What Tommy Lloyd said after Arizona’s shocking loss to BYU
It’s a fine line between success and failure in the Big 12, as the Arizona Wildcats have learned over the past two weeks.
Arizona has lost three of its last four games by a combined eight points, including Saturday night’s 96-95 loss to BYU that was decided by a questionable foul call. The bad call aside, Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd said his team needs to be more focused.
“Our guys were casual. … A little casual at shoot around. A little casual showing up on time. And that stuff don’t work. It don’t work,” Lloyd said after the BYU loss. “So we’ve got to step it up Monday. I better see the most focused group I’ve seen all year Monday.”
The good news for the Wildcats is that they broke out of a shooting slump, scored 95 points and knocked down 10-of-22 3-pointers against BYU. The bad news is they gave up 96 points and allowed BYU to shoot 14-of-31 from downtown.
Arizona (18-9, 12-4) was all but eliminated from the Big 12 title race with Saturday’s loss. The Wildcats are now tied for second place with Texas Tech, three games behind Houston with four to play.
The Cougars won on two free throws by Richie Saunders with 3.2 seconds left after Arizona forward Trey Townsend was whistled for a foul. Here’s the play:
Here’s what Lloyd had to say after the game:
Lloyd: ‘You hate for a game to be decided by that’
“It’s a bad call. I mean like, whatever. What am i going to say. You hate for a game to be decided by that. Trey (Townsend), I feel horrible for him. The guy didn’t play in the second half. I tightened the rotation. He played good defense. The guy’s pivoting, pivoting, pivoting, throws his shoulder into him, throws up a shot and falls down. It’s a foul with two seconds to go. I mean listen, it’s the Big 12. That’s what I’m told. And the guy who called it is one of the best refs. So we’ve got to live with it.”
Lloyd: ‘Play better. That’s the Arizona solution.’
“It was tough. But you know what? Let’s make it a good thing. Play better. Play better. That’s the best Arizona solution. Not complaining about one call. Play better. There’s 39 minutes and 58 seconds before that call to play better. Play better.”
“They scored 94 points up to that point on our home court. That’s the problem. That’s the problem. Me and my staff and our players — that’s the problem. Not the officials. It would have been great to steal a victory if they don’t call that, but still don’t put yourself in that position. That’s the problem.”
Lloyd: ‘We didn’t defend well enough’
“Our guys just didn’t have the sense of urgency we needed on some of our closeouts, but they do a great job of when you do close out, attacking it real quick. … We knew that going in, our guys just didn’t do a good enough job defensively executing and that’s disappointing.”
“I know overall we didn’t defend well enough and it was all the stuff we had talked about. … I don’t know if our guys are getting a little complacent and think they’re better than they are. We just made a run at the right time (in the first game at BYU), and I told him that over and over and over again. I told them I played against BYU for years. They have older dudes. They’re going to respond. They’re going to come in with a maturity to this game, so we have to have that. And we didn’t and they did and there’s the result.”
BYU ‘did a great job of hitting timely shots’
“I thought they did a great job hitting timely shots. I thought some of our closeouts could have been better, but what they do if you close out, they drive it real quick and they put it in the ref’s hands. They do a great job of that. That’s a great tactic by them, and we just didn’t do a good job today. … Their role players made some really big shots over the course of that game, so they get a lot of credit for that.”
