While commuting between shoe-sponsored recruiting showcases in Iowa and Georgia this weekend to evaluate the high school classes of 2024 and beyond, Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd is probably also working his phone quite a bit.
Because he still needs a lot of older guys too. And soon.
For the second straight spring, Lloyd will have to make a mad scramble to fill out his roster for the upcoming season. After losing out on Creighton transfer guard Ryan Nembhard, who chose Gonzaga over the Wildcats on Friday, Lloyd still has just seven of 13 possible scholarship spots filled for 2023-24 โ assuming Azuolas Tubelis stays in the NBA Draft pool and brother Tautvilas Tubelis leaves with him.
At one point in April last season, the Wildcats were down to just eight certain guys on their 2022-23 roster, with Dalen Terry still yet to determine if he would stay in the NBA Draft along with Christian Koloko and Bennedict Mathurin.
โAs I tell people, April in college basketball is a crazy time,โ Lloyd said last April. โEvery coach wants to renegotiate. Every player wants to know what their options are. Everybody kind of takes a step back and looks at it through their own lens.โ
Lloyd said then that he felt the Wildcats would still have a โreally good roster next year,โ and, in a process that went on until June, the Wildcats eventually built a 12-player roster for 2022-23. Then they tied for second in the Pac-12 and won the conference tournament before losing to Princeton in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
So far this April, UA has a core of six returning players plus incoming freshman KJ Lewis, a guard with roots in Tucson and El Paso who played in the Dallas area last season. The Wildcats have yet to add a single player since their season ended on March 16.
Hereโs how Arizonaโs long roster transition season played out last spring and how it has so far this time:
Arizonaโs Bennedict Mathurin declared for the NBA Draft after a breakout season in 2021-22 and ended up being a Top 10 pick.
2022
April 14: Mathurin declares for the NBA Draft as expected, joining Justin Kier (out of eligibility) and Kim Aiken (dismissed) off the Wildcatsโ roster. Mathurin later was taken sixth in the NBA Draft by the Indiana Pacers. At that point, UA had only one incoming player set for 2022-23, Gilbert big man Dylan Anderson.
Roster count: 10
April 18: Koloko declares for the NBA Draft. โI canโt wait to see what my next chapter will bring,โ Koloko posted, โbut one thing is for sure, I put my faith in God.โ Koloko was taken with the 33rd pick (third of the second round) by the Toronto Raptors.
Roster count: Nine
April 19: Serbian freshman wing Filip Borovicanin signs with Arizona as a long-term prospect who is not expected to contribute heavily for the 2022-23 Wildcats.
Roster count: 10
April 22: Terry declares for the NBA Draft, the third starter to leave the Wildcats, but leaves open the possibility of returning to Arizona.
April 26: Aiken officially enters the transfer portal after being removed from UAโs roster in February for unspecified reasons. He later transferred to New Mexico State and has since been named a defendant in a lawsuit involving hazing allegations.
April 27: Shane Nowell enters the transfer portal, eventually heading to UNLV.
Roster count: Nine
May 11: Terry is invited to the NBA Combine, where he opened eyes with his measurements and interviews.
May 25: Estonian freshman big man Henri Veesaar commits to Arizona. โThey are used to having different players from different continents,โ Veesaar told ESPN. โThe basketball background varies a lot depending on where you grow up, so I think they have a nice mixture from different cultures.โ
Roster count: 10
May 31: Terry announces he will stay in the NBA Draft. He is projected as a late-first round pick but goes No. 18 to Chicago. The next month, Lloyd reflected on the losses of Mathurin, Terry and Koloko, saying: โWhen you have a great season and you have good players, those guys get opportunities. I probably couldnโt have predicted at the start of the year how it would all play out, but with the success we had, things happened.โ
Roster count: Nine
June 6: Kentucky transfer forward Keion Brooks, the Wildcatsโ highest-rated transfer target in 2022, picks Washington one day after taking a weekend visit to Arizona.
June 9: Grad transfers Courtney Ramey (Texas) and Cedric Henderson (Campbell) announce theyโll transfer to Arizona.
Roster count: 11
July 7: Kylan Boswell, a five-star commit from the high school class of 2023, opts to reclassify to join Arizona in 2022-23 and rehabilitate a broken foot.
Roster count: 12
Arizona guard Kerr Kriisa, left, gets stripped of a rebound by Washington State forward Mouhamed Gueye in the second half of their Pac-12 game at McKale Center on Jan. 6, 2023.
2023
March 22: With the Wildcats already losing Ramey and Henderson due to expired eligibility, guard Kerr Kriisa and wing Adama Bal both announce they are entering the transfer portal. Lewis is the only new player UA has for 2022-23 at this point.
Roster count: Nine
April 13: Azoulas Tubelis declares for the NBA Draft and is not expected to return. His brother, Tautvilas, is expected to drop off the roster if Azuolas does not return.
Expected roster count: Seven
April 21: Arizonaโs top-rated transfer target in 2023, Nembhard, picks Gonzaga over the Wildcats. Another transfer UA had expressed interest in, big man Graham Ike of Wyoming, also picks Gonzaga.
