NCAA Tournament: Arizona trying to get past Sweet 16 hurdle
· Yahoo Sports
SAN JOSE, Calif.—It’s called the Sweet Sixteen, but for Arizona it’s provided nothing but a sour taste the past decade.
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Since reaching the Elite Eight three times in five years under Sean Miller, the Wildcats have made it to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament on four other occasions. Three of those have been under Tommy Lloyd.
Each of those trips to the Sweet 16 ended there, starting with Miller’s final appearance with the UA in 2017—in the same arena as this year!—and then in 2022, 2024 and 2025 with Miller. Only last season, against Duke, were the Wildcats not the higher-seeded team.
So much for being sweet.
Top-seeded Arizona (34-2) is a 7.5-point favorite over No. 4 Arkansas (28-8), per FanDuel Sportsbook. That’s ironically the same line as the 2017 Sweet 16 game at the SAP Center against Xavier.
“I don’t really think the past is a predictor of the future,” said Tobe Awaka, who like Jaden Bradley is appearing in his fourth Sweet 16. “I think we’re just worried about what’s next up on our plate, which is Arkansas. We’re going to prepare to the best of our ability, follow the game plan, follow the scout, and hopefully if we do what we do, we’ll be successful.”
The Wildcats have won 11 in a row since their mini losing streak, but Arkansas is also hot with seven straight wins. That’s among the many similarities Razorbacks coach John Calpari notices between the teams.
“This is one of those games, folks, where we do some things a little better than them, they do some things a little better than us,” Calipari said. “Tommy has done a great job with his team. They play to their strengths just like we do. Can we do better at what we do as they do better at what they—it’s kind of like the same thing. It’s their will against our will, and who’s going to hold out the longest.”
Calipari, in his second year at Arkansas after a 15-year run at Kentucky, has one of the most dynamic freshmen in the country in Darius Acuff Jr. The SEC Freshman of the Year has averaged 30 points and 6.5 assists in the NCAA tourney and is the latest in a long line of frosh that Calipari has leaned on.
“Darius is a supreme talent, and he’s a great young man,” said Lloyd, who coached Acuff on Team USA in 2024. “I was only around him for three, three and a half weeks or something. So I’m sure there’s more to him than I saw, but what I know is he’s a supreme competitor, and I know that’s a guy that’s not afraid of the moment, and he has the ability to kind of, quote-unquote, get the eye of the tiger. He has that ability and that mentality to kind of rise up his game based on the importance of the game.”
But no one left in the NCAA field is relying on freshmen more than Arizona. Brayden Burries, Ivan Kharchenkov and Koa Peat combined for 86 points against Long Island and Utah State. That topic has been beaten to death, with Lloyd saying over and over again that he thinks it’s a non-issue.
“People remind me all the time, like, did you realize your three freshmen were the leading scorer last game?,” Lloyd said. “When I’m writing up lineup cards and whatever, or game plans, I don’t write freshman next to their name, either. I just know they’re really good basketball players.”
On paper, this is the best Arizona team in a long time. The 34 wins are tied for second-most in school history, it started off 23-0 and spent nine weeks at No. 1 in the Associated Press poll. Lloyd is looking to how the Wildcats played throughout the season to help get them past Arkansas, not the past burden of Sweet 16 shortcomings.
“I love this team, I love how this team is built,” he said. “I think this team is built for the long haul. But I also respect the fact that we’re going to have to do it possession by possession, media time-out by media time-out type of game, and our opponents are formidable. Yeah, obviously we want to be playing Saturday, but we’re not going to look past this opportunity or make it like an end-all, be-all for anything because it’s not that. Our approach to our guys has been normal. Let’s just treat this as normal. Like, we’re playing on three days’ rest instead of four days’ rest. Well, we did that in the Big 12. So let’s treat this as normal and let’s not make it bigger than it normally is.”