For a season opener against an overmatched opponent, it was a pretty good result. But it was far from perfect, and won’t cut it when Arizona plays bigger and better teams down the line.
That’s okay, UA coach Tommy Lloyd said after Monday’s 93-64 win over Canisius, because now the Wildcats can learn from it before their next game and beyond.
“I think maybe we got a little bit of offensively sensitive today,” Lloyd said. “We missed some shots, missed some layups, and I just felt like our overall effort kind of dipped. It’s going to be a great teaching tool. I don’t love that it happened, but it did, so we’re going to teach to it. I think we can play a little bit tougher, we can play a little bit harder, we can finish a little bit stronger inside. The guys missed a few layups that maybe kind of the wind went out of the sails a little bit.”
Our game recap can be found here. Below is what else Lloyd and guards Jaden Bradley and KJ Lewis said afterwards:
On going with preset lineups instead of random ones: “I’m going to try to figure out how to play some effective lineups. I probably got to sit down the next few days and kind of map things out a little bit better so I end up there with the right combinations. I’ve told you forever, I kind of like to let it happen naturally. And I’m probably at a point where I probably got to get involved and kind of try to play to our strengths a little bit more.”
On Canisius playing a lot of zone: “I thought they may zone a little. I mean, I didn’t expect them to zone that much, but it was okay. All in all, I’m not worried about our own offense with this group. I think we’ll be fine, but definitely we can continue to work on that.”
On the press: “We didn’t work on it all summer just for Canisius. I’m hoping that’s something we can utilize over the course of the year, and I’ll just have to get a feel for it.I think we could have been a little bit more aggressive and opportunistic. I thought it was effective … but I also felt like there was a few trap opportunities in there we can get a little bit better at. And what you’re really trying to establish first, if you want to be able to do that after made baskets and stuff, the biggest thing is, can you get matched up once it comes over half court? So we spent a lot of time trying to figure that out. And now maybe we can be a little bit more aggressive up front. I’m excited to see it. Maybe there’s a few other things up our sleeve, too.”
On if Arizona tried to do too much in the first game: “When you do your install, sometimes a coach you maybe put too many things in, and you expose your guys to too many things, and then you kind of got to drill down and go back to things, a second, a third, a fourth, a fifth time. And then you start getting better at it, and then you start teaching it better. I’ve probably been installing too many things intentionally, and maybe we’re a little bit watered down, but there’s a method to it. Now we got to go back and you get live reps in the game, and you watch them and film. Okay, they’re not understanding this. We need to get better at that, so now you can attack specific areas. It’s not like it’s an effective way, I think, to teach and learn, because it’s not like it’s the first time they’ve heard. We worked on it three weeks ago or two weeks ago or one week ago, and then now they’re hearing it again, and you’re kind of cleaning it up.”
On having a lot of offensive options: “I just want to make sure that we’re playing as a connected team. And I think for the most part we did tonight. I might also have to have a little grace on some of these guys. First game, it was even a little different than an exhibition game. Maybe some guys didn’t respond well enough to a missed shot or a turnover, things like that, and I think they’ll get a little bit more comfortable.”
On what he said to Henri Veesaar after he was fouled hard: “My lesson there was, I think the teaching moment is, okay, the guy intentionally fouled you. So, they’re going to review it, probably call it a flagrant. Don’t get his face. Let it just turn into a total net positive for us. Today, it might not matter, but I’m sure at some point in the season, there’s going to be a heated moment on the road. And how do your guys respond? Listen, it’s a fine line. I mean, I get it. Guys get pissed. Something like that happens, you want to respond, but you also got to calculate winning into the equation.”
On Carter Bryant’s debut: “Carter played with some physicality, which was good to see. Every second Carter’s on the court, there’s a lot of teaching moments, and he’s getting better by the day. He needs these experiences, positive and negative, to grow from. All the guys do. You learn from good things, you learn from bad things and our job as a staff is to help them understand that stuff.”
On the backcourt experience: b”Anytime you’re a program like Arizona and you have a group of guards that have played together one year come back the next year, it’s pretty rare, right? In this day and age. So to have those guys, I feel like you’re playing with veterans, juniors and seniors. They’re veteran players and they’ve really grown together as players, and they really support each other. So that was good to see.”
