SAN FRANCISCO — After spending last season stuck mostly in his San Diego home studio, having to launch tangents in front of partners such as Dave Pasch and Roxy Bernstein remotely, Pac-12 analyst Bill Walton was back in midseason form during Pac-12 media day Wednesday.
“I’m alive,” he said, blanketed in a down jacket during a chilly rooftop luncheon Thursday. “This conference has fantastic coaches. Tremendous players. It provides hope, opportunity and purpose for young people who are trying to create their dreams and build their lives.”
Like we said, midseason form.
Not surprisingly, the topic of new UA coach Tommy Lloyd hardly slowed Walton down, either.
Because while Lloyd is a newcomer to the Pac-12 and the college basketball head coaching fraternity this season, both Walton and Bernstein already know him well from years of working Gonzaga games .
Lloyd spent 20 years as an assistant coach with the Zags under Mark Few before taking over the Wildcats last spring.
“His life is one of values and standards, credibility and integrity,” Walton said. “He comes from a great culture. He knows how to build foundations, knows how to inspire, lead, teach, develop, assemble and now he has to do it. That’s the challenge.
“You don’t become the champion like Tommy Lloyd is unless you love pressure, unless you love responsibility. He’s learned from one of the master teachers of all time, a timeless master teacher, and now he’s the ball in his hands.”
Bernstein offered a more specific take, saying he’s spent countless hours with Lloyd while doing homework before Gonzaga games, getting to know Lloyd and his family well.
“They’re great,” Bernstein said. “This is this the opportunity he’s been waiting for. He put himself in a great position by working with Mark for so long, and there was going to be a great opportunity at some point.
“He’s had other chances to leave. But it was going to take the right job, the right situation, the perfect spot for him to leave what he had. Clearly Arizona is one of those places that he viewed as a destination job and a great place to be.”
Basketball analyst Bill Walton, left, in McKale Center in February 2020, has high praise for new UA coach Tommy Lloyd.
Walton acknowledged that there’s always questions about an assistant coach jumping for the first time into the head coach’s chair — “it’s the difference between being the lead player and the and the complimentary player,” he said — but both Bernstein and Walton expressed confidence Lloyd can make the jump.
“He’s prepared and he’s ready for this,” Bernstein said.
Walton expressed similar expectations for Lloyd, even as he said former coach Sean Miller was “fantastic” at Arizona before he was fired in April.
“He’s one of my favorites and I’ll miss him,” Walton said of Miller. “But that’s the nature of this business. Now it’s Tommy’s turn. He’s earned the opportunity. And now it’s time to get the job done.”
Schedule format to stay
To reach what will be the Pac-12’s second season of playing 20 conference games, Arizona will wrap two games around the Dec. 3 Pac-12 football championship game, hosting Washington on Dec. 2 and then traveling to face Oregon State in Corvallis on Dec. 5.
It’s a format the Pac-12 is moving most of its teams into this season, allowing the conference to preserve its traditional travel partner system for the bulk of the season while creating extra marketing opportunities around the football title game.
The two early December games are taken out of the four games that would normally be skipped in the 18-game rotation. Playing them in early December also allows Pac-12 teams to participate in multi-team events over Thanksgiving week or around Christmas.
“When we talked about going to 20 a couple years ago, it was ‘Do we put those in the beginning of the season or do we try to put them in the middle season?’ “ Pac-12 deputy commissioner Jamie Zaninovich said. “I think they felt like, ‘We don’t want it at the very beginning of the season like some other leagues do because that’s probably too early, but we don’t want to crowd our schedule after January 1, either.’ And we don’t want to get in the way of the MTEs because those are so important.
“So that was a rationale for why they landed there, and we don’t anticipate that changing.”
Juzang excited to return
Despite leading UCLA into the Final Four by averaging a torrid 22.8 points during the NCAA Tournament last season, guard Johnny Juzang was still considered only a potential second-round pick in the NBA Draft.
But by returning, Juzang has become a Pac-12 Player of the Year candidate and gets a chance to help return the Bruins to the Final Four.
Maybe further, too.
“I want to feel ready to make an impact and contribute to a team (as a pro) and I don’t think there’s a better place to get ready than playing for coach (Mick) Cronin and the Bruins on this special team,” Juzang said. “It’s almost a no-brainer when you put that together with what we have the opportunity to do this year, playing with these guys, and coach Cronin. I know he’s gonna get me better. He can get all of us better. He knows what it takes to win so it’s is the ultimate learning and growing environment.”
Chemistry may matter, too
Josh Christopher is off to the NBA, Alonzo Verge went to Nebraska and the face of Guard U in recent seasons, Remy Martin, is now wearing a Kansas uniform.
But maybe, in some ways, there’s an element of addition by subtraction for an ASU team thats was just 11-14 despite having all that backcourt talent last season.
While ASU coach Bobby Hurley says the additions of highly regarded 6-10 freshman Enoch Boakye and 6-9 juco transfer Alonzo Gaffney can help improve the Sun Devils’ rebounding and interior defense, he noted that the “not sharing the basketball thing” was also a big factor last season.
“I think there were a lot of variables that contributed to last year and why things didn’t go as planned, or as we hoped for,” Hurley said. “Certainly we want to we want to get a better vibe in the locker room, a more connected group, guys that want to share the ball and just play the right way. At times, we had some issues with that.”
The Sun Devils were picked to finish seventh in a conference that could put six or seven teams in the NCAA Tournament field, after four Pac-12 teams reached the Sweet 16 last season.
“I’m really excited for the league overall,” Hurley said. “It’s what we’ve been talking about in head coaches meetings for years — to have that success translate to the NCAA Tournament for our conference. I think the way people are viewing us is different based on that success.
“I like my group and I think we’re gonna be very competitive in the league but the league is very good. There’s teams at the top that are bringing their whole team back that made huge tournament runs and other programs that are better. So it’s an exciting time to be a part of the Pac-12.”
