SEATTLE—Down 15 points just over five minutes into an NCAA Tournament game, it was a 3-alarm fire on Arizona message boards. Yet Tommy Lloyd didn’t opt to call an early timeout in either an attempt to squash the momentum or lay into his team.

This isn’t the first time he’d been involved in a game like this, and he knew what was likely to happen next.

“I’ve been in so many of those games where I’ve been on the other end of them,” Lloyd said after his Wildcats beat Oregon 87-83 in the second round. “You almost feel like it’s inevitable that a good team’s going to come back on you.”

Arizona (24-12) is headed to the Sweet 16 for the second year in a row and third time in four seasons and will face Duke on Thursday in the East Region semifinals in Newark, NJ.

Our game recap can be found here, while below is what Lloyd and Arizona’s players said about the victory as well as the upcoming rematch with Duke:

Lloyd on playing Oregon again: “If you could take the outcome, the negative part of the outcome, away from either team, it’s fun competing against them. That was fun tonight. We had a lot of fun.”

On not panicking down 15: “We’ve really been talking about just kind of developing—I don’t want to say unemotional, but a real steady approach, zero-zero score, so-what-now-what-type mentality. These guys executed it to perfection today. To go down 14 or whatever we did early and then not panic and just realize how much time was left in the game and just to literally take a lead by halftime, that says something about this group.”

On Tobe Awaka: “He’s a beast, (11 rebounds) in the first half. Henri’s in foul trouble and those two become quite a duo. So Tobe had to carry a heavy load. Anything that is associated with his name is done with quality and class. And you might not know that by the way he plays because he’s rugged and he kicks ass out there, but this is one of the best human beings I’ve ever met.”

On Anthony Dell’Orso’s offensive contributions: “Delly hit a big three, had a nice little shake. Was that a dunk on that baseline drive or not? Are we going to give you a dunk on that one? Pretty close. Okay. But those free throws were huge. You step into a game where you haven’t been playing much down the stretch and then do that.”

On Caleb Love: “ Caleb was sensational. We’ve had a lot of conversations, and Caleb has so much potential and he’s so good already. What’s cool is how much better he can get. And his approach today, just staying steady and staying unemotional. I think there was a couple ball-handling errors I probably would have taken back. But I’m picky. I was just really proud of how he came out and played in that moment. It just says so much to me about his development as a player and a person, and he was obviously the best player on the floor today, and he was able to carry us to victory. So thanks to C-Love for that.”

On Love as a leader: “Caleb’s really grown in his leadership role. I think that as a young player, the spotlight was on him in such a way that—the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. I think for a long portion of his career Caleb kind of had to just take care of himself, which I totally get, I totally understand. But this year I’ve really seen him kind of grow into that leader role and be more mature about it. He’s unbelievable with his teammates. I get asked a lot what it’s like to coach Caleb, and I just tell them it’s really simple. I’ve never had one bad experience. Never had one bad experience. I’ve never had one talk-back, never had one bad body language with me, never had anything like that.

“So he’s been a great gentleman for me to coach. And I don’t know if people—people that have this perception of him otherwise just don’t know him. I’m really proud of the leader he’s become. I told Caleb coming into this tournament, even this tournament’s not going to define his career or make his life better. He’s been through so much already. He’s so ready for the next step. I think when this college thing ends for him, I’ll be sad because I’m going to lose a great player, but I’m also going to be happy for him, and I think he’s going to have a sense of relief and he’s going to kind of—a burden is going to be lifted from him in his life and he’s going to be able to move forward into his next phase of his life and his basketball career and I don’t see any way he’s going to be denied from reaching his dreams.”

But hey, listen, Nate Bittle is a great player. We couldn’t keep him off his left shoulder. We tried, we tried, but he just is — he’s got a way of getting to it and he kind of has an awkwardness to that hook shot, but man, it’s so effective. So yeah, just tip our hat to him and his player development’s been really cool to watch.

On if he felt like screaming at the team down 19-4: “No, no, I don’t think so. You kind of blank out in some of those moments. I just think we wanted to stay steady. I knew there was so much time in the game and so many possessions, you just didn’t want to dig a deeper hole. I felt like if we cut it to nine, then seven. I mean, I’ve been in so many of those games where I’ve been on the other end of them. You almost feel like it’s inevitable that a good team’s going to come back on you.

