Tommy Lloyd trying to keep Arizona Wildcats upbeat after leaks spring up at USC

LOS ANGELES — Two nights after celebrating in the Pauley Pavilion visitors’ locker room, the Arizona Wildcats again held an unusually long postgame gathering behind closed doors Saturday at USC’s Galen Center.

This time it wasn’t supposed to be fun. The No. 5-ranked Wildcats had just lost 78-65 to an underachieving USC team, shattering the late-season momentum they had from four straight wins as well as losing to the Trojans for the first time in seven games.

While they sewed up the Pac-12 Tournament’s No. 1 seed by winning the Pac-12 regular-season title outright on Thursday with an 88-65 win at UCLA, the Wildcats’ loss Saturday jeopardized their chances of an NCAA Tournament No. 1 seed.

More chillingly, perhaps, it exposed the sort of weaknesses they could have against a team with a slower pace and/or a tricky defense in the NCAA Tournament.

Like in that first-round loss last season against Princeton.

So while coach Tommy Lloyd and his players were huddling in their locker room late Saturday night, a stream of frantic, desperate, upset replies stacked up in response to the team’s official social media posts listing the game score. One even posted a suicide prevention phone number.

But after about 20 minutes, Lloyd emerged from the locker room to do his radio interview, then he walked into a Galen Center corridor and greeted a small group of reporters with a smile, a joke and a laugh.

He was the same guy. Even if his team wasn’t.

“You know, we’re thankful,” Lloyd said when asked how that postgame chat went. “These guys had a great regular season. To win a Pac-12 regular-season championship, nothing should be taken lightly. Obviously, we wanted to play better today, and we didn’t.

“But maybe we were given a gift by ’SC, and we could really learn from this. So that’s going to be our focus.”

His upbeat approach may have sunk in. The player UA chose for postgame interviews, center Oumar Ballo, pretty much repeated what Lloyd said.

“Positive. Positive,” Ballo said of the locker-room vibe. “Nothing coming from this than just learning. And then (it’s) keep our head up because we know we’re playing for a lot, (more) than just this one game. All we need is a positive mindset.”

That even went, apparently, for guard Caleb Love, who had his roughest game as a Wildcat. The North Carolina transfer scored just two points while shooting 1 of 10 from the field, missing all six 3-pointers he tried while turning the ball over five times.

It was only the second time all season Love has scored in single digits, the first a nine-point effort in UA’s blowout win over Southern on Nov. 13.

“Caleb is a positive guy and he doesn’t think of himself. He thinks team first,” Ballo said. “After the game, I see him, his face is like a normal guy. He just wants us to win. And if we don’t win, he’s not the one to carry the blame.”

But because he’s the Wildcats’ scoring leader, with his name placed on the Wooden Award ballot Saturday and possibly also on the Pac-12 Player of the Year award when it is announced Tuesday, Love’s play might be the first place to start when it comes to the lessons Lloyd said the Wildcats may have learned against USC.

Lloyd said Love has had “an MVP type of year,” but that he simply had an off night.

“It’ll be great for him and I to sit down and discuss,” Lloyd said. “I really appreciate him. I respect him as a player and as a person. These are the experiences coaches and players need to have together.”

Chances are, their discussion may involve shot selection. While Love backed off after missing his first two shots on Thursday at UCLA, then rattling off 12 points in six minutes before halftime when he found holes in the Bruins’ defense, Love made his only shot of the USC game on the Wildcats’ first possession — a driving layup — and then kept shooting and handling the ball without much success.

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Some of the blame was attributable to a USC defense that aimed squarely at him.

“We tried to contest every shot he took, especially his 3s,” USC coach Andy Enfield said. “Then we just tried to switch zone and our man (defense). We just tried to pressure him and make him put the ball on the floor.

“Fortunately it worked. He’s a really good player.”

But Arizona has also won games with balance this season, without Love having to be the guy every night, with four or five of players routinely scoring in double figures.

That balance also evaporated Saturday. The Wildcats were able to work the ball inside, with Ballo and power forward Keyshad Johnson each collecting 17 points. But UA still missed half of its 20 layups and managed only two second-chance points off 14 offensive rebounds.

Their perimeter game was even shakier. The Wildcats hit just 6 of 21 3-pointers (28.6%), while the starting perimeter trio of Love, Pelle Larsson and Kylan Boswell totaled 13 of UA’s 18 turnovers.

Larsson was 1 for 5 from 3-point range with five turnovers to his four assists, while Boswell was 2 of 9 overall from the field while matching his three assists with three turnovers.

Clearly, Love wasn’t the Wildcats’ only offensive issue.

“I don’t think our shot selection overall was great,” Lloyd said.

While the Wildcats faced an obvious letdown situation after wrapping up the Pac-12 title at UCLA, Lloyd fretted that he might have “talked them into it” by warning them often to avoid a letdown.

He also said the Wildcats needed to learn to adjust to the officiating better, with USC taking two more free throws than UA and scoring five more points at the line.

“I’m not saying it was officiated poorly, because maybe our approach wasn’t right,” Lloyd said. “It’s just getting better at that kind of stuff. Because these games get really emotional and as they’re playing out, you have to be able to control your emotions and draw up on on your season’s experiences.”

Lloyd gave USC’s defense credit for throwing the Wildcats out of rhythm with a defense that switched schemes back and forth, but he also said his players should be able to handle something like that.

“I don’t think there was anything overwhelming,” Lloyd said. “It’s just they played better than us overall. We had 18 turnovers and shot a poor percentage … (so) it’s gonna be a tough night.”

Lloyd ended his five-minute postgame interview on that note, about as negative as he became, nothing like how he expressed displeasure repeatedly after UA’s losses at Stanford and Oregon State earlier this season.

Then he propped himself off his interview stool, clapped his hands once and said goodbye to the assembled media the way he often does on just about any other occasion.

“You guys are the best,” he said. “Thank you, guys.”

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Photos: No. 5 Arizona upset at USC, Pac-12 men's basketball regular-season finale