In a strange new Big 12 world, Arizona welcomes familiar foe back to McKale

After nearly four weeks in the Big 12, the Arizona Wildcats have already dealt with seven completely unfamiliar teams while also adjusting to nasty winter weather, different venues and ... a trip to Mars.

Well, Lubbock, Texas, actually.

“I honestly thought we were landing on Mars,” UA coach Tommy Lloyd said on his radio show about the Wildcats’ trip to play Texas Tech last weekend. “It’s nothing against Lubbock. There’s just a bunch of red dust out there and the wind really picked up.

“We must have been circling around 20 minutes, just circling above the Lubbock airport, waiting to land. It was not a fog delay. It was a dust delay.”

The Wildcats made it down safely. They lost to the Red Raiders the next day, but that was their only loss in seven Big 12 games so far.

Now, a week later, the Wildcats can finally feel at home. Not just because they will be at McKale Center in front of a sold-out Saturday afternoon crowd but also because their opponent is one of their familiar old Pac-12 foes.

Facing Colorado means, if nothing else, that the scouting should be a little easier.

During Big 12 play so far, Lloyd has discussed how challenging it can be to prepare for new conference teams and doing so during a league schedule that usually has games no more than four days apart. Only twice this season, including next week after the Wildcats host No. 3-ranked Iowa State on Monday, will the Wildcats have five 24-hour breaks between games.

That means the transition from scouting one game can quickly bleed into the next, without a casual Sunday to just get away from it all.

“There’s no days off,” Lloyd said.

That includes the Big 12’s version of “Sunday,” which is Wednesday. The Wildcats returned from their win at Oklahoma State on Tuesday night at about 2 a.m. on Wednesday.

Apparently, Lloyd didn’t really sleep in that morning.

“Wednesday, I worked all day and our staff did,” Lloyd said. “We didn’t practice but, but we worked all day, so there’s no days off. You’re trying to make the best decisions you can to give your the team the best chance to win and to be able to have efficient practices.

“And this group we have? We’ve still got to practice, and we’re still getting better. So there’s no shortcuts for us.”

Maybe there is Saturday, though. Even though the Buffaloes replaced their entire starting lineup from a year ago, having the unfortunate timing of losing three 2024 NBA picks just as they transitioned to a tougher league, they returned several key reserves and are still led by Tad Boyle, who was the dean of Pac-12 coaches.

“Obviously we’re a little more familiar with them than we are some of the other teams,” Lloyd said. “You lose guys, you get new guys, but a lot of times coaches are kind of staying in the same lane with some of the things they’re doing. We’re finding that with Colorado.”

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Still, as Lloyd says, it’s also true that Colorado and Boyle know Arizona pretty well. The Buffs should have plenty of motivation, too: They are not only 0-7 in the Big 12 this season, but also never won at McKale during the Pac-12 era — unless you count the controversial “Sabatino Chen” game of 2012-13.

That was the game in which the Buffaloes’ wing banked in what initially appeared to be a game-winning 3-pointer at McKale before officials waved off the shot, having pored over camera angles to determine whether the ball left his hands with 0.0 or 0.1 seconds on the clock.

The ultimate call allowed Arizona the opportunity to win 92-83 in overtime.

“We won here,” Boyle said after the Buffaloes practiced at Richard Jefferson Gym 10 years later, in 2023. “It just doesn’t go down in the history books that way.”

This time, especially after Colorado let BYU run it over in the second half of a home game on Tuesday, Boyle appears less confident. Having run teams with defensive efficiencies routinely rating in the top 40 or 50 nationally, the Buffs have dropped to No. 78 so far this season.

“The collective pride defensively, this team doesn’t have it,” Boyle said, according to Buffzone.com. “I know what I see on film. I know what I see in the games. It’s not there. Now, it’s there maybe in stretches. I thought the first 15 minutes of the (BYU) game, I thought we defended our tails off.”

But although Boyle has never won at McKale, he does have a player who has done so twice.

Macedonian wing Andrej Jakimovski was part of Washington State teams that beat the Wildcats at McKale in 2022-23 and 2023-24, when the Cougars swept their final Pac-12 season series against Arizona.

Then, with WSU coach Kyle Smith bolting for Stanford and the Cougars being abandoned in a temporary “Pac-2” with Oregon State after the season, Jakimovski transferred to Colorado.

“We’ve got a chance to make history,” Jakimovski told Buffzone. “If we have a good game and we stick together, we’ve got a chance. I believe in that. That’s how we did it at Washington State.

“They’re getting energy from the crowd. We have to stop that. One possession at a time, play for 40 minutes. We have an opportunity.”

Jakimovski can tell the Buffs the formula, at least. Whether they can execute it is the other question.

Lloyd is bracing for that possibility.

“Tad’s had a lot of success in his career. He’s pushing a lot of buttons, and eventually he’ll push the right buttons,” Lloyd said. “I know this: Colorado is going to win a few games in conference.

“It’s just a matter of time, and ... we’re fighting for our season, too. We’ve got to have an understanding of that.”