So I wanted (Oregon) to feel that and I wanted our guys just to hang with it. I think we kind of tried some things with the game plan, maybe a little bit too much, too much scheme, early, but I think it was the right plan and when our guys got settled into executing it, I think it was pretty effective. And maybe you saw that after kind of that, those first two media timeouts. We kind of settled into executing our plan and we really didn’t make any adjustments from the plan A that we had coming in the game. So Jack Murphy and TJ Benson and Rem (Bakamus) did a great job kind of giving our guys a winning plan tonight.”

On if Love is Arizona’s closer: “For sure. He’s our closer, but he’s not our only one. I’m a big believer, and obviously, you want to have a guy that’s comfortable with the ball in his hands and not afraid in those moments. But I’ve also just thought the best way to close games is make the right basketball play.

“Speaking of closing, I guess we had a 3-on-1 fast-break where two guys went for the alley-oop and it didn’t go in, and my good friend, Steve Kerr, texted me. Like, what was the hell was up with that three on one? And I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, Coach. And he was like, well, just so you feel better, Draymond (Green) would have did the same thing and (Steph Curry) would have pulled up and shot a three.

“So I mean, I’ve always felt like at Arizona, my four years, we’ve lived on the edge of excitement and maybe there’s times I wish we had a little bit more conservative approach to things, but I also think that let-it-rip mentality is kind of who we are, and I think it’s provided way more positives and way more benefits than negatives for us.”

On Jaden Bradley’s composure: “He’s been awesome. He had 12 tonight, 12 and just steady, four assists and three steals. I mean, he impacts winning and he has a real maturity to him and a steadiness. What did he have, like, 19 or 20 last game? I mean, like, he’s just really grown into a great player. He really is calm. He really is calm. I even had a ref come up to me last game and he said, I’m having problems with 0 and I’m like, what? Him? I’m not used to guys saying that, he’s usually so calm and really doesn’t interact with the officials, so Jaden’s the consummate point guard, and he’s a great point guard, we’re lucky to have him, and I’m really proud of how he’s developed as a player and how he competes, and for him to kind of be kind of the silent leader of our team.”

Love on the win: “Super satisfying. Just knowing that this group, what we went through, the adversity, it’s built us for these moments. Us going down early, we never panicked, we never altered anything. I just think we were so poised throughout that whole game, and nobody was worried about anything but finishing out the game and winning the game. So I give credit to my teammates, my coaches. (Oregon) had a great game plan coming into the game and it was shaky early, but that’s what these games are about. You’re going to face adversity but how do you bounce back. And like Coach said, we got a so-what-now-what mentality and that’s what came out tonight.”

On facing Duke for the 10th time: “It’s a big matchup because it’s the next game. It’s the only game that matters. Obviously, our mind was focused on Oregon and we got it done and now we’re going to get in the film room and lock in on Duke and what they do. Obviously, they’re a great team, they’re well coached, and we’ll be ready for them when the time comes.”

Love on his faith: “It plays a big part. I give credit to my mom for instilling that in me early as a child. And just trusting in God and keeping my faith in him that’s what keeps me steady and poised. In every situation, knowing that whatever outcome it is, he’s going to have me covered. And so I give all my credit to God, and my relationship with him has grown over the course of my college career. And I’ll be honest and say it’s been up-and-down, but I say this past year I’ve really grown with my faith in him.”

Dell’Orso on being in March Madness: “This experience has been great. Obviously, the wins help. But, yeah, growing up I didn’t really know much about it, didn’t know much about college in general. But as I kind of got older and started my freshman year and stuff, I realized how big of a deal it was. You go through a long season, you play two games every week just to get to this moment. So it’s been great, the energy from the crowd is there. We have a great fanbase that’s with us, so it feels like we’re at a home game pretty much every time. This experience has been great. There’s no one else I would rather do it with apart from these guys, but it’s so great to get that win and get to the Sweet 16.”

On his experience playing with Love: “Coming in, you hear all these preconceived notions about UNC and Caleb and that whole deal, but for me, I never judged him, never had any thoughts of my own until I want to meet him myself and get the real deal. And I think people don’t have that because they don’t ever get the chance to meet him and get to really know him.

