Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd admits that it wasn’t his halftime speech that inspired the Wildcats’ dazzling second-half rally against Purdue.
He invited his players to do most of the talking when they entered the locker room trailing by seven and needing a strong second-half push to save their season.
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Once Arizona associate head coach Jack Murphy showed the players a few video clips of what had gone wrong in the first half, Lloyd told the Wildcats they were fine and encouraged them to “stay steady” and work their way back into the game. Then he told his players, “Guys, the coaching staff and I are going to leave right now. You guys have a few minutes to talk amongst yourself and figure this deal out. Let’s go kick their ass in the second half!”
The faith that Lloyd put in his players turned out to be exactly the right button to push. Arizona outscored a talented, experienced Purdue team by 22 points after halftime, pulling away for a 79-64 victory that ended the program’s 25-year Final Four drought and answered what few questions remained about these deep, formidable Wildcats.
Arizona Wildcats celebrate after defeating the Purdue Boilermakers to make the Final Four of the NCAA tournament. (Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)
(Thearon W. Henderson via Getty Images)
Previous highly touted Arizona teams have buckled under the weight of high expectations at this stage of the NCAA tournament. For a quarter century, the Wildcats have found every possible way to let opportunities to make the Final Four slip through their fingers.
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Twelve times since 2001, Arizona has reached the NCAA tournament’s second weekend. Five times, the Wildcats made the Elite Eight. Each trip ended in heartbreak, from a near miss against Kansas in 2003, to Illinois’ stunning 15-point comeback in 2005, to Jamelle Horne’s game-winning 3-pointer rimming out against UConn in 2011, to back-to-back narrow losses to Frank Kaminsky and Wisconsin in 2014 and 2015.
This year’s Wildcats refused to allow that 25-year hex to continue any longer. They withstood a first-half punch from Purdue and responded with uncanny poise and resilience.
A team that is built on paint-scoring attacked the rim with reckless abandon in transition, off the dribble and on the offensive glass. One minute, it was Koa Peat barreling through the chest of Trey Kaufman-Renn on his way to the basket. The next, it was Ivan Kharchenkov putting his head down and attacking off the dribble or Jaden Bradley acrobatically twisting around defenders for a driving layup.
Barely four minutes into the second half, Bradley was signaling for more noise from an already-roaring Arizona crowd after his driving layup tied the game. Only minutes later, a Bradley free throw gave the Wildcats the lead for good. By the seven-minute mark of the second half, Arizona’s defense had held Purdue to just 15 second-half points and the Wildcats were ahead by double figures.
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“They’ll wear you down,” Purdue coach Matt Painter said. “Their ability to get the ball in the paint, whether that’s getting an offensive rebound, whether that’s driving the basketball. If you look at how they play, they don’t shoot and make a lot of threes, but their ability to get by you. They have such good positional size and quickness.”
The signature moment of Arizona’s dazzling second half came as the Wildcats were already on the verge of putting Purdue away. It started with Fletcher Loyer dribbling the ball off the foot of teammate Kaufman-Renn, sending it rolling away in the opposite direction.
Arizona freshman Brayden Burries outsprinted Loyer to the loose ball even though he had to cover nearly twice the distance, diving on top of it like a strong safety pouncing on a fumble. Burries then fed fellow freshman Kharchenkov for a fast-break layup, the exclamation mark on a victory 25 years in the making.
Next up for Arizona will be the winner of Sunday’s Midwest regional final clash between top-seeded Michigan and sixth-seeded Tennessee. Whoever wins that game will have to prepare for a Wildcats team that has won all four of its NCAA tournament games so far by at least 12 points.
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When asked what they said to each other at halftime, Arizona players said that their veterans did most of the talking. Bradley, center Tobe Awaka and fellow big man Motiejus Krivas told the Wildcats that they had been through adversity before and that they couldn’t allow themselves to get too high or too low.
Why would Lloyd essentially put the halftime speech in the hands of his players at such a pivotal moment of the season?
“The powerful thing in a team sport is a player-led program,” Lloyd said. “The coach has to help them navigate it but when you can get the players to own these moments, you’re so much better.”
