Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd talked about his team's ascent to No. 1 in the AP Top 25 men's college basketball poll this week, pointing out that playing on big stages with a big target on your back is why his guys wanted to play for the Wildcats.
They will get another opportunity to do it Saturday.
Already with four ranked wins amid their 8-0 start, the Wildcats are headed next to Birmingham, Alabama, for what amounts to a road game against No. 12 Alabama on
a court that will be neutral in name only for the C.M. Newton Classic.
“There's a lot of really, really good teams,” Lloyd said after routing Auburn last weekend, ticking off No. 2 Michigan, third-ranked Duke, a UConn team his Wildcats have beaten already, and No. 25 UCLA, which also fell to Arizona earlier this season.
“But we're just going to stay focused on one, and that's us,” Lloyd continued, “and in trying to go play really well next Saturday in a tough atmosphere in Birmingham.”
Much like the Wildcats, Alabama has played a torturous non-conference schedule. The Crimson Tide has wins over St. John's and Illinois, both of which were ranked in the top 10 at the time, and its only losses came to current top-10 teams Purdue and Gonzaga.
It's part of a trend across college basketball of heavyweight programs playing heavyweight schedules.
Great for fans. Great for the game.
Perhaps not so great for the overall health of some big-name college coaches.
That includes UConn boss Dan Hurley, whose fifth-ranked Huskies have had as tough of a schedule as anyone. Their only setback was a four-point loss to Arizona, while their slate of victims includes No. 10 BYU, No. 13 Illinois and this past week No. 19 Kansas — which it not only beat but did so in Allen Fieldhouse, arguably the toughest environment in college basketball for a visiting team.
Next up for the Huskies is No. 18 Florida on Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden, then a matchup with Texas on Friday night.
“We've been on a heck of a scheduling run here, and I think we can do a better job with that next year, in terms of spacing some of these games out,” Hurley said. “But that being said, I think it's all about going into games and, you know, being able to be versatile as a team, where again, you can win with your defense, you can win with rebounding, you can win with high-level 3-point shooting. You've got to be able to win games in a lot of different ways.”
Iowa State dealt Purdue the most lopsided home loss by a No. 1 team in the history of the AP Top 25 men's basketball poll last week, an 81-58 rout in West Lafayette, Indiana. The Cyclones were rewarded with it with a six-spot jump to No. 4 in this week's rankings.
Now, the Cyclones have their toughest test left before Big 12 play when they face Iowa on Thursday night.
“We played our absolute best,” Iowa State coach T.J. Otzelberger said after last weekend's win. “We knew we were going to need to do that, and when you play an elite competitor and tremendous program, you know it's going to take your best.”
The Boilermakers have a chance to get some positive momentum going again the next couple of weeks. They play Minnesota in a Big Ten game Wednesday night, then have non-conference matchups with Marquette and No. 21 Auburn.
“We've had tough games like this before,” Purdue coach Matt Painter said. “Not a lot of them, but we've had them, and we understand what that means. You got to respond. You have to listen a little more, play a little better than you're playing.”
Arizona, Iowa State, Michigan and Duke enter the week as four of the eight remaining unbeaten teams in Division I men's basketball; the Wolverines have games against Villanova and Maryland while the Blue Devils have the entire week off.
No. 15 Vanderbilt plays Central Arkansas on Saturday, No. 23 Nebraska has games against Wisconsin and No. 13 Illinois, Oklahoma State plays Oklahoma this weekend, and Miami (Ohio) plays UNC-Asheville and Eastern Kentucky.
The NET rankings released this week, which are used to help order teams for the NCAA Tournament, varied widely from the AP poll with Michigan at No. 1, followed by Duke and Iowa State. Top-ranked Arizona was only sixth in the NET rankings.
Another big outlier was St. Mary's, which the NET rankings had No. 15 but remained just outside the Top 25 this week.
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