By beating Houston on its home court, something only one other Big 12 school had done in three seasons, Arizona is firmly in control of the race for the conference regular season title. The Wildcats are a game up in the standings with four to go and hold the tiebreaker over the Cougars.
“We’ve put ourselves in position to be in position, now you’ve got to take advantage of that,” UA coach Tommy Lloyd said after his team picked up its third win over a Top 3 opponent, the first school to do so in a regular season since Kansas in 2011-12. “I’m sure this win doesn’t look bad on our resume when it comes down to seeding and you’re hoping for matchups in the tournament. But by no means does this win guarantee anything.”
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Our game recap can be found here. Below is what Lloyd and freshman wing Ivan Kharchenkov said afterwards:
On winning at Houston: “For us to come out on top means a lot, but we still got a longer road ahead, so we’ve gotta make sure we’re locked in and prepared to move forward. And we will be. But just a great day for our program.”
On facing Kelvin Sampson: “I usually don’t talk about myself. I don’t know how my coaching career is going to end up at, but I know one thing: I’m going to have become a better coach having coached against Kelvin Sampson. A hundred percent. You look at coaches that kind of set the benchmark in certain areas, and for me he’s one of them. What he’s done with this program down here, it’s been amazing. The kind of run you guys are on down here, it reminds me of where I came from. I was at this little old school called Gonzaga, no one really believed, but they had a hell of coach just like you have. The head coach at Gonzaga and the head coach at Houston have willed these programs to be elite, and that’s really inspiring to me.”
On having a better gameplan against Houston than in previous meetings: “You always learn when you play against people, the more you play against them, but teams are different year after year. Their program has an identity and our program has an identity, and you have to figure out if those identities clash do you have to make some adjustments. I thought we made some adjustments today, kind of how we moved and spaced the ball a bit, I thought that alleviated some of the pressure and gave us some space maybe we haven’t had before. Good job by our coaching staff for adjusting. But on the same hand you want to say Houston gets credit, because if you can make a program like Arizona adjust that’s the ultimate sign of respect, and we respect them.”
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On his message to the team after losing 2 in a row last week: “The message was simple: winning things. Get back to the winning things and the things that drive winning. Don’t be result-oriented, lock into a process. We just wanted to get back into our habits and what drives winning. We just had to change how we play a little bit the last couple games. We have a couple really good players not playing right now, so these guys that aren’t playing have made great adjustments and finding a way to win.”
On staying focused: “You lose that tough game at Kansas, you lose a tough game at home against Texas Tech and then your reward is you have BYU and Houston the next week. It can get out of control really quick in this conference. That we were able to right the ship says a lot about this team.”
On stopping Houston’s guards: “I’m not crazy into analytics, but us analytically, us and Houston are literally like neck and neck in everything. We’re a good defensive team, too. Our coaches put together a good plan, and we have good players, and the players went out there and executed it with conviction. There were a couple of stretches in the game where you’re on the road and they take a shot or two and it kind of rattles out and you’re like, phew. That’s kind of life on the road sometimes. We got a couple breaks in those, and that happen. When we played at home against Texas Tech we had a few where we were like, man, we usually make those. That happens sometimes, you’ve just got to keep moving.”
On how this win helps Arizona: “There’s a lot of ways a game like this gives you a boost. Number one is just confidence and believe and will to find a way. It keeps you in the hunt for a conference championship, which is obviously important. And I’m sure this win doesn’t look bad on our resume when it comes down to seeding and you’re hoping for matchups in the tournament. By no means does this win guarantee anything.”
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On Anthony Dell’Orso: “Delly, he’s a spitfire. I don’t know how many of you guys know Aussies, but he’s got some you know what to them. He has a little bit of that, and it wasn’t going his way for a good stretch there, and he hung with it. And our guys hung with him and our staff hung with him and I just told Delly, just hang in there, it’s coming. If there’s little adjustments we have to make we’ll see if we can figure them out, but we trust you and we believe in you and I don’t see any scenario where you don’t get opportunities. Our media was getting a little worried back home and I just kept telling them, guys, Delly is going to be at his best when we need him at his best. And I think you’ve seen that the last two games.”
On the game-winning 12-0 run: “I didn’t realize we’d made a 12-0 run. I was just trying to manage the game possession by possession, I guess I have a memory like a goldfish. We did have a few things that we had success with offensively that we went back to them back to back, and I’m not always doing that but today we did. It was a good way to control the game down the stretch.”
On the free throw shooting: “Our guys missed some free throws early that were probably regretful but we made most of them late, which allowed us to kind of keep them at arms length.”
On his tradition of cracking open a Coke (or Coke Zero) before doing his postgame presser: “I worked for a guy for a long time, Mark Few, and he used to call it the cool of the evening. We love these afternoon games, because you put a lot into them, and it’s really cool the rest of the night. Whether you’re on the road or at home and you get to hang out with your family. You’re all fans, or the media, I’m sure you’ve got a little fan into you that’s why you guys do that. But us as coaches put everything they have into this game, so when you can enjoy great moments it’s really special. But I’ll also say this, a lot of us coaches have a bit of a sickness. You lose a couple games and you’re actually probably doing okay because you get to figure things out, and there’s nothing cooler than accepting a challenge when things get tough and trying to help your group figure it out. Really it’s probably the most enjoyable coaching even though it comes with a little bit of pain.”
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On the Big 12 gauntlet: “We got a tough schedule. We’ve got at Baylor and then I don’t know what order it is, Kansas and Iowa State at home, on a Saturday/Monday, and then we got to go on the road to Colorado. I told our guys, obviously we want to win the Big 12, but what’s really cool about being in the Big 12 is you can take second or third in the conference and still win the national championship. The conference is that strong. We’ve put ourselves in position to be in position, now you’ve got to take advantage of that. We’ll start on our Baylor prep tonight, that’s the task at hand now is moving on from this one and getting ready for Baylor and trying to mend our wounded bodies and trying to find a way to get a tough road win in a tough environment.”
Kharchenkov on bouncing back from the 2 losses: “Winning a game is pretty good any way, especially in the Big 12 Conference. We knew Houston is a tough matchup for us, especially with us banged up a little bit. And the two losses didn’t taste right in the mouth, so we just figured it out, fought, figured it out and came up on top.”
On winning on the road: “I love playing in tough environments, at home or on the road. And especially on the road it’s nice because after the game all the fans just leave and the gym gets real quiet and you know you did your job right. No more talking after that. Of course there’s a satisfaction to that, coming home or going to the next game you want to do that.”
