Arizona’s Tommy Lloyd Woke Up Confused, and That’s Exactly When You Know a Team Is Ready
Tommy Lloyd didn’t even remember his team had already won. Two days after Arizona demolished Arkansas in the Sweet 16, the Wildcats head coach woke up in San Jose completely disoriented, unsure if his team was still playing in that round or had already moved on. Then it hit him: they’d beaten Purdue. They were going to the Final Four. And somehow, that fog in his brain told him everything he needed to know about his team’s state of mind.
The Grind That Gets You Here
Arizona has been on the road nonstop. Since their last home game on March 2, the Wildcats have played seven games straight. That’s the kind of schedule that breaks most teams mentally, the kind of thing that makes you forget which round you’re in. But Lloyd? He took that confusion as a sign of something bigger: complete confidence.
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“I knew we were all right,” Lloyd said after the Elite Eight win, “because I knew we weren’t making too big of a deal out of this.”
That’s not overconfidence talking. That’s a team so locked in on what’s next that they’re not even pausing to celebrate what they just did. That’s dangerous.
A Quarter Century Since Glory
Arizona hasn’t reached the Final Four since 2001. For a basketball-obsessed fan base in Tucson, that’s an entire generation. Lloyd’s team had made the Sweet 16 in three of the four seasons before this run, so they were knocking on the door. Now they’ve finally kicked it in, and one win stands between them and a championship game appearance…