty successful team. We’ve still got to get to the fall and iron some things out and we’ve got to go through some adversity together. But from where we started, I really liked where we ended up.”
In some ways, where Lloyd’s first recruiting class ended up was where it started: Aiken committed to Arizona the day before former coach Sean Miller was fired — and then returned to the Wildcats’ class last week after committing to Washington State and moving to Pullman.
Aiken said Lloyd kept the door open, but noticed Lloyd had also quickly pulled in Ballo from Gonzaga and Gilbert’s Dylan Anderson for the class of 2022.
But a lot has changed since then. Aiken said he was rejected from a WSU graduate program he wanted to join, while Lloyd lost forward Jordan Brown to the transfer portal. Like that, the two sides were reunited.
“At the beginning, it was hard,” Lloyd said. “To be honest with you, when I first got the job, I thought most important thing was to deal with the players that were currently at Arizona. I didn’t want those guys to feel like I was bringing in three recruits on Day 1 and that their status was in limbo. I wanted to show them that ‘Hey, I’m here for you and, and I want you to have a great opportunity.’
“And I didn’t want Kim to have to sit there and wait for a month for me to figure it out. So we thought the ship had sailed. He was at Washington State. Then obviously it changed, and we were surprised as anybody.”
Like Kier, a fifth-year guard who played for George Mason and Georgia, Aiken brings a veteran presence after spending four years at Eastern Washington. He graduated this spring.
“First off, Kim’s a high-character, high-achieving, great person, and those are the type of people we want in the program,” Lloyd said. “Secondly, he’s a versatile player at both ends of the floor.
“Offensively, he can move the ball, he can spread the floor, he can make 3s, he can direct-line drive. Defensively, he’s able to guard multiple positions. He’s got a toughness about him and ultimately he’s coming here because he told us he wanted to.”
Lloyd said his staff also managed to track the players it wanted to see on the July recruiting circuit even as the events were spread around the country even more than they were in pre-pandemic summers.
With the third fulltime assistant coach’s job still not officially filled — Suns player development coach Riccardo Fois remains a candidate — Lloyd commissioned special assistant TJ Benson to hit the road. And new player relations director Jason Gardner also traveled to an recruiting showcase almost immediately after he was hired late last month.
While Benson is an aspiring coach, Gardner has already been the head coach at IUPUI and is expected to move back into a full-time coaching role at some point.
“Jason is a great guy and obviously he’s a Arizona legend,” Lloyd said. “But I also think in getting to know him, that he’s got a ton of coaching potential. He really knows college basketball; he’s played it and coached it.
“It’s great to get him back involved in the program. He’s gonna do a number of things — to try to make sure the alumni stay connected to the program, and helping our guys on a day-to-day basis, whether it’s academics or scheduling.”
And while assistant coach Jason Terry has been mentioned as a candidate to join Jason Kidd’s new Dallas Mavericks staff — even by the Mavs’ own website — Lloyd expressed optimism that Terry would stick around at UA.
“Every conversation J.T. and I have had has revolved around Arizona basketball and what we’re doing here,” Lloyd said. “I can’t predict the future, but I know we’re planning on him being here this year and he’s doing a great job.”
