After coaching Pittsburgh through Big East and ACC competition, then watching the Big 12 morph into a basketball gauntlet since arriving at TCU in 2016, veteran coach Jamie Dixon has developed a piece of advice.
“I don’t recommend it for young coaches, being in the best league in the country every year of your career,” Dixon said. “I’ve managed to do that, and the numbers show it big.”
While Dixon acknowledged after UA beat TCU 90-81 on Monday that the SEC has so far outperformed the Big 12 this season, he said conference realignment keeps improving the competition wherever he goes.
TCU Horned Frogs head coach Jamie Dixon calls a play in the second half at McKale Center on Dec. 30. Arizona won 90-81.
Maybe this time, Dixon said, the Big 12 will make up ground on the SEC with its performance in the NCAA Tournament, where it could have at least eight participants.
“It is what it is, the best teams in the country,” Dixon said. “Obviously realignments happen because of football, and the teams that have been left behind have generally been better in basketball. That’s kind of what’s happened to us.”
The Arizona men’s basketball program was left behind this time. The Wildcats jumped into the Big 12 this season along with ASU, Colorado and Utah because the Pac-12 imploded in August 2023 due to a chain reaction that started when USC and UCLA decided in June 2022 to start playing football in the Big Ten last fall.
The Wildcats, the 2023-24 Pac-12 regular-season champions, are now making the Big 12 better. But they also must find a way to survive it.
They are no longer one or two powers atop the league, as they were in the Pac-12. Not with teams such as Kansas, Iowa State, Baylor and Houston around anyway.
“The Big 12 is going to be amazing,” UA coach Tommy Lloyd said Monday, crediting his players for staying poised against TCU in a way they will need to be the rest of the season.
Arizona guard Anthony Dell’Orso (3) looks to make a pass as he’s defended by TCU forward Trazarien White (13) in the first half during a game at McKale Center on Dec. 30.
“We’ve talked a lot about that there aren’t going to be 20-0 runs. You’re not going to be up 30 at half. Those days are done. So we’ve got to get comfortable being in close games and fighting back.”
Notably, those comments came after a home game against a team that was picked to finish 10th in the Big 12.
Hosting TCU was one thing. This weekend starts another.
The Wildcats will get thrown immediately on their longest Big 12 trip of the season, all the way into the Eastern time zone. They’ll leave Thursday to fly to Cincinnati, practice and prepare there on Friday, then face the No. 16 Bearcats on Saturday afternoon.
Then they’ll leave Sunday for Morgantown, W.Va., where they’ll prepare for a Tuesday night game against the Mountaineers ... who already beat them on a neutral court in the Bahamas.
Tobe Awaka and the Arizona Wildcats received a (bitter) taste of Big 12 competition ahead when they lost in overtime to West Virginia, 83-76, on Nov. 29 in the Bahamas.
It’s the sort of trek that demands the Wildcats carry any momentum they can from their win over TCU.
“You’ve got to keep that same intensity, that same edge and aggressiveness on the road and be able to take a punch because homecourt advantage is real in this league,” UA guard KJ Lewis said. “We’ve got to be able to rally together, stay poised like we did (Monday) in those big-time moments.”
Also, there’s the peripheral stuff. The Wildcats are expected to face hostile crowds at both arenas, unlike places in the Pac-12 such as Stanford or Cal, where their fans sometimes represented nearly half the crowd.
And the weather is expected to be in the 20s and 30s, with scattered snow showers and maybe even an ice storm. It could be sort of like heading to Pullman to face Washington State on a Pac-12 trip, except without the reward of spending half the time in more temperate Seattle for a game with Washington.
Fun, right?
Lloyd says it will be.
“We’re fired up,” Lloyd said. “We’ve got a great road trip. I mean, come on, you’re going all the way back to the East Coast. You’re playing Cincinnati, you’re playing West Virginia. I’m assuming both fan bases are going to be excited that Arizona is coming to their home gym.
“What a great opportunity for us to go out and continue to prove ourselves in the Big 12.”
