According to KenPom.com, Monday’s matchup between Arizona and No. 3 Iowa State was ranked as the fifth-best game of the season today in terms of pregame “thrill score.” In other words, it was expected to be a great one and it lived up to the hype, even before Caleb Love hit a miracle 55-footer to force overtime.
The 86-75 win in OT moved the Wildcats (14-6, 8-1) into sole possession of second place in the Big 12, a half-game behind Houston, which comes to McKale Center on Feb. 15 in their only regular season meeting.
“Too early,” UA coach Tommy Lloyd said when asked about the conference title race. “We’re going to celebrate this one today. So we’re going to enjoy this one tonight. It was a great moment for Arizona basketball, and we’re going to celebrate that. I mean, our guys deserve it. Hasn’t been an easy year, but we’re trending in the right direction, so I’m thankful we found a way to get over the top.”
Our game recap can be found here. Below is what Lloyd, Love and Tobe Awaka said afterward:
Lloyd on the win: “Obviously an incredible game. And the first thing you say after something like that is, you tip your hat to your opponent. TJ (Otzelberg) has done an unbelievable job at Iowa State. It was kind of a back and forth game. I felt like we controlled it a few moments. I felt like they controlled it a little more than we did, and they were better down the stretch of regulation than we were. And you’re just trying to hang in there and give yourself a chance. I mean, a desperation 3 is probably not the chance you’re trying to give yourself. But it made for great theater.”
On Iowa State: “Crazy respect for Iowa State and their players, and listen: one of their best players is injured, so let’s make note of that. And that Lipsey kid, I don’t know what he’s got going on with his right hand, but he got big bandages on there and this and that and he plays his ass off. Crazy respect for them, and rest assured, they got something waiting for us when we go to Ames (on March 1).”
On his thoughts after Love hit the shot to force OT: “Holy shit. We practice halfcourters, we actually do for fun, and he’s decent at him. I’m probably a little bit better than him at the halfcourters. But he let it go and it’s online, and that’s all you can do. Online, don’t leave it short and when it went in it was pretty amazing.”
On buzzer beaters: “Moments like that are crazy. You can’t script that stuff. I don’t know if that’s luck, to be honest with you, probably a little bit, maybe a little bit of just belief. But actually racking my brain, I’ve been probably involved in more of those games that I know, a couple of recent ones. Jalen Suggs, Final Four (against) UCLA. I think that was for the win, which was nice, a pretty way to end. And then Arizona State a couple years ago here hit that on us. It happens. It’s devastating for Iowa State, because they did a lot of things to to deserve the win, it just happens sometimes.”
On Love getting hot late after struggling most of the game: “Caleb did a great job. You guys know I love that kid, and I’m here with it, and I’m here for him, and that’s my job. My job is not to run away from the players that I’ve helped choose to be part of this program. Sometimes it can be easy as just make a few more shots, but you got to hang in there. You got to hang in there. And so for him to make that shot and come out in overtime and make the first two threes, let’s hope that takes a ton of pressure off of him, and he can move forward here and play great the rest of the year.”
On if he thought Love would make it: “Anybody shooting from half court I’m probably not great, no matter who it is. And I definitely didn’t think, ‘oh, he’s due, and he’s gonna make this one.’ It just happened. And then after that I think, sometimes that happens, and then you have a moment, and it maybe snaps you out of something, and you can perform from there. I’m going to fight and scratch and claw for all our guys. That was a great moment for him, but was even more impressive as the next two threes in overtime.”
On Iowa State missing a free throw to keep it a 3-point game: “I’ve always said, just from the days of sitting by myself watching basketball, or watching it with my dad, on TV, that the hardest free throw to make, the hardest free throws to make, are you go from up two toup four. How often do you watch a game a guy makes both of them? It’s amazing how often they miss to keep the suspense going. And (Jefferson) missed the first one, and made the second.”
On not going with the original final play (throwing ahead to Henri Veesaar): “We kind of looked at a play, it didn’t look great. The Plan B is throw it in, take a dribble or two and let it rip, and that’s what happened.”
