Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd knew there would be days like this when the Wildcats signed up to play in the Big 12.
A bruising second half saw Arizona go silent over the five minutes as Texas Tech pulled away for a 70-54 victory. The loss marked Arizona’s first defeat in Big 12 play.
“Playing Texas Tech I knew was going to be a physical game, and I assumed it probably wasn’t going to be a high scoring game,” Lloyd said.
Our full recap of the game can be found here. Below is what Lloyd had to say after the game.
Lloyd on playing on the road in Lubbock: “Congrats to Texas Tech. Obviously they’re a really good program. And they played their tails off today. It’s a great environment, it’s my first time to Lubbock. I’m sure I’ll be back here a few more times. We’re going to bounce back from this, we’re not going to hang our heads. It comes when you’re playing playing a tough conference, playing on the road. You’re going to have some days like this, and we’re not going to dwell on it. We’ll evaluate it and find ways we we can improve, but it’s onward and upward.”
On going cold over the final five minutes: “Well, I mean, listen, hey, we’re right there five minutes to go into five point game. I think even right before that, we had a couple of looks to tie it from three. I think Caleb had one. I think Deli had one. And you make one of those, and maybe it changes. But we didn’t, we didn’t. And then sometimes it just kind of gets away from you. It goes from you. It goes from five to eight real quick. And then once you’re looking at couple minutes in an eight point game, I mean, it gets tough and you miss another shot, they control the possession, they get free throws. It just, it’s just kind of how you can extend the lead sometimes at the end of the game. And, yeah, I’ll have to go and watch it, but they made a couple good shots. Got a couple, we tried press, and they called a quick touch foul, which they really hadn’t called all game. That’s tough, because we weren’t trying to foul. You want to see if your press can work for you. And I think that puts it from like seven to nine. That’s tough.”
On whether fatigue played a role: “I mean, maybe slight fatigue. But they’re playing at home, where we’re playing on the road, and I thought our guys did a great job. We’re not playing well. And we’ll give our opponent some credit for that, a lot of credit for that, but we hung in there, we hung in there, we hung in there, and we gave ourselves a chance. And that’s what we’re hoping to do. And it just kind of got away from us at the end there a little bit. And hopefully we can learn from it. And I’m sure we’re going to be in this situation again, I give our guys a lot of credit. It’s a lot better to be in the situation we were. And kind of to have had the last few minutes not go your way, then kind of whether that happens in the first half or early in the second half, and you’re playing from 14 back with a lot of time left. So I was proud of our guys for hanging with it. I thought that shows something, especially when we weren’t shooting or playing well.”
On whether this is the kind of game he envisioned in the Big 12: “Playing Texas Tech I knew was going to be a physical game, and I assumed it probably wasn’t going to be a high scoring game. And they did a good job. They get a job. And we’re not going to be able to come and shoot 30 some percent on the road and feel good about it and get you out rebounded by in the teens. It’s just not a winning formula.”
On getting outrebounded: “They do a good job spacing the floor and they play with great effort on those situations. You’re forcing them to shoot some tough twos, and they missed a lot of them. The plan worked but at the end of the day you got to get the rebound. But they also know they’re going to shoot those shots, and they have two guys on the backside and you maybe have a big coming over to help a little bit. So you end up kind of with two versus two verse one and a half on some of those rebounds. Because if you probably look out on the backside on film, they probably got a great shooter that one of your guys is a little tentative to leave, and that’s how it works. I mean, that that’s just, it’s a good scheme by then, and the way you combat it is, you just got to get a little bit tougher. Our four men who are good players, I think Trey Townsend and Carter Bryant I don’t know, they played quite a few minutes together tonight. They didn’t have enough rebound. So individually, hopefully they can pick that.”
On Caleb Love’s inefficient outing: “Play better. Caleb’s a good player. He’s got to start playing better. A couple games ago he had 33 points , eight assists, five rebounds, one of the only guys ever to do it in college basketball. So he’s got to play better. I mean, he’ll find his way. We’re going to hang with him. And I know it’s not coming easy sometimes for him, but he’s a good player, and, and, and he’ll play better. He’ll play better, for sure.”
On Tobe Awaka playing more than Henri Veesaar: “I mean, Tobe is a beast. And I was proud of him for the way he competed. He kept us in that game And Henri he’s obviously been playing well, didn’t play good tonight. I thought in the first half, we had some shots right around the basket that we got to finish. And they’re probably not as easy as they look, but you have the wherewithal to get the ball there. You got to find a way to finish or get fouled. And they did a good job having a low hole health and, and so we’ve kind of always had a guy underneath us, and just a lot of those shots just kind of bounced out, but I think we can do better in that area.”
On the lack of familiarity playing on the road in the Big 12: “I don’t know if it’s strange, but it’s a challenge, you know? I mean, you’re having a lot of teams you’ve never played before. Every game is a fresh, new prep and, you just don’t have the familiarity. When you’re new in the conference we got, I guess, minus, the three teams that came with us. So what’s that? We have 12 new scouts every time. The schools that have been here for a minute, you know they got four. So there is challenge. You figure out how to play against people, and you figure out what works and doesn’t work and and hopefully we’ll learn from that. And traditionally, we’ve been a program that we learn from things over time, so I’m looking forward to playing them again.”
On why Awaka overtook Veesaar in minutes: “The situation was he was playing better than Henri today, and he was rebounding his butt off. It wasn’t a hard decision. There was no, I didn’t come into the game thinking I’m going to play him more than him. I mean, however the game plays out you’re gonna adapt accordingly.”
On Veesaar needing to stay aggressive: “I told Henri, ‘You just can’t assume.’ You don’t show up, you don’t score 19 last game, and to show up in the gym and score 21 today. Now you’re on the scout outing report. You got to fight. You got to fight. And then he just wasn’t great today, but he’s trending in the right direction. And obviously there’s always going to be a little bit of a regression to the mean. And now we got to figure out what his mean is. I mean, what is his mean? I don’t know. We’re going to find out, So that’s, that’s part of player development. player development. We’re gonna find out where his sweet spot is as a player and and what we can consistently count on on a nightly basis.”