SEATTLE—Arizona recorded its largest margin of victory in an NCAA Tournament game since 2006, beating Akron 93-65 in the first round on Friday evening at Climate Pledge Arena. But despite leading by double figures for the final 22-plus minutes, Tommy Lloyd wasn’t about to consider the game over until the final whistle despite the casual nature he often shows on the sidelines.
“These games are something you never take for granted,” Lloyd said. “I was sitting watching (Akron) the last two days in my hotel room, and you can feel the stress in your stomach.”
The Wildcats (23-12) outrebounded Akron 53-22, their third-most rebounds in an NCAA tourney game in school history and most since pulling down 57 against Nicholls State in 1998.
Our game recap can be found here. Below is what Lloyd and several Arizona players said about the victory:
Lloyd on being a big favorite: “I know how they feel when you’re seeded low and how they feel when you’re seeded high. That’s why our mantra, basically, is we threw the seeds out the window. These are two good teams playing. They both have had good seasons, earned their way here, and we had a job to do. Our guys did a very good job coming out, having our emotions in a good sweet spot. We weren’t too high, weren’t too low, and, obviously, we came out, made three threes to start the game. That’s a great start.”
On staying present: “Our mantra was Akron all week, and we kind of have some behind-the-scene things we talk about to keep us centered, and understand that we don’t need to get ahead of ourselves. And in games like this, it’s really important to control your emotions. You can’t get desperate. You can’t let the moment, you can’t let crowd noise, you can’t let one of their threes feel like six points. You just have to dial back your emotions again and then kind of stick to the plan, and I thought our guys were sensational at that tonight, so I was really proud of them.”
On if this was the best Arizona has looked: “Obviously it’s a great offensive game, and I mean, I want to see what else is out there. I’m not going to put any limitations on us. I challenged our guys before the game, asked them, could we outrebound these guys by 15? And I think the answer ended up being yes. I think we out rebounded them by 31. You give yourself a lot of margin for error if you can control the glass like that.
“But in order to do that, you got to get them to miss shots. When you miss shots, you got to have guys that assume you’re going to miss and pursue rebounds. So just a great moment-by-moment effort by our guys. They stacked up lots of good moments within possessions, and I thought it was just tight as we played defensively all year against a team like that. With our switches and our coverages, I thought our guys did a great job.”
On the Big 12 preparing Arizona for the NCAA Tournament: “I made no bones about it. It was a real challenge, but we loved every second of it. It was awesome. Going through it, I feel like it’s going to make me a better coach, which ultimately is going to help our program long-term. I feel like it got our players better.”
On his players’ improvement over the season: “For each one of those guys to step up today on this stage and play the way they did, it shows a lot of growth and development. So I’m really proud of the guys because ultimately that’s what you want. You want your players to continue to get better. I’m the keeper of gate, but they’re the stars, and so to see them go out and shine like that tonight was pretty special.”
On if he’s concerned with being 3 of 10 from the line: “No, we’re a great free throw shooting team. But if you would have told me we’d be 12 of 25 from 3 but 3 of 10 from the line, I might have taken that. We missed our first five free throws — or maybe six. I think this is one of our better free throw shooting teams we’ve had.
On possible areas of improvement: “The one stat that’s interesting to me is usually one of our goals is to we want to make more free throws than our opponents attempt. And we were on the flip side that have tonight, and that doesn’t happen too often to us. Then obviously we turned the ball over more than our opponent. Fortunately, we were really efficient offensively and shot the ball well from three and got the ball inside a bunch at the rim, so I guess there was some tradeoffs tonight. But I’m pretty sure we’ll be fine from the free throw line.”
On Jaden Bradley making 3 3-pointers: “I’ve had conversations with him and KJ a little bit on 3-point shooting, but at the end of the day, I really trust those guys, and I want them to know that I have confidence in them, and I want them to shoot threes when they’re comfortable. They don’t feel like they have to shoot them all the time. But if they could step up, the combination of those two, and make a few threes here and there, it’s really an added element because what teams are deciding to do is not guard ‘em.”