On Arizona’s players often colliding with each other going for rebounds: “You have two things. You have effort and scheme. And with scheme goes execution. You can’t be good at one without the other. What’s funny in those rebounds, a lot of times you guys are getting knocked down. You know who’s knocking them down? It’s Tobe.”
On Awaka’s last few games: “The dude’s a beast. Played his ass off tonight. The dude’s crushing it, and he’s playing clean, and he’s doing great. He’s a beast, and he was amazing on the glass today. That really allowed us kind of to make some runs early in that game to kind of give us a little bit of separation so we could absorb a few runs later. So he needs a ton of credit. What he does is not an easy job. Going and getting balls against other big guys that are trying to block you out, that’s tough living. He probably gets overlooked a little bit in the scheme of the game because everyone is going to remember the shot and the overtime, but he’s the guy that put us in a position to hang in there.”
On other players stepping up in the win: “JB needs a ton of credit for running the show. Caleb for responding. KJ, that dude is a bad boy defensively. He’s everywhere, everywhere. I mean, relentless. And then Carter, Carter had … he’s had some better moments, but he had a real Arizona moment today. None of them were dunks, none of it was easy. I mean, to go 4 of 5 from 3 and put the nail in the coffin, in a game like this, it was pretty special.”
On how he would have evaluated the game had Love missed: “Ain’t living in that world. I’m not living in negative hypotheticals.”
On Iowa State’s defense: “They’re just great defensively. They got a great scheme where they’re really good on the sides. They always have somebody down in the low hole for help. They’re great in their rotations. You go to middle ball screen package, they have answers for it, which could be put two guys on it, going under screens, and then they switch. So you’re always kind of off balance a little bit in trying to figure out how to attack it. They’re obviously a great defensive team, and they have been for years, so nothing but respect.”
On if he thought this is what Big 12 basketball was going to be like: b”I knew the games were gonna be tough. I haven’t sat the last couple days for one second and thought, oh, we got this. We’re at home. I knew it was gonna be tough. After our game on Saturday, we played early. You got to go home. And I’m sure we all watched Kansas and Houston. How many times did Kansas have that game won? And Houston just kept hanging in there, hanging in there. So welcome to Big 12 basketball.”
On having some time off before going on the road: “It feels like a bye week because we don’t play until Saturday, so we get an extra day to kind of recover and build back up. But we know we have two tough road games. Listen, we have a rival on Saturday, and we all know how those games can go. And we’ve had some battles with Arizona State. I’m expecting nothing less. And then we got to go to one of the tougher places to play in the country, at BYU. I’m looking around the corner and wondering when (the schedule) lets up, but I don’t think it does.”
On building off this win: “Do you want to use this game as an event or do you want to make it part of your process? I hope we make it part of our process. An event, it starts, it ends, it’s over. Great, awesome. Process never ends, right? And so I hope you make this part of our process, is what I’m looking for. Make this part of our process, part of our growth, part of our developing traditions, learning from our mistakes. Because we know this, we’re gonna have to play Iowa State again, and we know they have something waiting for us. Let’s see how we look in another three or four weeks, whenever we play them.”
On the White Out crowd: “The crowd was awesome. I love the late night crowd in Tucson. The kids are home in bed. Hopefully the parents went out to a good happy hour before, had a few tall boys during the game, and then let’s go. Arizona basketball is special, and Tucson the community is special, and the combination of those things is amazing. And they showed up today, they showed up. They make an incredible difference. I encourage them to keep doing that.”
On the defense struggling in the second half: “I don’t think we’re a bad defensive team. I think we actually could be really good, and I think we’ve been great at moments. You’re just fighting for consistency. I mean, the first half of that game is a defensive battle both ways. Second half both teams kind of got going a little bit here and there, but they got going a little bit more than we did. They’re trying to figure out our scheme. We’re trying to figure out their scheme.”
On the physicality of the game but not a lot of fouls called: “It’s no different than us playing UCLA over the years. Mick’s teams are really physical. And then we have great officials. TJ and I are probably having conversations with them, little disagreements here and there. They’re great officials, and they know how they want to ref these games, and so sometimes you just have to adapt accordingly. I wish we had another call here and there, but that’s how it goes. I’m sure Iowa State feels the same thing. I thought it was physical, but I didn’t think it was crazy. I thought it was clean for the most part, and that’s what great officials do.”
