LAS VEGAS—Monday night marked the 185th game for Tommy Lloyd as a head coach, but counting his 20-plus years as an assistant at Gonzaga he’s been on the bench for several hundred more. But only twice before had Lloyd been on the losing end of the first game of the season as a coach, and not since 2003.
The 84-75 loss to UCLA at T-Mobile Arena was the first defeat for Arizona in an opener since 2006, resulting in a feeling Wildcat fans haven’t had in a long time. But if you thought Lloyd was going
to freak out about the loss, think again.
“There’s no panic after one game,” Lloyd said in his postgame press conference. “These seasons are long, and I know everyone has high hopes and wants everything to go perfect. But when you’ve been doing this for enough years, you know you’re in a very imperfect business, so just get get comfortable being challenged. And so I’m honestly really looking forward to seeing how we respond.”
Our full game recap can be found here. Below is what Lloyd and Ivan Kharchenkov, who scored a career-high 38 points, said after the loss:
Lloyd on the offense struggling much of the night: “UCLA is a great defensive team, and they came in with a game plan, and obviously kind of took us out of our rhythm, and we just couldn’t find it for for a while. That happens to teams, especially early in the season. We’ve got a lot of new guys playing new roles, and you kind of get punched in the face a little bit, and maybe you kind of lose your way. I’m proud of the way our guys fought back, but the incredible thing for me is—like listen, I wanted to win, of course—but I’m ready to move forward and just get better. I feel like this could be a great catalyst for us.”
On UCLA dominating the boards: “I don’t know if rebounding numbers say it, but they definitely won the rebounding battle and won the loose ball battle. I feel like we just had numerous loose balls, and that’s what these games come down to. You try to emphasize that with your team, and maybe it doesn’t quite hit home until until you have a moment like this. So hopefully, this is something we can learn from, and that’s going to be the theme of everything I’m talking about is learning. Obviously we’ve got a long ways to go, and it’s the first game of the year in a long season. Got a lot of respect for UCLA, and like I said, just want to get on the plane, get home, and get better.”
On Motiejus Krivas getting doubled: “We haven’t seen that steady double team like that, and they just did a good job. They did a good job of making Mo maybe a little bit indecisive. But I mean, again, Mo did draw nine fouls. He’s just got to be a little bit better, and we just got to keep getting a little bit more comfortable with it. So this will be great for us to kind of analyze and see where we can get better.”
On what Krivas saw on his late turnover: “I don’t know. I mean, he obviously he thought he had a teammate open in that deep corner and kind of blindly threw the ball there. And unfortunately, the only guys in white jerseys were on the bench. But it doesn’t come down to that play. I mean, I think we were down three when that happened. We also had another situation where we were down one, we cut it to one, so we gave ourselves a chance. I guess give our guys some credit for hanging in there and finding a way to come back in the game. But like I mentioned earlier, UCLA was the deserving team tonight, and usually the deserving team wins.”
On Kharchenkov’s performance: “Ivan was a warrior. He dug deep, when we were struggling. He kind of gave us a shot in arm, he kept us in the game, close enough to make a run, and then he hits a couple big threes. Just unfortunately, when you play that poorly for long stretches of the game, you really give yourself no margin for error, and that’s kind of what it came down to. I mean, obviously we had a chance, but I don’t think we were the deserving team tonight. And so even if we would have won that, I probably wouldn’t sit here and be feeling great.”
On JJ Mandaquit playing 32 minutes off the bench: “JJ, he’s getting better. He’s getting more in rhythm with us, and he’s a scrapper, and he’s a winner, so he really stepped up and kind of managed that game when we had a lot of foul problems. I didn’t know if I expected that many minutes from him, but he stepped up and he played well, so he’s going to be a key component to everything we do this season.”
On Derek Dixon’s big 2nd half: “Derek kind of he didn’t look great there for his stretch, but then he looked really good. He’s been a really good player for us since he arrived in the summer. I’m not going to change my opinion based off … a half of basketball. He’s a really good player, and the more time we get with him, the more comfortable he gets in an Arizona uniform, I think we’re going to see great results.”
On going 7 of 30 from 3-point range: “They were really heavy in the gaps, and they weren’t guarding guys, so at some point you got to shoot a few of those, and you got to figure it out. I thought we got the bonus early, both halves, and obviously that kind of allowed us to kind of hang in the game. But we’ll definitely need a few more of those threes to go in, and we will. We’ll get a few more to go in.”
On the frustration of RJ Godfrey remaining ineligible: “I’ve got no time to be frustrated. Obviously, I think we’re going to be a better team with him, but we knew he wasn’t going to play tonight. We have enough in the locker room, even without RJ, to play better than we did. So let’s focus on playing better, and then hopefully we can get RJ’s situation figured out, and that’ll give us a shot in the arm.”
On the freshmen struggling: “Welcome to college basketball. I told our guys, what happens today is not going to define your season, and it’s not going to define your individual seasons. So you just have to understand that, you got to keep it moving, and you got to get on to the next one, and everyone else can draw strong conclusions. But we’re going to stay committed to each other in our locker room, and understanding that we all made a decision to be on this journey together, and so we’re going to try to make it the best experience we can.”
Kharchenkov on his big game: “I just tried to figure out what defense they were playing, how do I attack it the most efficient way? Coach called a couple plays for me, and I just got going early. My teammates then started finding me, and I had a lot of easy points. But it could be literally anyone else in that position.”
On his message to the team after the game: “A couple people started hanging their heads, and I’m like, it’s not about how we start the season, it’s about how we end the season. Obviously, it hurts when we’re losing, just remember that feeling. We’ll have a tough stretch in another game, and we’ll need to dig deeper. Just remember that feeling that okay, yeah, it really was not a nice feeling when we lost, and the other team was cheering in the locker room. We could hear it through the walls. Just remember that, and then you will you will give an extra 10, 15 percent because we’ll need it.”
