The offseason is here for most Arizona sports, with the 2025-26 season in the books and the 2026-27 seasons still a few months away.<\/p>\n
What better time than now to press pause and check the pulse of each Wildcat program?<\/p>\n
Over the next few weeks we\u2019ll take a look at each of the UA\u2019s men\u2019s and women\u2019s athletic programs to see what shape they\u2019re in, as well as the prospects for the near future. We\u2019ll break down each team and evaluate how it has performed under the current coaching staff, comparing it to how it looked beforehand, and assess how it fits into the Big 12 Conference.<\/p>\n
First up: Men\u2019s basketball under Tommy Lloyd<\/p>\n
Sean Miller won 302 games in 12 seasons in charge of Arizona, taking the program to the Elite Eight three times in the first five years while winning numerous conference titles. But Miller couldn\u2019t get over the hump to the Final Four, and the tail end of his tenure was mired in controversy surrounding things that are completely legal nowadays in college basketball.<\/p>\n
After self-imposing a postseason ban in 2020-21, in anticipation of stiffer penalties by the NCAA by its investigation of the program, Arizona parted ways with Miller. But rather than go after a sitting head coach, which most schools of the UA\u2019s ilk would do, it instead chose to give Lloyd his first head job.<\/p>\n
The hope was that Lloyd\u2019s involvement in turning Gonzaga into a perennial mid-major powerhouse, albeit as an assistant, would translate into success at the power-conference level.<\/p>\n
The offseason provides a great opportunity to evaluate each of Arizona\u2019s athletic programs under its current leadership. Check back each day for another sport breakdown.<\/p>\n
Tuesday, June 16: Men\u2019s and women\u2019s track and field<\/p>\n
Saturday, June 6: Men\u2019s basketball<\/p>\n
Sunday, June 7: Women\u2019s basketball<\/p>\n
Monday, June 8: Gymnastics<\/p>\n
Tuesday, June 9: Beach volleyball<\/p>\n
Wednesday, June 10: Women\u2019s golf<\/p>\n
Thursday, June 11: Women\u2019s tennis<\/p>\n
Friday, June 12: Men\u2019s tennis<\/p>\n
Saturday, June 13: Baseball<\/p>\n
Sunday, June 14: Softball<\/p>\n
Monday, June 15: Men\u2019s golf<\/p>\n
Arizona is coming off its first Final Four appearance in 25 years, reaching the national semifinals in April. Lloyd\u2019s first four teams had all shown promise, with three getting to the Sweet 16 and three winning either a conference regular season or tournament crown (or both), but the 2025-26 squad put it all together.<\/p>\n
A 23-0 start, which began with a coming out party in Las Vegas with a win over defending NCAA champion Florida, was followed up by sweeping the Big 12 titles and then going through the West Region to get to Indianapolis.<\/p>\n
Lloyd is 148-36, his win total the most by anyone in their first five years as a Division I head coach. That success made him a top candidate for a blue blood opening, with North Carolina reportedly offering a very big package before Lloyd announced on the eve of the Final Four he\u2019d agreed to an extension with Arizona through the 2029-30 season. That deal came with it almost complete autonomy from athletic director Desiree Reed-Francois, instead answering directly to school president Suresh Garimella on all matters related to spending and revenue sharing.<\/p>\n
Arizona is expected to have at least another NBA Draft lottery pick later this month in Brayden Burries, with Koa Peat also likely going in the first round as well. And the UA was able to keep Motiejus Krivas and Ivan Kharchenkov from turning pro, bringing back two starters from the Final Four squad.<\/p>\n
Arizona is 34-8 against conference opponents since joining the Big 12 two seasons ago, beating everyone at least once. Iowa State, Kansas and Texas Tech are the only places the Wildcats haven\u2019t won, and though it\u2019s not the same as Vegas the ability to win in Kansas City during the Big 12 Tournament (5-1 with one title) shows that they belong in this league.<\/p>\n
To further illustrate how valuable Arizona is to the Big 12, last season its schedule was backloaded to ensure it was playing in as many meaningful (read: Big Monday and marquee Saturday time slot) matchups as possible. Expect the same in 2026-27 as all the network partners are going to want to highlight the defending conference champs and Final Four participants.<\/p>\n
The only downside to the Big 12 is that it went back to an 18-game league schedule last season after being at 20 in 2024-25, which means only three home-and-home opponents. ASU, BYU and Kansas were the trio last time out, and that\u2019s likely to be the case again this winter which means not getting Iowa State or Texas Tech at McKale Center.<\/p>\n
Was this a fluke or the start of a trend? Shortly after losing to Michigan, Lloyd put himself on the spot by setting a goal of making five Final Fours over a 10-year span.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho knows, maybe you guys will use that against me saying that someday, but I\u2019m gonna dream big and work my ass off to make that happen,\u201d Lloyd said.<\/p>\n
Considering this game after a disappointing loss, one where many fans wondered if he had been distracted by the UNC saga, it had to feel good for Wildcat Nation to hear that. But saying it is one thing and doing it is another.<\/p>\n
Miller looked on the precipice of getting to the Final Four but couldn\u2019t do it, and Lute Olson got there four times but that was over 14 seasons and there was six years between the first two (with a couple of embarrassing first round losses in there). It might be hard for Lloyd to come close to his goal, but it won\u2019t be for lack of trying.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The offseason is here for most Arizona sports, with the 2025-26 season in the books and the 2026-27…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":754147,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[9763,7],"class_list":["post-754146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-arizona-basketball","tag-basketball"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116704094690875288","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754146","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=754146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/754147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=754146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=754146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=754146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}