Greg Hansen: Tommy Lloyd's Wildcats deserve to celebrate with scissors as March Madness begins

Thursday’s McKale Center video tribute to Lute Olson contained three images of the coach either cutting down a net or wearing a net around his neck. It is college basketball’s version of baseball players spraying one another with champagne — minus the mess, expense and hangovers.

By my count, Olson was 18 for 19 cutting down the nets in his Arizona days, and it never seemed to lose its joy and charm. (More about the one missed net-cutting occasion later).

According to basketball savant Ken Pomeroy of Kenpom.com, Tommy Lloyd has a 97% chance to cut down the nets after Saturday’s game against Cal. Lloyd said that the club will cut down the nets if they beat the Golden Bears.

Someone better make sure a ladder and some scissors are available about 5 p.m.

“I’m not a big celebration guy,” Lloyd said after the second-ranked Wildcats beat Stanford 81-69 Thursday. “But if we win, (cutting down the net) will be part of the festivities.”

Check back in a few years. By then, I think Lloyd will become a celebration guy. Not necessarily because he wants the attention, but because it beats not cutting down the nets. This is March, right? Heartbreak far outnumbers fleeting net-cutting ceremonies.

Enjoy it when you can.

Arizona hasn’t cut down a net since March 10, 2018, when it beat USC in the Pac-12 Tournament finals. The immediate future seemed flush with promise. Arizona’s lineup included Deandre Ayton. Final Four, anyone?

Yet the Wildcats were blown out by 13th-seeded Buffalo in the first round of the NCAA Tournament and thereafter Arizona’s basketball program faded to dark.

In the Pac-12, a basketball team has four opportunities to cut down nets: By winning the regular-season title; winning the league tournament; winning at the Elite Eight to earn a spot in the Final Four; and winning the national championship.

Do you know how many net-cutting ceremonies Arizona State has enjoyed since 1975? None.

So, yes, Lloyd should absolutely keep scissors and a ladder as part of Saturday’s gameday inventory at McKale.

Rarely has there been a snapshot of March’s heartbreak vs. heaven figures at McKale Center more compelling than Stanford coach Jerrod Haase and Arizona assistant Steve Robinson chatting near midcourt after Thursday’s game. They are certified experts at the enjoy-the-moment, transitory nature of March basketball.

Haase and Robinson were coaches on Kansas’ 2002-03 staff when Arizona was favored to beat KU in the Elite Eight in Anaheim, California. Arizona had been ranked No. 1 for 11 weeks. It was No 1 seed in the West, and it had whipped the Jayhawks 91-74 in Allen Fieldhouse six weeks earlier.

But KU won 78-75 against an Arizona roster that included Andre Iguodala, Salim Stoudamire, Jason Gardner and Luke Walton. I can’t forget the sobering moment outside the Honda Center when Walton laid his head on his father, Bill’s, shoulder, and cried.

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Oh, what the Wildcats would’ve given to cut down the nets that day.

As an assistant at both Kansas and North Carolina, Robinson experienced the joy of cutting down the nets to get to seven Final Fours, winning three. He also knew the agony of losing in the Elite Eight four times.

This is Robinson’s 40th season of college coaching. He might be the best net-snipper of anyone active in college basketball except Mike Krzyzewski. He hasn’t tumbled from a ladder yet.

Haase witnessed both sides of March Madness against Arizona. In March 1997, Haase — then a senior guard at Kansas — was devastated as the No. 1 overall seed Jayhawks lost to Arizona 85-82 in the Sweet 16, fueling the UA’s historic run to the 1997 national championship.

It was fourth-seeded Arizona, not undefeated Kansas, that cut down the nets in Birmingham, Alabama, two days later after beating Providence.

Lloyd may not know the precise history of Haase and Robinson’s March heartbreak and joy, but he knows that once the calendar flips to March, everything changes.

“When you’re getting ready to start staring down elimination games,” he said Thursday, “everybody’s got to bring their best.”

Said UA sophomore Pelle Larsson: “It’s March. It’s time to go.”

Overlook Stanford and Colorado at your own risk.

As for the one net-cutting opportunity Lute Olson missed, it happened March 3, 1986, at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion. Arizona clinched its first Pac-10 title that night but chose not to cross the sportsmanship line and cut down the nets on an opponent’s court.

Nor would Arizona have a chance to cut down the nets in its only remaining regular-season game a week later at ASU. The Wildcats lost, anyway, which was no time to cut down a net.

The only true celebration of Arizona’s first Pac-10 championship came when the Wildcats returned to the Tucson airport at 12:30 a.m.. Amazingly, about 600 fans hurried to the airport to welcome the Wildcats. Super booster George Kalil poured Arizona athletic director Cedric Dempsey a glass of champagne and toasted the Wildcats as they disembarked from the plane.

Since then, Arizona has chosen to cut down a net rather than sip champagne every time.