TUCSON - Seven months after red and blue confetti covered Tommy Lloyd and his Arizona team in San Jose, the Wildcats are back in the spotlight with a new roster and the same old burden: expectations.
That Elite Eight win over Purdue, a 79-64 clincher that sent Arizona to its first Final Four since 2001, capped a 25-year wait and gave the program a moment its fans had been chasing for generations. But after a long offseason, Lloyd said that run already feels far away.
“Really long and slow, but it was awesome,” Lloyd said after Arizona’s 85-54 exhibition win over Eastern Washington. “That seems so long ago that it’s hard for me to even think about it.”
Now the focus shifts to a fresh season that begins Nov. 2 in Las Vegas, where Arizona opens against old Pac-12 rival UCLA at T-Mobile Arena at 8 p.m. MST. The Wildcats enter with plenty of outside belief behind them: Big 12 coaches picked them to repeat as league champions, and the AP slotted them No. 5 in its preseason poll.
Lloyd has made it clear he doesn’t want his team hiding from any of that. He called preseason rankings “fool’s gold,” but he also pushed back on the idea that pressure should be treated like a problem.
“The first thing with expectations is they’re a privilege,” Lloyd said at Big 12 Media Days. “I don’t think you should look at it any other way. I don’t think you need to guard against it.”
At the same time, he’s been hammering one message since the offseason began: last year is over.
“The sooner you can dissociate from what happened last year and understand this year is its own journey and kind of build from square one, I think, is the important thing,” Lloyd said. “There’s no skipping steps: having a successful season, building a team. You just have to kind of get back to square one and be OK with that.”
Arizona’s roster has changed plenty, but it isn’t starting from zero. Senior center Motiejus Krivas, the preseason Big 12 Player of the Year, returns after averaging 10.4 points and 8.2 rebounds while anchoring the defense. Ivan Kharchenkov, also a preseason all-conference forward, is back on the wing after putting up 10.4 points per game and bringing plenty of edge on defense.
Together, they give the Wildcats some continuity in the middle of a roster makeover.
“It’s not easy to rebuild almost a whole new team,” Krivas said. “I feel like with the good job this summer, it’s still an ongoing job.”
The new face drawing the most attention is freshman guard Caleb Holt, a Prolific Prep product ranked No. 2 overall in 247Sports’ composite rankings. Holt joins Krivas and Kharchenkov in what looks like a dangerous core for Arizona.
Lloyd, though, isn’t interested in limiting the conversation to three players.
“I’m not into ‘Big Three,’” Lloyd said. “I’m into ‘Big Seven or Eight.’”
One area that could look different this season is Arizona’s shot profile. Last year’s team leaned heavily on size and length to punish opponents inside. This group may need to stretch the floor more, especially if fifth-year forward RJ Godfrey remains unavailable.
Godfrey’s situation is tied up in the courts. He graduated high school in 2022, spent three seasons at Clemson and one at Georgia, and averaged 12 points per game on just over 61% shooting last season. With the NCAA moving toward a new five-year eligibility model, players who graduated in 2026 were ruled ineligible for a fifth year, and some, including Godfrey, have sought injunctions to play.
Lloyd made it clear he wants Godfrey back.
“You wish cooler heads to prevail and give these kids the opportunity that they deserve because these kids did nothing wrong,” Lloyd said of Godfrey. “They’re missing out on a life-changing opportunity.
“Getting him back would be a definite boost to our program and to our roster. I would feel pretty good, long-term, if we get him back.”
If Godfrey doesn’t return, Arizona may have to rely more on the perimeter. That would be a notable shift after the Wildcats ranked 334th in Division I with 5.9 made 3-pointers per game last season.
Holt believes the personnel is there to make that work.
“I think we have a whole bunch of guys from one through five that can shoot the ball,” Holt said. “It’s a lot for teams to guard us inside and out. I feel like the 3-point (game) makes us even more of a weapon, more than our inside presence.”
Even with a different style potentially taking shape, Lloyd says the program’s identity isn’t changing. The standard, the habits and the culture remain the foundation.
“It’s not just something we talk about. It’s something you have to do,” Lloyd said.
“Building a culture is a living organism. It’s not words on paper.
We’re very intentional with building our culture, valuing it and understanding what it means to us. It’s a huge part of what we do on a daily basis.”
That approach has kept Arizona consistent under Lloyd. Since he arrived in Tucson in 2021, the Wildcats have reached the NCAA Tournament every year and made it to the Sweet 16 or beyond in all but one season.
For Lloyd, another deep run won’t come from chasing the memory of last year’s breakthrough. It’ll come from repetition, resilience and the daily grind.
“It could happen again,” Lloyd said of another postseason surge. “But you have to do the work.
The work’s going to be painful. There’s going to be some tough moments.
There are growing pains.
“Tough moments and adversity create opportunity and learning. We have to take advantage of every one of those.”
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