After his Arizona Wildcats won at Duke early last season to tip off another memorable November, coach Tommy Lloyd issued a disclaimer.
“You don’t get a trophy for winning your second game of the season,” he said.
That's for sure.
The Wildcats also beat Michigan State last Thanksgiving Day to become a perfect 18-0 during November over Lloyd’s first three seasons, and they moved it to 20-0 with two decisive homecourt wins earlier this month.
But while the Wildcats have gone on to win two Pac-12 regular-season titles after their November success under Lloyd, they’ve also never made it past the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16, short of getting the NCAA regional or championship trophies that define college basketball greatness.
Now, after a 103-88 loss to Wisconsin on Friday in their third game of the season, they’ll get a chance to see if they can instead convert November adversity to late-season success.
“This is what we wanted,” point guard Jaden Bradley said at Wisconsin. “This was our first time as a group going on the road and being tested. Great crowd, great atmosphere, great team. So we're gonna learn from this. We’ll watch film, and we know what to expect now.
“It's early. We're not worried."
Arizona guard Jaden Bradley during the first half against Old Dominion on Nov. 9, 2024, at McKale Center.
The Wildcats survived their first road test last year pretty well, beating No. 2-ranked Duke 78-73 in the same sort of charged atmosphere that they faced Friday, albeit in the much smaller environment of Cameron Indoor Arena rather than Wisconsin’s NBA-sized Kohl Center.
But they were a more settled, veteran group then. The Wildcats, who will host Duke for a return game Friday at McKale Center, carried a No. 9 ranking into the Wisconsin game but appear to have more questions in their rotation.
A year ago, the Wildcats had to replace leading scorer Azuolas Tubelis but returned essentially two starters — center Oumar Ballo and forward Pelle Larsson, who voluntarily went to the bench midway through the 2022-23 season largely because Cedric Henderson was more comfortable as a starter.
Arizona also promoted backup point guard Kylan Boswell to a starter, with Bradley's steady backup play providing a cushion, while smoothly sliding in two starters from the portal: Guard Caleb Love (North Carolina) and forward Keshad Johnson (San Diego State).
They meshed with a tight eight-man rotation, gaining a No. 1 ranking in December, and eventually winning the Pac-12 regular-season title.
So far this season, the Wildcats are working with a nine-player rotation, relying heavily on Bradley at the point and sorting out everyone else.
Love is the only returning starter, while Bradley and guard KJ Lewis were promoted to the starting lineup, as center Motiejus Krivas also was expected to until a foot injury cost him most of the preseason.
Meanwhile, Lloyd has been mixing portal acquisitions Tobe Awaka (Tennessee), Trey Townsend (Oakland) and Anthony Dell’Orso (Campbell) in along with five-star freshman forward Carter Bryant and revived redshirt sophomore Henri Veesaar.
Also: Love has struggled relative to his preseason all-American credentials, averaging 11.0 points, shooting 26.3% from 3-point range and getting to the free-throw line only twice in three games.
There’s a lot going on.
“Obviously, it's a new team,” Lewis said. “A few of us are returning, but most of the guys are new. So it’s getting them equipped to our culture and our style of a play on both sides of the ball.”
While Love and Johnson were both Final Four veterans whose experience made them easy to plug in last season, Townsend and Dell’Orso are moving up from lower levels of Division I, while Awaka averaged only 13.1 minutes off the bench at Tennessee last season.
Awaka has started while Krivas has come back slowly from his injury. The Lithuanian 7-footer played only 40 total minutes over the Wildcats’ first three games, while Awaka has averaged 20.3, fouling out after 20 minutes on Friday.
Arizona forward Tobe Awaka is surrounded in a game against Old Dominion on Nov. 9, 2024.
Bradley is also in a much different role, being counted on to play heavy minutes at the point while taking advantage of offensive opportunities that can expand when defenses focus on Love, as the Badgers did Friday.
Bradley led the Wildcats at Wisconsin with 22 points on 7-for-14 shooting while finding his way to the line to take 13 free throws, hitting seven of them. But he had four turnovers with no assists while logging 35 minutes, with Lloyd playing backup point guard Conrad Martinez only for the final 51 seconds.
“It was just my teammates believing in me and my coaches telling me to take the right reads,” Bradley said of his offensive production Friday. “My teammates were putting me in those situations, so it was whatever it takes.”
Meanwhile, Townsend's adjustment took a leap. He was the Wildcats’ second-leading scorer Friday, coming up with 17 points after collecting just 11 over his first two games.
Townsend shook off what he called a “quick stinger” to his knee in the second half, when he briefly went to the locker room, then spoke positively about the whole experience afterward.
“I'm proud of the way these guys battled,” Townsend said. “We were down 18 in the first half, and came back and tied it, and in an environment like this…
“I think there's a lot of room to grow. Obviously, it's early in the season. I think all teams around the country are trying to figure out their identity and who they are. You're not going to win every single game.”
