Arizona’s Final Four Bid Came Down to One Thing: Figure It Out

SAN JOSE — Tommy Lloyd has a pet acronym that he regularly uses with his Arizona basketball team: “FIO.” Figure it out.

“We practice a lot of figure-it-out situations,” Lloyd said earlier this month. “And the players have got to kind of, in the moment, figure out the right plays to make with the right fundamentals. And when they do that, when they’re figuring things out, complicated things, we’re our best version of ourselves.”

The West Regional final Saturday night was an FIO situation of the highest order. The No. 1 seed Wildcats were being pushed into stressful territory by No. 2 Purdue—down seven at halftime, their biggest intermission deficit since Feb. 24, with a Final Four berth on the line. Arizona was struggling with a wily and determined opponent: Its defense was being sliced up by point guard Braden Smith; its starting guards were a combined 2 for 9 from the field; its height advantage had dissolved in a -5 rebound margin.

In the locker room, Lloyd did the opposite of what predecessor Sean Miller might have done a time or two at the Elite Eight level—squeezing the moment too tightly. Lloyd let go and let his players figure it out.

“This is when we’re at our best,” he said. “I said, ‘Guys, the coaching staff and I are going to leave right now. You guys got a few minutes to talk amongst yourselves and kind of figure this deal out, and let’s go kick their ass in the second half.’ ”

Message sent. Message received. The figure-it-out final: Arizona 79, Purdue 64. The Wildcats won the second half by 22 points, relentlessly turning a potential panic situation into yet another dominant victory.

“I was literally a spectator like you were in that second half,” Lloyd said. “That’s what it felt like. So proud of these guys for what they did.”

What they did was deliver Arizona to its first Final Four in a quarter century, since the Lute Olson golden era. This is a proud and accomplished program, with a passionate fan base that was positively starving for this moment. After taking over the SAP Center, they chanted and sang and whooped and hollered on their way out of the arena, heading back to an elusive destination that still has seemed destined all season.

Lloyd constructed a dream team for this season. He retained veterans Jaden Bradley, Motiejus Krivas, Anthony Dell’Orso and Tobe Awaka, then convinced Dell’Orso and Awaka to come off the bench behind superstar freshmen Brayden Burries and Koa Peat. Add in a third freshman starter, German import Ivan Kharchenkov, and Lloyd had everything—NBA talent, immense size, athleticism, depth, skill and toughness.

The result was a 29–2 blitz through the regular season, with a single one-week blip—consecutive losses to Kansas and Texas Tech in the first half of February. Then Arizona backed it up with the Big 12 tournament title and a No. 1 NCAA seed. The stars were aligned.

They remained aligned through three low-stress NCAA tourney games—beating Long Island, Utah State and Arkansas by an average of 22.3 points. Then came Purdue, and then came the challenge.

The Boilermakers’ core senior group had been down this road before, all the way to the national championship game two years ago. They weren’t going to go down easily. And in fact, they came out looking like the team that knows what it takes to make the Final Four.

Arizona forward Ivan Kharchenkov goes up for a bucket against Purdue in the Elite Eight. | Eakin Howard-Imagn Images

Smith, a master of the pick-and-roll, kept getting away from Kharchenkov for shots. Big man Oscar Cluff was battling inside. The Purdue bench stepped up with big man Trey Kaufman-Renn in foul trouble. A startling upset seemed possible at halftime. The first half was a Matt Painter master class in strategy and execution.

Then Arizona figured it out. Peat was a beast inside, making contested shots on his way to winning the West Regional Most Outstanding Player award. Bradley started driving downhill. So did Kharchenkov. Dell’Orso made a couple of big shots. Krivas dominated the glass. Awaka was his usual forceful presence inside. And Burries rose up to hit big shots and stick in the dagger.

In the final analysis, Arizona was simply too long. Too strong. Too gifted. Too poised to be eliminated.

“They’ll wear you down. Their ability to get the ball in the paint. Whether that’s getting an offensive rebound, whether that’s driving the basketball,” Painter said. “So if you look how they play, they don’t shoot and really make a lot of threes, but their ability to get by you—they have such good positional size and quickness.

“They get in transition and they kill you. They get on the glass and kill you. If you would have told me that they would have outrebounded us by one and we would have four more offensive rebounds, I would take that any day of the week against those days. Any day of the week.”

There is a lot of poison to pick between when playing Arizona. But it’s all poison.

“Really hard when you are trying to stop the ball in transition, and they find Brayden Burries for a three. That’s hard. You’re trying to load up. Here comes one of the Mack trucks coming down the lane. Jaden Bradley has the ball, who is faster than hell,” Painter said.

“Sometimes people want to talk in theory about what’s going on and say, hey, but they’re playing to their strengths. He can change on a dime when his team changes. There’s nothing in the manual that says you got to play a certain way.”

That’s the beauty of figuring it out with a loaded roster. Arizona has so many ways to do it, so many paths to victory. A little flexibility goes a long way. And so does coaching without a death grip on every tight situation.

Arizona rolls on to Indianapolis and looks like the team to beat. The Wildcats have all the parts. They just have to figure it out for the next 80 minutes.

More March Madness From Sports Illustrated

Listen to SI’s college sports podcast, Others Receiving Votes, below or on Apple and Spotify. Watch the show on the SI College YouTube channel.