Give Tommy Lloyd a chance
One of the architects of Gonzaga, Arizona's new head coach has been a coveted coaching candidate for the better part of a decade
On Wednesday night, a full week after Arizona fired Sean Miller and a full six weeks after Arizona’s season officially came to an end, the program made it official: Tommy Lloyd is the heir to Lute Olson’s throne.
A longtime assistant at Gonzaga — a man that had been tabbed as the coach in waiting in Spokane, a coach that was as integral in the development of Gonzaga from a plucky underdog to one of the five-best programs in America — Lloyd had previously had opportunities to try and land a head coaching position elsewhere. One of the biggest points of discussion every carousel was whether or not this would be the year that someone would pry Lloyd away from Gonzaga.
He never even interviewed elsewhere.
Because Lloyd had it written into his contract that, as long as he was on staff at Gonzaga if and when Mark Few left, either through retirement or taking a power conference job elsewhere, he would be the next head coach.
(As remiss as I am to compliment ESPN’s Jeff Borzello for literally anything, this story he wrote last February on Lloyd is as good as of a profile as you’ll ever get.)
If you’re happy where you’re at, and if you know you’ll hear apparent to a top five program in America, it is going to take something special for you to leave.
And Arizona, as it turns out, is that something special.
I understand why some of the most famous Arizona alumni are going to be upset at the University’s decision to go outside of the family to make a hire, especially when there were so many good candidates within the family.
Damon Stoudamire is a grinder that started his coaching career as an unpaid assistant on Rice’s staff, working his way up to Pacific, where he’s turned that program into one of the better teams in the WCC.
Miles Simon was the MOP of the 1997 Final Four, a face that has been on ESPN, that has worked on Arizona’s staff, that has coached in the AAU ranks and that is currently on staff with the Lakers.
Josh Pastner was one of the charming underdogs of the 2021 season, his face shield and boyish innocence a welcome contrast to the brash confidence of his star point guard, Jose Alvarado.
Jason Terry scored 18,000 points in the NBA, won an NBA title in 2011 and was a first-team All-American with Arizona back in 1999. He just finished his first season as an assistant coach on Arizona’s bench.
All of those hires would have made sense.
All of them would have kept it in the family, something that we’ve saw Michigan do with tremendous success. North Carolina and Indiana followed in Michigan’s footsteps earlier this spring. I do believe that all of them would have been somewhere between good and great hires1, and I do believe they would have had quite a bit of success with Arizona, too.
And while I’m all-in on Arizona’s decision to go with Lloyd, I do understand why the Arizona basketball alumni are so upset. Gilbert Arenas went on an Instagram Live with Richard Jefferson last week and refused to even mention Lloyd’s name.
“You are an assistant coach,” Arenas said. “OK. You assist.”
That’s what he’s saying publicly. Trust me when I tell you that the things being said in private are more scathing, and to be frank, that likely has much less to do with Lloyd himself than it does the fact that one of their own is not leading this program. There are a huge number of prominent former NBA stars that played for the Wildcats under Lute Olson. For the last 13 seasons, they watched the program get built up and run into the ground by someone from the outside. There were four guys that were part of their family, their brotherhood, that had very real cases for why they should be the next coach to lead the program.
In a year where the tie that binds all of these men together, Lute himself, passed away, you can understand why they are upset. If I was in their shoes, I would be, too.
What I would tell them is this: Give Lloyd a chance. This is the guy that spearheaded Gonzaga’s overseas recruiting efforts. He’s the one with the relationships in abroad that has landed some of Gonzaga’s biggest names in recent years. He’s part of the reason that Gonzaga has been so successful mining the transfer portal. He helped landed blue-chip recruits like Jalen Suggs and Zach Collins. He is a reason why Gonzaga’s in the mix for a player like Chet Holmgren. And, in recent seasons, he’s been given more responsibility when it comes to the actual on-court coaching; Gonzaga ranks as the nation’s most efficient offense in each of the last three seasons.
So give him a chance.
Because I do believe that, with time, he will have enough success that you’ll end up considering him a part of the Arizona family, too.
I’ve applauded the way that Dave Heeke, the athletic director at Arizona, has handled this coaching search. After firing Miller, he took homerun swings at some of the biggest coaches names in basketball — from Scott Drew to Brad Stevens — before interviewing a core group of candidates, all of whom would jump at the chance to get the job and all of whom would have been quality hires.
The timeline is not all that different from the way that Scott Dolson handled the Indiana search, something I was more critical of. Indiana fans have asked me what the difference is, and for me, it’s simple: Arizona had great hires that would jump at the chance to get the job. Heeke knew this. He knew he could take his time as well, because none of the finalists were really looking elsewhere. They would all take it.
At Indiana, the pursuit of Brad Stevens and Chris Holtmann felt like more than just kicking the tires. And the fallback option ended up being Mike Woodson. Now, to be clear, I’ve been nowhere near as critical of the Woodson hire as some have been. I understand what Dolson is trying to do, and I do think there is a real chance that he can find a way to make it work. He’s hired a good staff, he has the fanbase behind him and, if I’m being frank, this is a coach that won 54 games with the New York Knickerbockers! He should be in the damn Hall of Fame for pulling that off.
But when the guy you’re settling on is a 63 year old that has not worked or lived on a college campus since five years before I was born — I’m 36 — it’s a far cry from the options that Arizona had.
That’s the difference.
So what you're saying is, when other Power Conference teams zigged (Michigan hired Juwan Howard, Indiana hired Mike Woodson, etc.), Arizona Zagged? I'll show myself out.
I did not know there were so much pushback from the Arizona alums. This looks like a great hire to me, as an outsider.