SAN DIEGO—Arizona had no trouble with its opening opponent in the 2026 NCAA Tournament, beating No. 16 seed Long Island by 32 points. It was the Wildcats’ largest margin of victory in the tourney since 1998 and the lead never got below 22 in the second half.
But in March Madness, anything can happen. Tommy Lloyd made sure his players knew that going into this one.
“I told our guys, these 1/16 games, you just don’t know,” Lloyd said. “Obviously, the objective is to win the game. You can’t get emotionally
caught up if the game is close at half or anything like that. The main objective is to find a way to get the win, and luckily we came out and we got a lead right away, and we were able to carry that the rest of the game.”
Our game recap can be found here. Below is what Lloyd and freshmen Koa Peat and Brayden Burries had to say afterward:
Lloyd on LIU: “LIU had a great season, so I definitely want to recognize that. Rod’s done an amazing job building that program back. I didn’t realize the whole story until you kind of look at it. And that three-year turnaround from where they were single digit wins, single digit wins to the NCAA Tournament, that’s pretty special. And college basketball can be pretty stratified. So I have lots of respect for my colleagues and guys that coach in some of those smaller conferences or at a place like LIU because you know what, it’s just as hard or harder to win there than it is in Arizona. So I have a lot of respect for those guys.”
On Burries’ season evolution: “I just told Brayden, if I would have been predicting the future, in September, how the season would go, I would have thought it would have played out just like it did. I thought it was going to take him a little time. I felt like he needed to get a few games under his belt. We knew how good he was and how talented he was, because we’re in the gym with him every day. But I thought he was going to need some game experiences and he was going to need to learn from them.”
On the readiness of the freshmen: “Honestly I don’t look at them as freshmen, you know what I mean? I just look at them as really good basketball players. These guys, they have high IQs, they have great character and obviously they’re talented basketball players. And they put the work in. So when you have that combination of elements, I don’t think it matters what year you are in school. And I would have been more surprised had they come out and been a little bit nervous today than play the way they did.”
On making sure Arizona didn’t play down to the competition: “I don’t think playing down to the competition is something that ever enters my mind. I mean, I have a lot of respect for our opponents, and I make sure our players do as well.”
On making improvements even in a blowout: “Always, always when you’re talking to a coach. The game is, basketball is a game of a lot of random things happening in succession. And there’s a lot of mistakes made. That’s what makes it a beautiful game. There’s always something to learn from. I feel like I’m learning every day, every week as a coach. I’m learning new things about the game of basketball. That’s one of the things I love is the neverending pursuit of learning.”
On rebounding: “It’s really important. Rebounding is always an interesting thing. There’s some old adages: long shot, long rebound. There’s some truth to that, especially getting in the tournament with the new Wilson balls. Sometimes they bounce back a little farther than they’re used to. But there’s another adage: short shot, short rebounds. You’ve got to be great on those. We work on our rebound instincts every single day. We want our rebounding mentality to be more based off instincts than habits or techniques. It’s something we value and we work on it every single day.”
On not letting up for 40 minutes: “Just encouraging them and understanding, you know, you’ve got to break the game into smaller segments, and when you’re on the court, honestly, you shouldn’t even worry what the score is. You should be playing possession by possession and honoring that aspect of the game, not worrying about what the overall score is.”
On carrying on Arizona’s tradition: “It’s an honor. That’s a great question. I appreciate you saying that. Arizona basketball is not me. I’m a servant to this program. And I always remind our former players and supporters, when I’m with them. We had a get-together, would have been Wednesday night. Matt Othick owns a pizza joint in this area, and I think he told anybody that had any affiliation with the Arizona Wildcats to show up, because I was expecting a small little get-together of a few players. But man, the place was hopping. So we took our staff and families out there and it was great to hang out with guys like Jud Buechler and Kevin Flanagan. These guys are great Wildcats. They’re the fabric to our program. So it’s something that I don’t take lightly. It’s an honor to be at the helm of the program. And trust me, every day I think about, it’s my job to honor and respect this program and move it forward in the direction that makes our supporters and our former players proud.”
On avoiding foul trouble: “I don’t know if we struggled with foul trouble. I think the people we play against struggle with foul problems. That’s how I look at it. Fouls are going to happen it. We have the depth to absorb them. When you’re a physical team there’s going to be whistles. And sometimes they’re not going to go our way, and sometimes you are going to foul. You have to play through it. And as the game plays out if there’s small adjustments you can make you make them. And if there’s substitution patterns you have to change, you change them. So the foul game is something that’s really important to us, on both sides of us—our personal fouls and our opponent’s personal fouls.”
On choosing to go fast or slow it down: “Listen, I didn’t tell our guys to slow it down today at all. And we have—I know the specific point in the game you’re talking about. We had two or three possessions where we walked the ball up the court. For me, being able to get the ball up the court with tempo and pace doesn’t mean we have to do something quick, but it helps us initiate our offense. So getting the ball up with the right pace affects something two or three passes later, and so that’s something that I always think about. We just reminded our guys to continue to run, to continue to get into our flow as quick as we could. And our guys did a good job readjusting to that later in the second half.”
On preparing for the next game: “Our guys know where we’re at. And they know where we want to go. And they know what our purpose is. I’m not worried about the focus not being there. I want to get this press conference over, I want to get back to the hotel, and I’m going to watch the (Utah State/Villanova) game and start preparing, and we’ll have a great afternoon of preparation today that will lead to a strong day of preparation tomorrow, and hopefully a good performance on Sunday. We’re just going to kind of take it hour by hour.”
Peat on the win: “It was great. We had a good team win today. I’m just proud of our guys. We came out with good energy in the beginning of the game, and I thought we sustained that well during the game. And it’s special to share the court with special freshmen like Ivan, Brayden and Dwayne, and Sidi for sure.”
On getting ready for Sunday: “Just watch the game that’s happening right now, go prepare for that. Try to rest and recover and just get ready for Sunday.”
On playing for another championship: “Everybody’s watching the games in March Madness. It’s definitely special, for sure. But I played in a lot of big games. I feel like I’m pretty seized for the moment and just ready to play in those big games. And just playing my hardest and trusting my teammates.”
On the defense: “I think it’s our preparation. Our green squad did a really good job of getting us prepped for the game. And we were just sitting on LIU’s tendencies. That’s tough, especially they got a lot of good players over there. But I thought we did good defensively and we just were together for sure on defense.”
Burries on his first NCAA Tournament game: “It’s a great experience out there. First time, now just ready to continue to just get better.”
On the Big 12 tourney preparing him for NCAA: “I think it prepared me, just the one-and-done scenario. Just taking one game at a time, being where your feet is. And don’t look too far ahead, don’t look too far back, just stay in the present.”
On his fast start: “Just being in the right place at the right time. My teammates finding me. So thankful for them and just making shots, honestly.”
On LIU trying to push Arizona to the perimeter on offense: “I think their game plan, I think was just to close out short and just force us to shoot 3s and hopefully they rebound it. Today we made our shots. It was in our favor.”