Awaka on his reaction to Love’s shot: “I was ecstatic, jumping up and down, running on to the court. Just a credit to our team and how we work, and how we stuck with it throughout the whole game. Props to Caleb as well. He’s a guy that goes through a lot. There’s a lot of pressure on his back. He goes to a lot of things mentally, too, that people might not see behind closed doors. So just seeing how he rose to the occasion, seeing how he’s been dealing with ups and downs this season, he’s one of the hardest workers I know. So just to see that ball go in for him, and then show up during overtime as well. It was just a blessing to see.”
On his role: “To be a defensive anchor. Offensively setting great screens, scoring when the when the opportunity is presented, and then offensive rebounding as well. Just kind of doing all the dirty work, just taking pride in that.”
On being able to play more physical with the refs not calling a lot of fouls: “I picked up one during that first four minutes, so I was trying to be a bit more tentative. But once I saw that we could play more physical inside, they were kind of letting things go, I felt like it played into my favor, so I could be more aggressive chasing rebounds.”
On players colliding for rebounds: “All of us have it. Coach kind of preaches to be greedy with the rebounds. That was pretty evident today, but it’s just a testament to just sort of how we work and what it took to win.”
On Carter Bryant and KJ Lewis off the bench: “They were a huge spark. Carter hits some big threes down the stretch, and he was really key defensively with his versatility. And then KJ, like the energy he brings is second to none defensively. Just watching him play defense is like, it’s just amazing how he moves his feet, how he chests up the defender. Then obviously, when he’s driving to the basket, making those acrobatic finishes and things like that, it’s just so fun to see.”
Love on hitting the 55-footer: “Best moment of my life. You just gotta give credit to God. It obviously wasn’t going my way throughout the game, and you gotta trust your work. Stay confident in your work. Stay confident in yourself. And it ain’t over until it’s over.”
On being able to get hot late after struggling for most of the game: “Like I said, I trust my work. I put so much work in the gym, late nights, early mornings, and I believe in myself. I believe that every shot is going in. Every shot I feel like was, it felt good.”
On defending Iowa State’s Curtis Jones: “They gave me the task of guarding him, and I already knew I was going to be defensive-minded. That was my goal, to take him out the game. And KJ helped me as well. My other teammates made it tough on him. He’s a good player, but we definitely shut him up for sure.”
On carrying his shooting over to OT: “You hit a shot like that, you got to win in overtime. There’s no way we lose it. I’d seen the fans, some fans leave it again before the shot went in. But we give credit to our fans as well, because they showed up and showed up tonight, probably the best (crowd) that they had since I’ve been here. It was a great atmosphere tonight.”
On not getting down after all the misses: “I mean, every shot felt good. You just got to laugh if off because I make so many shots in practice and workouts, in games even. You just got to smile it off and embrace it. Because my teammates believe me. I believe in myself. And like I said, you just got to have the utmost confidence in yourself that the next one is going in.”
On Lloyd staying confident in him: “He kept tapping me like ‘next one is going in, next one is going in. Keep shooting.’”
On the play called for the end of regulation: “I heard the coach say they weren’t gonna foul. The original play was for Henri to get the ball and they kind of covered it. And so I was directly in front of the ball. And so I just got the ball and chucked it up. It felt good when it left my hands.”
On if Lloyd is better at half court shots: “For sure, he is. He makes a lot more halfcourters than I do.”
On what this win means: “I think gives us a lot of confidence. It’s definitely a testament to who we are as a team. We went through a lot in the beginning of the season, and we’ve kept coming back, kept coming back, kept fighting. We’re in a position now where we kind of control our destiny in the Big 12, and so we just got to continue to build off this and move forward.”
On the physicality of the game: “We knew it was going to be this kind of game. Our message has been gritty, gritty, gritty. We was definitely the gritty boys tonight.”
On not losing momentum with four days until the next game: “We won’t lose momentum. Coach Lloyd won’t let us lose momentum. We’ll probably take (Tuesday) off, regroup on Wednesday and get ready for ASU.”