With three days in Tucson early this week, Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd had time to exhale.
Physically and, you might think, figuratively.
His Wildcats reached the Final Four for the first time in 25 years, bringing relief to long-suffering UA fans and suggesting that maybe the pressure was off the Wildcats just a little heading into the Final Four.
Suggesting that maybe it could be easier to deal with Michigan in Saturday’s game, and possibly UConn or Illinois in the championship Monday, without that monkey still hanging around.
“I don’t know,” Lloyd said. “Nothing's ever easy, and the moment you think it's easy, it's over. So I wouldn't say easier.”
But Lloyd did say he understood what sort of relief Arizona fans may have. Because at Gonzaga, where he spent over two decades as a staffer under Mark Few, the Bulldogs reached the Final Four in 2017 at Glendale under somewhat different circumstances.
“We had never made a Final Four, and when we made the first one, it was obviously a big deal,” Lloyd said. “But we didn't have a history of having been there before. So there wasn't necessarily that heartache that goes with not being where you had been before. And to me, I think Tucson and the program was wearing it a little bit. I do.
“Because we've had so many good players and so many good teams (at Arizona). I'm sure we could go through 10 scenarios, 'Like, yeah, they could have made it if ….' My guess would be 10 teams out of those 25 years were probably good enough to go to a Final Four, if one thing or another went their way, and it didn't happen.”
Not only did fans’ emotions become obvious to him when nearly 1,000 of them showed up early Sunday morning to greet the Wildcats upon their return from San Jose, but Lloyd said his wife also showed him a story that quoted fans saying what it meant to them.
Forward Tobe Awaka greets fans at McKale Center who gathered to welcome back the men’s basketball team on March 29, 2026, after it beat Purdue, 79-64, in the West Regional final, sending them to the Final Four for the first time in 25 years.
“Man, you almost tear up hearing these people,” Lloyd said. “A guy who works at the university here told me that that his neighbor told him that in the last 25 years, this is the best thing that's happened in his life — and during that time, the guy's gotten married and had three kids.”
Lloyd drew chuckles and laughed himself at that one.
"I was like, Wow! Pretty cool,’" Lloyd said.
Staying even-keeled
As he has indicated many times before, Lloyd said what “makes my job really cool is that people care,” and the Wildcats turned that care into joy last weekend.
Lloyd just had to tread carefully with it.
“To be able to get over that hurdle, I really felt a collective sense of joy and relief from the community,” Lloyd said. “But, guys, you're out amongst the people a lot more than I am right now. And that's with intent, because I don't want to be out feeling any different than I normally do, because I don't think me feeling any different than I normally do will help me do my job better this week.”
Between when the Wildcats arrived back from San Jose in the early morning hours Sunday and his local news conference Tuesday, Lloyd said he hadn't moved much.
“It's been takeout and relaxing at home and just trying to get prepared for this week,” Lloyd said.
Arizona forward Ivan Kharchenkov (8) encourages Wildcat fans to cheer louder as he gets set to cut the net following their win over Purdue in the Elite Eight in San Jose, Calif., March 27, 2026.
Lloyd said he gave his players “Sunday off from me,” and the Wildcats didn’t do anything organized on the court Sunday or Monday, before they practiced Tuesday.
They were scheduled to leave for Indianapolis on Wednesday and will hold 2½ days of practice there before facing Michigan on Saturday night.
Normally, the Wildcats charter in just a day before away games and two days before distant ones such as this season's games at UConn and UCF. But this time they’re going in three days early partly to meet NCAA requirements for pregame interviews with rights holders and other media.
“There's always subtle changes when you you're taking road trips,” Lloyd said. Traveling on Wednesday “makes a little bit of a difference, but this gives you an extra day to practice on the game court so that's a good thing, and we'll try to take advantage of that.
“But my message to our guys was pretty simple: 'You know the Final Four is an event but it's an event for the fans, and we're the participants. So our experience is going to be a little different. If you want to experience the Final Four as a fan, either you play for a team that didn't make it there, or you can go when you're older in the future.'"
Lloyd said he didn’t have to warn his players to stay out of the public eye, saying they have been low-key all season, mostly asking them to get their rest and mental focus ready for the week ahead.
“So we're going to go in with a business like approach,” Lloyd said. “Obviously, the goal would be to win a another four-team tournament, and the only way you win a four team tournament is you try to find a way to win your first game. We know that's going to be an incredible challenge.”
Lloyd salutes Few
Just hours before holding his news conference Tuesday, news surfaced that Lloyd’s old boss is now a Hall of Famer. CBS’ Matt Norlander reported that Few would be named to the Naismith Hall of Fame, with official announcements scheduled to be made Saturday in Indianapolis.
“Unbelievable. Really cool,” Lloyd said. “I just think about being along for the ride (at Gonzaga) and how many normal moments we had. No one ever talked about being in the Hall of Fame.”
Gonzaga head coach Mark Few and then-assistant coach Tommy Lloyd, both pictured on the sidelines for the Zags in November 2017, worked together at Gonzaga for over 20 years while building the Bulldogs into a perennial power.
Nor did they talk about Final Fours, Lloyd said, recalling Few’s reaction when he told him he was leaving for Arizona in April 2021.
“I walked into our practice facility at Gonzaga, it was the end of COVID, and we just lost the national championship,” Lloyd said. “And Fewy was in there by himself in the workout room, walking around without shoes on, just kind of doing his deal in there.
“I went in and said, 'Hey, I'm gonna take the Arizona job and thank you for everything.' He just said to me, 'Who would have thought when we started this deal, that we would have lost two national championship games (2017 and 2021), and Arizona would be hiring Gonzaga’s assistant?'
“I thought that was pretty powerful statement. And who would have thought that he would be a Hall of Fame coach? Honestly, that's how we've always approached it. We've had no grand plan or master plan or ideas. We're never chasing any of these things. We just wanted to be good basketball coaches and be good people.”
Alkeme CEO: tickets on me
UA alum and Alkeme CEO Curtis Barton has donated about $27,000 to the Zona Zoo so its student members will be able to attend Saturday’s semifinal games.
Zona Zoo members bought their entire allotment of about 675 tickets at $40 each and still must cover their travel costs but Barton, who was attending UA when the Wildcats won the 1997 national championship at Indianapolis, covered the cost of their game tickets.
In February, Arizona announced that Alkeme had agreed to a 15-year, $27.7 million deal in which McKale Center became formally known as “McKale Center at Alkeme Arena.” Barton wore an Arizona Wildcats hoodie to the news conference and said he was an “avid fan” of them.