On the court throughout this year, we’ve been super connected in the fact that we play a similar position, we are getting cross-matched and doing different represents, and we workout every day together, every morning. Like, I’m probably the closest with him. He’s an unbelievable leader, whether it’s his voice or his actions or him leading the way or as simple as him being in a timeout and telling everyone to calm down and relax because we got this.

“In that 14- or 15-point deficit, how are we so poised? We’re so poised because guys like Caleb that have the stage like that are able to stay calm, makes everyone else calm. So that’s a credit to Caleb, that’s a credit to how he’s kind of been brought up and stuff like that, but if you want to describe him as a leader, that’s how I’ll describe him. He steadies the ship for everyone.”

Awaka on defending Nate Bittle: “I mean, just a credit to the coaching staff. They did a great job in terms of scout, knowing what he likes to do. I think on our part, me and Henri did a good job of sort of chesting him up, making his catches difficult. PK (assistant Przemek Karnowski) earlier today did a great job of just sort of giving me the rundown of what he likes to do in the post, what his go-to move is, what his counter is, and things like that. So we had a great preparation during shoot-around and I think all that really helped in game.”

Carter Bryant on what was said when down 15: “We gotta throw a punch at least. We knew that stuff was going to get going for us. We’re such a good basketball team, we have such a veteran that, at the end of the game we’d be able to get back in this game.”

On his first Sweet 16: “I can’t wait to compete in it. We’re already part of some of the top 2 percent of people that play collegiate basketball, so for us to be in the position to go to a Sweet 16, that’s even a smaller amount. So I think the biggest thing for us is we have to embrace it because you don’t get this opportunity too many times.”

On how much he’s improved since the first Duke game: “Everybody’s improved so much. My approach mentally and emotionally is very different. I think at the beginning of this season, I was a player that very was very dependent on my emotions as a player. If I was making shots, if I turned the ball over I would get low, like just those sort of things that obviously young players do all the time. For me, I think I’ve grown so much. I think Coach Lloyd and the staff, along with my teammates, have done a great job of telling me, like yo, you’re a great player, you just have to do what you do, you can’t allow your confidence to fluctuate.”

On getting to play against Cooper Flagg again: “You want to compete against the best. He’s a hell of a player. And I mean, Duke has a ton of great players. You’ve seen they’ve been a well-oiled machine all the way through this year, even when they’ve had guys down. So I think for us, the biggest thing is just focus on what’s tomorrow, watching film, going back from this game, seeing what mistakes we have. Because obviously we had a ton of mistakes. The game was close, and closer than it should have been. So for us moving forward, understanding that’s a really good basketball team, but we had so many things we could eliminate in terms of mistakes.”

KJ Lewis on his technical for hanging on the rim: “I didn’t know that was a T, if I did I wouldn’t have done it. I should have made the dunk, I don’t know what I was doing.”

On reminding his players to stay calm when calls aren’t going their way: “For me, I think my emotions get the best of me and let it dictate the next play early in the year. It was just my teammates, my coaching stuff, and obviously my circle, they just remind me to stay calm, stay level headed and just have that next play mentality. And I kind of just got to continue to do that. I’m gonna play better and our team is gonna play better when we do that.”

On Love putting up big numbers against Oregon: “I think he likes going duck hunting.”

On the first Duke game: “I think it was a close game for majority of the game. I think we let it slip away down the stretch. But again, that was early in the year when we were kind of figuring out how to close out games. They’re a tough team, but I think we match up pretty well. And obviously it’s going to be a whole full 40-minute game, but I’m super excited. We’re, you know, we’re going to be the best prepared as we can.”

Bradley on not panicking when down big early: “It’s a game of runs, and we know we were gonna go on our run. Coach kept saying it, and the players, we believe in each other.”

On making a 3rd straight Sweet 16: “I’ve been talking about that to myself, but I haven’t got over the hump yet. And I feel like this is the year, for sure.”

On the first Duke game: “We came out to a hot start, and then I think we had some foul trouble. They have some great players. They hit big-time shots, and we know they got a lot of offensive power over there, and we know we’re gonna have to play some great defense.”

On if Arizona was as good then as it is now: “Not at all. We’re so connected now and the ball is moving, everybody’s touching it, and we just got better on defense. We still have some lapses here and there but overall we’re great there.”