Arizona is nearly at the halfway point of the 2025-26 regular season and has yet to lose a game, its 15-0 start the best since winning the first 21 games in 2013-14. The Wildcats are in a very different place than a year ago, when on this date they were 9-5 but had won five […]
Arizona is nearly at the halfway point of the 2025-26 regular season and has yet to lose a game, its 15-0 start the best since winning the first 21 games in 2013-14. The Wildcats are in a very different place than a year ago, when on this date they were 9-5 but had won five in a row to start gaining momentum.
“I can say this now, I’m thankful for what I went through last year,” UA coach Tommy Lloyd said following Tuesday’s 101-76 win over Kansas State. “I think it made me a better coach.”
The UA has won its last 10 games by at least 19 points, scoring 90 or more in 11 of 15 games. And this game it reached the century mark despite only three 3-pointers, something only two other teams had done this season.
“When you when you make a lot of twos, they add up,” said Lloyd, whose team was 31 of 53 from inside the arc and 30 of 39 from the line. “When you make a lot of ones, they add up. And you play a high-possession game … I mean, you can get to 100 if you have enough possessions.”
Our game recap can be found here. Below is what Lloyd, Brayden Burries and Motiejus Krivas—both of whom had career highs in scoring—had to say afterward:
Lloyd on coaching last year’s team vs. this one: “It’s been great for me. I feel like, personally, I’m coming into my sweet spot as a coach. I don’t want to act like I’ve had all the answers, and maybe in the past I felt like I did and I was proven wrong. I’ve got a lot of experiences to pull from, good experiences and tough experiences. And last year was a tough one, but I think it says a lot about our program. When you’re a place like Arizona, you’re 4-5, panic ensues, and we were able to steady the ship and have a really good year. I mean, this says a lot about the players. I think it says a lot about the staff. Let’s see how this year plays out. We’ll withhold judgment till the end of the year, and then we can see how much I’ve improved.”
On Burries: “Brayden’s a great player. He’s a great young man, and we’re fortunate to have him in our program. He’s a winner. He’s always won. He does about everything in his life the right way. It’s just a joy to coach him every day, and it’s really fun to help him on the journey. Brayden is not a guy you gotta poke and prod, you can be pretty direct with him. I told him, he’s a guy that I don’t want to coach by being confrontational with him. I think he’s too good of a kid and he’s really motivated. He doesn’t need that. I’m very direct with him, and you know what, he’s got enough experience now, I think he’s really learning. And not that he didn’t trust us, but I think just, we’ve had time to really build the relationship. He obviously played a great game today, as well as I thought a lot of other guys played really well as well.”
On if Burries can get better: “I’m not putting any limits on it. Brayden does a great job of being aggressive, but staying within the framework of the team. Let’s just continue to give him space and let him do his thing and, I’m gonna try to keep encouraging him to learn. I told him you got through a rough stretch, you had a good stretch, and now this January should be maybe the most significant jump maybe you make in your young basketball career should be this month, based off having positive and negative experiences. So let’s approach it like that. It looks like he’s off to a good start.”
On Koa Peat: “I always tell Koa, he’s a special player, and he’s so versatile. It’s really impressive, just when you put his physicality with his versatility as a basketball player. But I always tell him his cheat code is the effort and energy he could play with when it’s packaged with the physicality he delivers. He can never short himself in that area. I mean, don’t try to over accentuate the other stuff, unless that effort, that energy, that physicality, is in front of everything he does.”
On Peat’s technical foul: “The play happened fast. I know he got a good dunk, and then they had called the timeout, and I think he, you know, celebrated to their bench. You just can’t do that. Koa is an awesome kid, he apologized right away. To me, we always encourage our guys to celebrate to each other. Don’t celebrate against somebody, celebrate with your teammates. It’s a great reminder, because that that can change the game.”
On having players who are able to defend 1 thru 5: “I think we have a lot of guys that can. I think Ivan is right there, I think Dwayne’s right there. I think Tobe is right there. I really like the versatility we have defensively. I think it allows us to kind of mix up some of our coverages and make adjustments in games that maybe are subtle to the untrained eye, but they’re important.”
On switching: “It gives you options, you know. And everything depends on kind of what the other team is trying to do and how you match up with it. Switching sometimes can be a simple option. Switching keeps the ball in front, kind of keeps you out of rotations. It’s a good card to be able to pull out of your back pocket at certain times.”
