according to EvanMiya.com<\/a> are the worst opponent left on the schedule. Rivalry or not, being able to get up for games like this are a real test of not necessarily a team\u2019s ability, but its maturity.<\/p>\nIt\u2019s one thing to play hard and focused when nobody believes in you or when you\u2019re facing a top opponent in a hostile environment. That should be easy. However it\u2019s something entirely different bringing that same energy and edge when facing an overmatched adversary who you already beat a couple weeks ago while not even playing particularly well.<\/p>\n
Hopefully it\u2019s not this team\u2019s nature.<\/p>\n
Ideally this team understands there will be no banners hung for anything it has accomplished up to this point. There likely have been no celebrations for being No. 1 in KenPom or having consecutive weeks as being the unanimous top-ranked team in the country. Confetti hasn\u2019t rained down from the rafters after any of the wins nor has the team cut down any nets after the game was finished.<\/p>\n
Arizona has won 21 games and hasn\u2019t won anything yet.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, I\u2019m excited we got off to a good start, but we\u2019re on a much bigger mission than getting off to a good start,\u201d Lloyd said Thursday when asked about his team approaching a school record for wins to start a season. \u201cSo, you know what? The next game happens to be at Arizona State.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been it\u2019s been set that way all year. So, next up, and I\u2019m looking forward to practice today and and hopefully today\u2019s practice leads to a a good practice tomorrow, which hopefully leads to a good performance on Saturday.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lloyd went on to say his team doesn\u2019t talk about winning streaks, only about preparing for the next game.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s honestly that simple,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
For the teams that are truly great, yes.<\/p>\n
Arizona appears to have the right mindset, with its mix of veterans and freshmen combining to form a team that approaches the game with a business-like attitude. Lloyd, too, likely has the ideal temperament to guide such a team given his experience with elite squads at Gonzaga and then terrific teams at Arizona who, for one reason or another, fell short of its ultimate goal.<\/p>\n
At least we think that\u2019s the case.<\/p>\n
Arizona can prove it true not necessarily by winning every game, as nice as that would be, but instead continuing to do the very things that provide confidence that this team has the right mental makeup to get the job done.<\/p>\n
That is seen not only in a confidence against ranked teams in hostile environments, but against bottom feeders in games the Cats should win. Because as we all know nothing is guaranteed, and even if Arizona is indeed the best team in all the land it does not mean they can\u2019t be beaten.<\/p>\n
As long as the team is aware of that, they should be just fine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OK so Arizona is good. Like, really good. The No. 1 Wildcats dominated BYU on the road before…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":570550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[9763,7,217,231,772,1544],"class_list":{"0":"post-570549","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-arizona-basketball","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-college-basketball","11":"tag-ncaa","12":"tag-ncaa-basketball","13":"tag-ncaab"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115983648434061216","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/570550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}