What a difference five days can make. After falling to the Kansas Jayhawks in Lawrence on Saturday, the Arizona Wildcats took down KU 88-77 in the Big 12 Tournament quarterfinals Thursday night in Kansas City.
Whereas Kansas had to play Wednesday in an overtime thriller against UCF, Arizona as the No. 3 seed got a double bye. The extra rest and time to prepare made a difference.
“That’s why you play a 20-game regular season, and fortunately for our guys we earned the double bye,” Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd said after the game. “When you earn something like that, hopefully you can take advantage of it. I’m sure it helped us a little bit today.”
Our recap of the game can be found here. Below are what Lloyd, Henri Veesaar and Trey Townsend had to say about the win.
Lloyd on Arizona bouncing back from its loss at Kansas: “Just really proud our guys. Obviously, you know, we have had — this game we’ve really looked forward to playing it since last Saturday. We had an awesome introduction to the Big 12 in Lawrence, Kansas, and it was a similar game today and they kinda made the run at the end. It kind of left a bad taste in our mouth, but by no means does that mean that just because you lost the last one the next one is going to be given to you. So our guys did a great job preparing and making it happen, and proud of our guys overall. This has been a resilient group. We’ve had some tough days, but we’re here for it, so I’m really proud of how the guys came out and played today.”
On Arizona perhaps playing selfish basketball at Kansas and the difference between games: “I don’t know if there was a lot of selfish. Maybe I said that. That’s a coach in the heat of the moment. I just thought we could make some better decisions. When we have certainties and one of our certainties has always been fundamentals, we can count on fundamentals and IQ, it’s a game-changer for us. Sometimes those will get lost in maybe hunting too aggressively, hunting shots, or getting in the paint and not playing on two feet. I thought our guys did a good job of settling in today. Trey, for instance, had a couple of — I was telling him, I think you can drive the ball on these guys. He took a three and it was wide open, and then I told him that. It wasn’t a bad shot, but then the next possession I think in the first half he drove it and he had a dunk attempt. That’s when him and Adams kind of met at the rim. I think once he saw that and settled in played on two feet he was just a difference maker. So when we can make those kind of adjustments it’s a game changer for us.”
On setting the starting lineup: “Listen, I’m not Nostra-Thomas. Isn’t that what you called me before? I’m just a coach. I just felt like maybe it would be the right move today. Trey has been trending in the right direction and Trey is a first-class guy. I mean, last year he’s the mid-main National Player of the Year. He comes to Arizona, has some success, but then has some struggle. I moved the lineup around and he was nothing but classy the whole time. I felt like he was trending in the right direction and I felt it was the right move. And Henri, I asked Henri about it a couple days ago and he totally easily said, Coach, I’m okay with anything. I don’t care what you do. You do whatever you think is best for the team. I will start. I will come off the bench. I will be the 8th guy, the 9th guy, the 6th guy, whatever you want me to be. We have guys that understand it takes a group and more than just a starting five.”
On the bench production: “Well, we make no bones about it. We don’t mind playing games in the paint. It’s kinda how we’re built. And we like throwing in a few threes here and there, too. But we have no problem, you know, playing in the paint. I think if you look at the guys coming off the bench today for us, you know, you had — obviously Carter Bryant is an elite talent. You have Henri who has gained experience and really talented. And you have KJ Lewis who is a game-changer with his energy and effort. Those are three really good players. When you can bring guys like that off your bench and have a team that settles into executing a game plan with poise, I think that’s a good formula, and these guys showed something tonight.”
On whether KU going to overtime the previous game affected Arizona’s game plan: “You can talk yourself into everything but, you know, I saw that some of their players played a lot of minutes. The thing to me, you know, that I thought was — I wasn’t worried about fatigue, but I was like, how can they play 38 and 45 minutes and not be in foul trouble? We’ve got to play more aggressive and get these dudes in foul trouble. So that was more my approach, is I wanted to limit their minutes with foul trouble. And, hey, that’s why you play a 20-game regular season, and fortunately for our guys we earned the double bye. When you earn something like that, hopefully you can take advantage of it. I’m sure it helped us a little bit today.”
On facing Texas Tech in the semifinals: “They’re one of the most disciplined teams in the country. They know what they want to do and they’re able to execute it with a lot of certainty. When they make a plan they have a conviction to stick with it and it’s really impressive. Obviously they’re playing with great confidence. They’re shooting the ball well. They have two guys that are match-up problems, and they’re big guys, they’re 4 and their 5. It’s just a great team and they’re having a great season. Guys, talk to these guys. I’m boring. They were the guys out there performing today. I was just able to enjoy the show.”
On Veesaar’s ability to finish plays: “I don’t know if the shots were easy, but I thought Henri did a great job with his physicality and finishing, and that’s something we have been stressing and those were tough finishes. Henri deserves a lot of credit for finding a way to stay on balance and get it up and in.
Veesaar on what Arizona did differently on defense: “We just followed the plan. We just had played them so we knew their tendencies. I think we concentrated all week playing for them — against them, and at their place we left with a bad taste in our mouth like Coach said before, and we definitely wanted to play against them and execute the plan the way we needed to.”
On Arizona’s guard play: “The guards did a great job getting through the ball screens and helping us bigs. We were able to recover quicker, and at the end of the game that made a huge difference for us.”
On his big scoring night: “My teammates put me in the right spot to score. They made easy passes, I got easy layups, easy shots. They got me the ball down low, I got to the paint, and then I think playing off two feet helped me, definitely.”
Townsend on what Arizona did better defensively:” I mean, obviously just having played them we had a sense of how they did things offensively. We thought we had a great game plan there; obviously didn’t go our way. Coach Murph led the scout and we made some changes and we really stuck to that plan today. We didn’t go off, do our own thing, what is players thought was best.”
On Arizona’s ability to execute in key moments: “I mean, I felt it was a great basketball game. It was very physical and it comes down to the plan that we had going into it. For me trying to do the best I can to lead through those moments because this is my last postseason playing college basketball, I don’t have any eligibility left after this year. So really locking in on playing every game like it’s the last time that I’m going to step on to the court and I’m trying to pass it on to these guys so they can play with that mindset. It’s win or go home and we executed that game plan and played with our hearts down the stretch.”