On giving up some open looks in the 2nd half: “I don’t know how many times we’re going to play fives that are that dedicated to pick and pop, and if they are, as we get deeper in the season, we’ll have a scheme, we’ll have a plan. Today I felt it would be better for us to kind of figure it out on the fly and and we did. We had a lot of great possessions where we were really aggressive up on the ball and our coverage, and whether we slowed down the pass or created a turnover. Sometimes they kind of put us in a rotation, and maybe one guy didn’t rotate. And, like I said, awesome to learn from.”
On starting out up 23-4 and letting off the gas: “Human nature can be powerful, and that second unit coming in—obviously, we played 10 guys tonight a lot of them are new to the program or new to their roles. I wanted to give them a little benefit of the doubt. Hopefully we can come up with a way to kind of mix and match some of those lineups so we don’t end up there with just a cut and dry these five are in, these five are out. I don’t know if we want to do it that way. I think there’s a lot of cohesion amongst a lot of lineups. We don’t just need to play group A and group B. So I love when we get off to a good start. That doesn’t mean by any stretch that 20-4 means you’re going to be up 40-8, and then you’re going to be up 80 to 16. This is not how it works. I wish it did sometimes, but it doesn’t. We’ll have to go back and look at why there was a little bit of a drop off, whether it was effort or execution.”
On Caleb Love: “I just want Caleb making great basketball plays over and over and over again. And he’s really mature. And I thought he looked really good tonight. I love the way he played under control and on balance. the role he played alongside Jaden and KJ just, it just seems like it felt really good, and the pieces fit together. I tell Caleb, we have our own conversations about what I’m looking for, and I’ll keep those between us, but I definitely want him to understand that everything doesn’t have to end and start with him.”
On Motiejus Krivas’ return: “He played 10 minutes tonight, I think that was the goal, just to kind of keep him there. It’s probably the most he’s went up and down consecutively, even considering practices. I think he’s on target. We have another good week to kind of see where he’s at and continue to push and grow him. And obviously, he’s a really good player. I think there’s a layup or two that I would have liked to see him cash in on. Maybe I want a little bit too much sometimes, but this is the deal. I know that kid’s going to be able to deliver. I have high expectations for him.”
On using Krivas and Veesaar together: “They’re just good basketball players, good feel for the game. Obviously they have great size. It’ll be interesting to see over the course of the season how much we can do that. Maybe it’s really effective. So I’m going to keep my eyes on it, and we’ll figure out things maybe we can run with them on the court together. You love the size, and you love that both of them are comfortable with the ball in their hands, comfortable passing, both of them impacting the game at the rim at both ends of the floor.”
On if Emmanuel Stephen will redshirt: “We haven’t made a decision. I think we’re still talking. That’s not an easy decision for young men to make. They’ve been playing their whole lives and they’re excited to be here. But it’s my job to kind of help him see reality and think of the big picture a little bit, and also think the big picture for the program as well. I’m telling you, he’s done a great job. He’s made a lot of progress. He’s just got some guys ahead of him, but every one of those bigs that are playing now, at some point, they had someone ahead of them in the program. This is kind of how college basketball works.”
Bradley on the first game: “Getting back after it, having our full roster. Seeing all our guys play together in McKale, it felt good.”
On Arizona’s roster flexibility: “I just feel like we got so many different lineups we can play. Whatever Coach wants at the time, we can play that.”
On the full-court press: “I just feel like as a team we’re so active on the defensive side, we’ve got high energy, so I feel like that press can turn teams over and create easy offense for us.”
Lewis on the first game: “It feels good, just to get back out there, especially with this new team and everything that we put in during the summer. So it feels great.”
On Krivas’ return: “We’ve seen him work out every day after practice when he was getting recovered. I think he’s ready, they’re just being cautious with him.”
On the backcourt’s chemistry: “It’s not new to us, we’ve all been in the gym with each other over the summer. It’s good to get out there, get that first one out of the way. We’re going to watch film and see how we can grow as a trio.”
On the key to playing against a zone: “Ball movement and player movement. Something that we naturally do here. This is the most we’ve been zoned out of the exhibitions. We’re going to be prepared for whatever the defense throws at us.”