KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Before hitting the main podium at the Big 12 men’s basketball media day Wednesday afternoon, Arizona’s Tommy Lloyd and eight other of the league’s coaches first headed for the individual interview tables.
In front of those, sizable media crowds stood around waiting for Houston’s Kelvin Sampson, Kansas’ Bill Self and Baylor’s Scott Drew to show up.
The only person showing up initially at Lloyd’s table was Dan Gavitt, the NCAA’s VP for men’s basketball. They chatted for a few minutes.
Finally, one reporter wandered over to throw a few questions at Lloyd before the Star checked in to jokingly ask Lloyd if he felt a little lonely.
“I loved it,” Lloyd said, raising his arms to cradle the back of his head. “I don’t need anybody. I’ll sit here with nobody all day.”
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Of course, proximity had something to do with the size of the media crowds hovering around local-area coaches such as Self, Iowa State’s TJ Otzelberger and Kansas State’s Jerome Tang. Sampson, naturally, was also a featured attraction because his Cougars won the league last season, reached the NCAA title game, and are expected to win the Big 12 again.
Arizona? The Wildcats are picked fourth and are also the fourth-highest-rated Big 12 team in the Associated Press Top 25 poll, picked just one notch above where they were picked in the Big 12 poll before last season.
They did wind up tying for third place with BYU in a mild surprise and reached the Big 12 Tournament championship game last season but aren’t expected to do even that this time.
In a college game that increasingly trends older, maybe some of the doubt is over the fact that UA will have to rely on at least three or four freshmen.
Whatever.
Lloyd said last week he didn’t care about the preseason polls and, when asked about them Wednesday, spoke calmly and enthusiastically about some of his freshmen. He talked up the character, competitiveness and physicality of freshman forward Koa Peat, the ability of Brayden Burries to become an NBA point guard, and the “incredible” talent of forward Dwayne Aristode.
“I’ve been really impressed with the effort he plays with,” Lloyd said of Aristode. “I’ve been really impressed with the skill level that he has and there’s no doubt that he’s going to be in our rotation.”
The three Arizona players who accompanied Lloyd to the Big 12 media day — junior guard Jaden Bradley, Peat and senior center Tobe Awaka — gave off similar vibes, even as they sat mostly alone at a players’ small group table for their 20-minute session.
Before they arrived, the UA players did a variety of media partner interviews and photo shoots, while shooting mini-baskets on the T-Mobile arena court during a few idle moments.
“It’s always exciting,” Bradley said in his usual even-keeled manner. “I’m here with my guys, doing some fun stuff, getting pictures. Can’t take this for granted.”
While it was Bradley’s second time at Big 12 media day, it was the first for Peat and Awaka, who transferred from Tennessee before last season.
“It’s pretty cool just to see everybody from the conference gathering together in one place, kind of cool to see some familiar faces,” Awaka said.
The Wildcats carried the same calm, confident mode to the Big 12 media podium. When moderator Mike O’Donnell told Awaka that he had a crazy motor in which he “treats missed shots like they’re bad passes to you — you try to go for everything,” then asked Awaka what he has added to his game in the offseason.
Awaka said he simply focused on techniques and skills, working on things such as his perimeter game and decision making, then noted it was “way easier” when playing with guys like Bradley and Anthony Dell’Orso, who can knock down 3s.
“That was a future coach’s answer,” O’Donnell said. “That was a big time answer.”
Lloyd nodded.
“He’s a future whatever-he-wants-to-be,” Lloyd said.
Meanwhile, Peat and Bradley barely skipped a beat when asked about how the Wildcats were shaping up.
“It’s been great playing with a great point guard like JB and a great big like Tobe,” Peat said. “When Tobe goes out there and plays as hard as he can, I think that brushes off on all the team, kind of sets the tone.
“Then JB is gonna find you in spots, he’s gonna help you get in good spots to score and we’ve got a lot of other good players. I feel like we have really good chemistry, not just on the court but off the court and I think that’s going to help us in the long run.”
Finally, when asked if any of the new guys jumped out at him early in pick-up games, Bradley spoke of the guys who weren’t even on the podium. One of them, center Motiejus Krivas, is actually a third-year player but still has a relatively low profile after sitting out most of last season.
All of them will be familiar faces before long, Bradley indicated.
“We got (Mo) Krivas, we got Dwayne (Aristode), we got Brayden” Burries, Bradley said. “I can pretty much go down the list, our whole team. But those three guys I just picked out, you’re going to see a whole lot of them. I’m excited for the rest of the world to see them, as well.”
Contact sports reporter Bruce Pascoe at [email protected]. On X(Twitter): @brucepascoe
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