On Ivan Kharchenkov: “We knew Ivan was a really good prospect for a couple of years, but things were different. We didn’t think he was coming, to the states, you know, for certain reasons. And when the opportunity opened up for him to come, we jumped back in it. And to be honest with you, it wasn’t a deep study. We’d seen him enough when he was young. And when Carter left for the NBA, we had a void that needed to be filled and and he was the best option.”
On Kharchenkov becoming a defensive stopper: “I think he’s a competitive guy. He has a lot of pride. I want a lot of guys that play both ways. I’m not like trying to limit him offensively. I think he’s continuing to grow there, and I think he’s going to have, he’ll be a guy eventually that’s going to have a 20-point game, or close to a 20-point game on any given night. He’s just a really, really good basketball player, and we really value guys that play on both sides of the ball.”
On Krivas scoring inside: “I’m probably a little frustrated myself, because I think I was on the officials a little bit. I didn’t realize he had drawn nine fouls. I thought there could have been a few more, but I can’t get greedy either. And I think he’s going to continue to learn how to play against that physicality and finish on those shots quicker. He’s just so reliable at the free throw line, he’s really grown as a defender, and he’s just a real winner.”
On Krivas being self motivated: “Mo’s a high character guy. He doesn’t need me to light a fire under him. I’m not afraid to push him, because I think he responds to that. You’re seeing a guy who’s kind of coming into his own. I mean, this is really his second year college basketball is. Obviously, the previous year was cut short, he was injured, then he got to play, and then he really got injured. I just think you’re seeing a guy who we knew was going to be a dominant player in this program, but it’s finally coming into fruition.”
On Jaden Bradley taking a hard fall early: “You know what’s crazy? We’ve talked about everybody but JB. Obviously he’s our leader and, he’s our alpha dog. It says so much about him that we can talk about all of those other guys without bringing him up. And you’re right, he does take a hard fall, he stays in the game. He makes the free throws. I mean, he’s a bad man, he’s a bad man, and he’s an absolute winner.”
On going 3 for 16 from 3: “I don’t make anything crazy of it. I thought we had some good looks at three in the first half that would have been nice if they went down. But also, when you just kept looking up at that foul count, you saw that we were ahead in the foul count, and so the messaging for me was, don’t settle. Let’s take advantage of these bonus opportunities. The game got physical, and we’re okay with that. The refs, they’re good refs. They called some fouls, they didn’t call others, but that’s what you get on a night and night basis. I was okay with the shot selection overall.”
On if he’s worried about the freshmen hitting a wall at some point: “I’m not putting limits on these guys, and I’m not making assumptions either. We’re going to watch them. We’re watching all our guys, we’re starting to dig into how we practicing. What work are we doing outside of practice? What does strength and conditioning look like? How’s our recovery stuff? We’re digging into all that right now. We’ll leave no stone unturned to make sure these guys are as fresh as possible over the course of a tough season.”
On TCU and Jamie Dixon: “Jamie’s a great coach. Last night I had the old 100-inch TV split into a couple screens, and I was watching Kansas and TCU on one, and I was watching Texas Tech and Houston on another, just like you guys. Jamie’s a guy I’ve gotten to know over the years. I really respect Jamie and really like him. Jamie, he’s a great game coach. We’re expecting a real battle on Saturday.”
On if TCU blowing a 15-point lead at Kansas will impact Saturday’s matchup: “I’d be getting into the weeds too much. Let’s prepare like the game’s gonna start at 0-0, and prepare like they’re gonna come out and play great at home, and we’ll navigate the game possession by possession. I’m not a big believer in momentum from a previous game, positive or negative.”
Burries on his improvement from the first 5 games: “I don’t think I’ve changed, I think I’m just getting used to the speed. More games, more experience, that’s why I’m getting better. I’m honestly just going out there and just hooping, trusting my teammates and the game plan.”
On defending on the perimeter with Arizona’s frontcourt behind him: “It makes it easier because I know Mo and Tobe and Koa got my back if they go in the paint, so it makes my job easier.”
On his rebounding: “Last week Coach Lloyd kind of talked to the team on the emphasis of rebounding. In high school I rebounded a lot, and I kind of like shied away from it when I saw we had 7-2 Mo and Tobe getting all the rebounds. I had to get back into it. When a guard rebounds it makes it easier for the bigs. When you get a rebound you can just go.”
Krivas on his career-high 25 points: “Every guy our team tries to put a paint presence, and this time it worked. I just had it going. They see that I was scoring and they trusted me.”
On the increased physicality now that Big 12 play is here: “Every team will try to win games that way, with rebound and physicality.”
Category: General Sports
