LOS ANGELES — After telling his water-spraying players that they had just met the standard of Arizona basketball by winning the Pac-12 title on Tuesday, Tommy Lloyd poked outside of the locker room to celebrate briefly with a few Wildcat fans remaining in the otherwise empty Galen Center stands.
“BTFD,” Lloyd said, raising his fist while using the acronym for the, um, rather emphatic version of Arizona’s “Bear Down” battle cry, after the Wildcats clinched the conference title with an emphatic 91-71 win over 16th-ranked USC.
Then he walked over to the postgame interview area, tired from standing up and saying he was still a little wet from his players’ impromptu shower.
“It’s a great moment for the team. They’re excited,” Lloyd said. “But you know, my job is to make sure we’re ready to play Thursday.”
Thursday?
Wasn’t it all over, at least as far as all things Pac-12?
The regular-season title for the Wildcats. The Coach of the Year award for Lloyd. The Player of the Year award for Bennedict Mathurin, who had 19 points, five rebounds and six assists to lead Arizona on Tuesday.
The Defensive Player of the Year award for shot-swatting and sometimes-even-perimeter-defending Christian Koloko. First-team all-conference status for those two guys and Azuolas Tubelis, at least, with boxscore-stuffer Dalen Terry and floor leader Kerr Kriisa also having cases worth considering.
Sixth man award maybe even for — pick ‘em — Oumar Ballo, Pelle Larsson or Justin Kier.
It may have felt like it was over Tuesday, but Lloyd tried to make sure the Wildcats realized it was not.
Thursday against Stanford. Saturday against Cal.
Two games, with only really two more tangible things at stake: The chance to become the first Pac-12 team to ever win 18 games (though the conference only moved from 18 to a 20-game schedule last season) and the chance to possibly secure a No. 1 NCAA Tournament seed regardless of how they do in the Pac-12 Tournament next week.
Lloyd said he didn’t “put much stock in the seed game,” instead keeping his focus on only the goals directly in front of the Wildcats, the way he has expressed it all season.
“Listen, all these are opportunities and you want to take advantage of them,” Lloyd said. “We took advantage of this opportunity. The next big opportunity is the conference tournament. We’ll get revved up and ready to roll for that and we won’t look past that. We’re not looking past anything.”
That’s pretty much what Lloyd told the Wildcats in the postgame locker room, according to live video some of his players posted. The way Mathurin and Kier described it afterward, his message sunk in.
“The job is not finished,” Mathurin said. “We just won the Pac-12 championship, but we’ve got two more games in the regular season. You’ve got the Pac-12 Tournament and then the March Madness. Once we get the ring from March Madness, then it’s time to celebrate.”
Besides, the Wildcats now realize how suddenly adversity can hit if they aren’t focused. Just three days before recording what was probably their best win of the season, Arizona recorded what was probably its worst loss, 79-63 at Colorado.
They had two days in between, Sunday and Monday, to turn it all around.
They knew what to do.
Arizona guard Justin Kier blows past USC's Boogie Ellis during the first half of Tuesday night's game.
“We took that ‘L’ to the head and we knew we had to fix some things from that game,” Kier said. “But we weren’t too down on ourselves because we know we could have played better. So we got back in the gym and adjusted. You’ve gotta let those games go because you’ve gotta come in and prepare for this one.”
Lloyd said Colorado “did some things defensively that got my attention,” and he made adjustments. But then a different sort of adversity hit shortly after the Wildcats’ game at USC began.
Koloko and Tubelis both picked up two fouls during a five-minute span early in the first half, while Larsson picked up two in less than five minutes upon entering the game — and committed a third just 11 seconds after he was reinserted with 7:18 to go before halftime.
Lloyd countered by relying on center Oumar Ballo for 24 minutes and playing a lineup that often had four perimeter players around Ballo or Koloko, with Koloko playing just 15 minutes and Tubelis 21.
USC was big, and the Wildcats were small — first out of necessity and second because it was working.
Kerr Kriisa wound up playing 36 minutes and scoring 18 points, while Mathurin played 34 minutes, Dalen Terry played 33, and Kier played 24 off the bench, with Larsson limited to just 13 because of his foul trouble.
“Sometimes something’s playing out in front of you and you let it roll,” Lloyd said. “That small lineup got rolling a little bit, played great defense, got us in transition a little bit and made some timely shots in the half-court offense.”
Despite all the improvisation, the Wildcats never trailed. They posted possibly their best half of the season in the first half, shooting 55.6%, limiting USC to just 39.7% shooting and taking a 51-27 lead.
Game over. Conference race over.
And, still, two more games.
“I’m proud of the guys; they’re deserving,” Lloyd said. “Obviously a lot of people probably didn’t anticipate this outside of our group and it’s special to bring it home.
“But I also understand that winning conference championships is a standard at Arizona. So we’re gonna act like we’ve been there before and we’ll hopefully be a mature team and play two good games this weekend.”
