Arizona Wildcats have plenty to focus on entering showdown with Duke at McKale Center

For a coach who swears to focus only on day to day, game to game, Tommy Lloyd has been facing a big test all week.

He has a game with Duke, perhaps UA fans’ most disliked nonconference opponent ever. The Blue Devils will be here, at McKale Center, for the first time in 34 seasons.

There will be ESPN2 coverage beaming the action to the nation, and about 600 potentially adrenaline-filled students behind the north basket who were expected to spend Thursday night camping in the stands, eating pizza and watching Space Jam 2” on the McKale video board.

There’s a big picture here. So when asked about that Thursday, Lloyd ducked his head and grinned at first.

“Are you trying to knock me off my ‘be-in-the-moment, stay-in-the-moment?’” Lloyd said. “You think you can do that?”

Well, no. But Lloyd did go on to acknowledge a little about what’s at stake. It isn’t just the game itself; both teams can benefit in computer rankings simply by playing a game like this.

It’s also about everything else: Arizona’s status among the college basketball elite, the intensity of McKale Center, how the Wildcats will look all across the country to fans who will be staying up past midnight on the East Coast to watch them.

What kind of message will be sent?

“Obviously, it’s a great honor to have Duke here,” Lloyd said. “These are the kind of games Arizona basketball should be playing. We’re happy to be playing in them. And you know what? In order to continue playing in them, we’ve got to perform as a program, plain and simple.”

Even for a veteran of the SEC who has also played in the NCAA Elite Eight, forward Tobe Awaka acknowledged the difference in playing Duke, too.

“You kind of understand the pageantry of that whole program and organization, who they are,” said Awaka, who transferred from Tennessee last spring. “You don’t really take that lightly, but at the same time, just have to sort of stick to the principles that have founded our program, what we hang our hat on.”

A junior center from New York, Awaka was still at Tennessee when the Wildcats won at Duke early last season, but said it was great to get a chance to host the Blue Devils at McKale.

“Both sides, coaches and obviously the players, we’re competitors, and that’s sort of what we want at this level, playing the best of the best,” Awaka said. “Last year, I know that we were able to get it done at their place. So we know that with them coming here, they’re looking for sort of a vengeance, and it’s going to be exciting.”

Still, the two teams are actually somewhat different than the ones who met a year ago at Cameron Indoor Stadium, where UA won 78-73. The Wildcats still have guard Caleb Love, the former North Carolina standout who hit a 35-foot bomb as seconds ran out in the first half, but lost four other starters, all of whom scored in double-figures that night.

Meanwhile, instead of building around the inside-outside skills of stretch-five Kyle Filipowski, Duke is instead surrounding versatile projected No. 1 NBA Draft pick Cooper Flagg with size and scoring ability at every position.

The Blue Devils are so loaded with talent — again — that they have three projected 2025 NBA lottery picks and seven guys overall who have received Top 60 buzz from at least one of the major mock NBA Draft sites.

“We have 11 good players but it’s hard to play 11 guys,” Duke coach Jon Scheyer fretted after the Blue Devils rolled over Wofford 86-35. “How deep can you go? Who can be ready?”

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Lloyd has that sort of first-world problem, too. He’s been trying out 10 guys for Arizona’s rotation, essentially trimming to nine in Arizona’s 103-88 loss at Wisconsin on Nov. 15 by keeping point guard Conrad Martinez mostly on the bench. He dished just 13 minutes to projected first-round pick Carter Bryant, who had one point against the Badgers.

“Let’s give Carter a little time, and a little space,” Lloyd said. “I think in a few weeks or a month, we’ll really start to see Carter growing as a player.”

What also emerged in Wisconsin: That Lloyd is going to need all those guys if the Wildcats fouled the way they did that night. Arizona committed 32 fouls, sending the Badgers to the line to hit 41 of 47 free throws. Awaka and Love fouled out, while three other Wildcats had four fouls each.

For Awaka, the fouls limited to 20 minutes an effort that produced nine points and 13 rebounds.

“I have to be a little bit more disciplined,” Awaka said. “I thought for the most part they came on a rebound so that’s sort of part of my game, being aggressive, going for those offensive rebounds.

“I don’t really get too mad at myself about that. But I’ve just got to mitigate those fouls that are away from the basket, around the 3-point line, whether it’s hand checks or just silly fouls, reaching and things like that.”

No doubt, Lloyd is hoping all his guys can mitigate that sort of thing. Especially because Flagg is already drawing an average of 5.4 fouls every 40 minutes he plays, while the Blue Devils as a team are shooting an above-average 75.8% from the line — far more efficient than UA’s 67.7% free-throw shooting.

If the Wildcats behave at all like they did in Madison, Duke could win this one at the line.

“You can’t allow a team to shoot 47 free throws. You definitely can’t,” Lloyd said. “It’s nothing on refereeing, it’s just that we’ve got to do a better job as players and coaches of managing that.

“I’m sure there’s some fouls there that you just wish you wouldn’t have had. You could have been a little cleaner with your hands and your positioning, things like that. But we’re a physical team, and we’re not going to run away from that.”

Nor are the Wildcats running away from another big test just after that Wisconsin game. Much like Scheyer is with Duke, who faced Kentucky in Atlanta last week and will play Kansas in Las Vegas next week, the Wildcats aren’t taking it too easy this month.

They had two warmup wins at home, lost at Wisconsin, now will play Duke and, on Sunday, will fly to the Bahamas to prepare for three potentially difficult games in the Battle 4 Atlantis — including one that could be against Indiana or Gonzaga.

“I think (Scheyer) and I are both trying to build our programs for the long haul, and we’re not going to get caught up in a tough game,” Lloyd said. “I don’t know how many programs would do what he and I are doing with scheduling.

“There’s some that are, but (we) go out and play on the road at Wisconsin the third game, and he’s coming to play at Arizona the fourth game after, he’s already played Kentucky and then he’s got Kansas following us? He’s trying to give his team the experiences he thinks he needs to give them so they can be great in conference play and for postseason run. And we’re doing the same.”

From a coaches’ perspective, maybe that’s the real big picture that Friday’s game fits into.