Arizona's Tommy Lloyd has emotional response to Utah's coach being fired
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As Kelvin Sampson said earlier this month, Tommy Lloyd is a "real one."
After his Arizona Wildcats beat Utah 83-66 on Wednesday night to remain all alone in second place in the Big 12, Lloyd spent the first two minutes of his postgame press conference reflecting on the human side of the coaching profession and praising former Utah coach Craig Smith and his family.
Smith was fired on Monday after nearly four seasons with the Utes. Lloyd and Smith were both hired in 2021 and coached against each other in the Pac-12 the past three seasons. Smith has two children in Utah's program — one on the coaching staff and one on the team.
"Brady and Landon Smith are Craig's kids, and one's the Director of Operations (at Utah), the other's a walk-on. And both those kids showed up today, which is pretty amazing," Lloyd said. "I know this is a business. And it's a hard business, and I get all those things. But we all have families. We all have kids."
"I talked to (Craig) today and he didn't have one bad word to say. Straight class. For his boys to show up today with their teammates, it says something."
When Lloyd was talking about Smith's family, he got emotional. And understandably so.
Lloyd's son, Liam, is a fifth-year senior on Arizona's roster. Liam grew up in Spokane, Washington, where Lloyd was a longtime assistant coach for Gonzaga's Mark Few. After playing his first four college seasons at Grand Canyon and Northern Arizona, Liam now gets to be around his dad every day.
"This stuff's hard. What we go through, even when it's good, it's hard," Lloyd said. "And I know you guys have opinions, and this isn't against the media — this is just society in general. And us guys that decided to coach, there's a lot of really cool things that come with it. But there's a lot of tough stuff. There's a lot of tough days. And you know what? There's a lot of times your family gets neglected because what we're doing to try to prove our worth as a coach. To prove our value. To prove that we belong at this level."
"So I've got a lot of respect for those two young men. It's impressive those dudes showed up with their teammates today. And the Utah team, they played their ass off today. ... We respect Utah and those guys showing up today, considering everything they're going through."
Watch Lloyd's postgame press conference:
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-029877d49238355bd3388a94f90e3c72.jpg "Ben Sherman")
Ben Sherman has been covering the sports world for most of his 27-year journalism career, including 17 years with The Oregonian/OregonLive. A basketball junkie, March Madness is his favorite time of the year.