On Akron not defending Bradley and Lewis on the 3-point line: “That’s hard living, not guarding somebody, because you’re giving up open shots in a meaningful moment. They’re both savvy players. They understand how to drive and play offense. It’s not like this is the first time that somebody’s guarded them like that. I think KJ had a travel early, going a little bit too quick on it, but other than that, I thought they handled it great.”
Trey Townsend on his play of late: “Just seeing the ball go in, that obviously helps confidence. Throughout the struggles, my teammates and coaches never lost confidence in me. They kept putting me in good spots, and I started to convert them. But credit goes to my teammates, especially today. I was getting right at the hoop. They were passing it to me right where I got a wide-open shot. So it wasn’t too hard because I got great teammates.”
On his favorite dunk from a teammate: “I’ll give it to Carter’s little lob, I think, from Henri. His head was above the rim. I didn’t get quite that high on mine, but I appreciate the compliments from them.”
On the 9-0 start: “You always want to start making every single shot during every game, but we knew they were going to fight and come back. It’s March Madness. Everyone’s playing with their season on the line, so we didn’t let that inflate our egos too much because we knew they were going to battle, and I think our guys did a good job trying to stay as level as possible. Obviously, it boosted the momentum a little bit, but we had some adversity, and I think we battled great throughout the rest of the game.”
Carter Bryant on his favorite dunk: “I would say Trey’s putback dunk. Yeah, that was probably the best one.”
On the 2nd half: “It’s just trying to stay level, just making good play after good play, simple play after simple play, and I think when we make simple plays, we’re one of the best teams.”
On his block on one end and dunk on the other: “I think I just give all the credit to my teammates and the coaching staff. They have been getting on me all year to play harder, play harder, play harder, and I think obviously you want to play your best in March, but just making simple plays and making effort plays, they kind of stack up, and that’s why runs happen.”
KJ Lewis on his favorite dunk: “Definitely (Townsend’s) putback dunk. He dunked, so it was surprising.”
On the 1st half turnovers: “Coach just came in at halftime and told us we had to be smarter taking care of the ball. We pride ourselves on taking care of the ball, and I think the second half, we really locked in on the little mistakes that we were making in the first, and we were being more stronger with the ball when we were driving and not playing too loose with the ball, so getting off it early. So just easy adjustments that we got to go into the next game with.”
Caleb Love on the 1st half turnovers: “We just had to settle in the game. We got stripped. I traveled on one travel, we were stepping out of bounds, things like that. I don’t think it was playing too fast. I just feel like we just had to settle in, into the game and just calm down a little.”
On Akron leaving Arizona open for 3s all game: “That was crazy. You can’t leave us open, we’re going to make shots. Percentages don’t matter in March, we’ve just got to have confidence in ourselves.”
On Townsend: “He’s in his Oakland bag. We’ve been telling him we need that type of Trey out of him. When he’s playing like that we’re really hard to beat.”
Tobe Awaka on Bryant’s NCAA Tournament debut: “He’s a gym rat, it’s from all the work he’s put in.”
On Townsend: “I think he’s just playing free.”
Anthony Dell’Orso on the early mistakes: “We hadn’t played in a week, you’re getting in that routine of kind of playing every two, three days, and then you’re traveling and all that kind of stuff.It’s March Madness, wveryone’s super eager to play. So that kind of first thrill to get out there and get up and down, sometimes can have you almost on edge a little bit.”
On his first NCAA game: “Being out there was everything I could have imagined. The crowd was into it. The whole bench was into it, everyone was into it.”
Jaden Bradley on the rebounding advantage: “We put a big emphasis on winning on the glass. Tobe, everybody knows, is one of the best rebounders in the country. We got Henri, we got Carter, C-Love, KJ, just everybody in there, everybody just took care of their business.”
