Relationship with Tommy Lloyd lured veteran coach Steve Robinson to Arizona's staff

While spending the bulk of his coaching career inside storied college basketball venues at Kansas and North Carolina, Steve Robinson also experienced McKale Center at its best.

January 27, 2007. Arizona vs. North Carolina. A national, daytime CBS broadcast. And 14,596 fans packing into the arena, at full roar.

At least until the Tar Heels started running away with what became a shocking 92-64 win despite playing without starter Brandan Wright and key reserve Marcus Ginyard.

“We were fortunate to come out to Arizona, and the crowd was loud,” said Robinson, the former UNC assistant who was officially named a new UA assistant on Thursday. “We just played really great. A couple of guys who were sick in the locker room didn’t play and we were pretty excited that we kind of got it going.”

That was one memory that helped draw Robinson back to Arizona this week, but there was an even more significant connection that started earlier that season.

Gonzaga, then evolving into a perennial college basketball power, beat the then-second-ranked Tar Heels 82-74 in the 2006-07 Preseason NIT, another sign the Zags were there to stay on the national stage.

It was the first of five matchups between North Carolina and Gonzaga. They met in the 2009 NCAA Tournament and in the 2017 national championship game at Glendale, where North Carolina won its last national title, before opting to schedule each other for a home-and-home series during the 2018-19 and 2019-20 seasons.

That series was a clear sign of mutual respect between North Carolina coach Roy Williams and Gonzaga coach Mark Few.

“Over the years, Mark’s been one of my best friends,” Williams said. “It’s impossible for me to respect anybody in coaching more than I respect Mark.”

Their assistants felt the same about each other, too. Williams said he’s sure that led to Robinson joining Tommy Lloyd’s first Arizona staff and all evidence says he’s right. Because while Robinson spoke highly of that McKale Center game in 2007 — and of the UA program and school as a whole — he said Lloyd actually was “even a bigger draw.”

“We never worked with each other but we’ve gotten to know each other through Gonzaga and Mark Few,” Robinson said. “I’ve always been a fan of what they did at Gonzaga and it just became really interesting. I always thought Tommy was a go-getter. He worked hard and we recruited against him and battled against him.”

Both Robinson and Lloyd said there wasn’t any one moment where they hit it off in particular, just a long-term growth in their relationship.

“It’s just something that happens over the course of 20 years when your paths cross,” Lloyd said through a UA spokesman, “whether it’s games against each other or out and about recruiting.”

Robinson said the two sometimes would run into each other and have a meal together, or they’d simply talk strategy and build a mutual respect that way.

“Sometimes you see something that another team does or you like something they do, you might say, ‘Hey, I happened to just watch the game and I saw you guys running this play or I saw this action, how do you do that?’ “ Robinson said. “And you share information that way. You have relationships.”

As time went on, Robinson suspected Lloyd would become a head coach. The timing was fortunate for them both.

After Williams announced his retirement on April 1 following 33 seasons as a head coach, Robinson was thrown into a crossroads. He was considered for but did not get the job of replacing Williams, nor was he retained by new head coach Hubert Davis.

Robinson was 63, thinking about taking another coaching job, doing something else — or doing nothing at all.

Back to homepage

Subscriber Login

Keep reading with a digital access subscription.

Subscribe now

Robinson had already accomplished plenty in the business. Inducted into the A Step Up Hall of Fame for assistant coaches in 2019, Robinson has also received accolades for recruiting and player development while Williams said he’s simply good at everything. “He has no weaknesses,” Williams says.

Robinson said he also believes he’s a better assistant coach now because he’s been a head coach and understands the day-to-day pressures, responsibilities and distractions that the chair demands, lessons he hopes he can help pass on to Lloyd.

Along the way, Robinson learned how to pick himself up following exits at Florida State and North Carolina.

After taking Tulsa to the NCAA Tournament in both years he coached the Golden Hurricane, 1995-96 and 1996-97, Robinson took over as head coach at Florida State. Throwing himself against ACC competition, Robinson led the Seminoles to the 1998 tournament but was fired in 2002 after four straight losing seasons.

“It’s like just like anything else, you’re not retained and you’re going to have some thought process,” Robinson said. “I knew I was a better coach than I was able to always get them to perform. So leaving them was kind of hard, but one door closes and another one opens.”

Williams lost an assistant that spring, when Neil Dougherty left to become TCU’s head coach. Williams quickly invited Robinson back for a second stint in Lawrence. The two worked together again at Kansas in 2002-03 before moving together to North Carolina for the 2003-04 season. They stayed in Chapel Hill for 18 years until Williams retired.

By then, Robinson had become the second-longest tenured assistant coach in UNC history behind only former Dean Smith aide Bill Guthridge. But while Guthridge took over the Tar Heels in 1997 after 30 years as an assistant, Robinson was not offered a chance to replace Williams.

Instead, Davis took over and assembled a staff composed entirely of former UNC players.

“They chose to go in another direction,” Robinson said. “I’ve been there for 18 years. I think when it’s all said and you start talking about, ‘Well, are you a Carolina guy?’ Eighteen years puts you in a pretty elite category as a coach or player. The number of games and the successes … I think some of those things speak for itself.”

Again, Robinson had been forced to step back and think. But this time, his thought process extended from April into May, then June, July and finally August. Robinson’s family, including a grandchild and expected grandchild in October, lives near Chapel Hill. But the longtime coach said he found he still had a “lot of energy for the game.”

Robinson said his wife, Lisa, and the rest of his family were supportive throughout many conversations. One of them was especially memorable.

“My wife and sat down and had long discussions about, ‘What do you think?’” Robinson said, chuckling as he described one response. “I think more than anything else, she wanted to just get me out of the house. I’ve been on the move the whole time and all of a sudden the last four months I’ve been around.

“She says, ‘I think it’s about time for you to go back to work.’”

At the same time, UA assistant coach Jason Terry made an unusually late departure from Lloyd’s staff when he left to become the head coach of the Denver Nuggets’ G League team last month. Lloyd said he wanted an experienced replacement, especially since he was a first-time head coach himself and the rest of the UA staff skewed younger.

Lloyd offered Robinson the job. Robinson decided to go for it, accepting the chance to work under Lloyd and maybe advise him a bit along the way.

Their relationship hit another level.

“You could see how Tommy kind of moved up the ladder as an assistant coach, his work ethic and his character,” Robinson said. “He’s always come across as such a good guy to me that I just felt like this is the opportunity.

“I’ve been a very fortunate guy. When I step back and look at my own career as a college coach, for 38 years, I’ve been able to coach the game I love. I’ve coached on some awesome stages that don’t get any bigger in the game that we play, whether it be at North Carolina or Kansas. And now I get a chance to say, ‘I can do this at Arizona.’ I’m excited.”