Preseason play finished up for Arizona men’s basketball with a 85-54 blowout win over Eastern Washington. Caleb Holt had a very explosive 21 points performance along with four more Wildcats who scored in double figures.
Here is what head coach Tommy Lloyd, Holt and JJ Mandaquit had to say following the win over Eastern Washington:
Lloyd on if he got what he was looking for from the exhibitions: “I hope so. I mean, obviously, there’s a lot of good moments, and then there was a lot of teachable moments, so we got a good day off tomorrow to kind of take a breath and kind of see where we’re at, and then hopefully leading into this first game we can get a good rhythm of practice. It just felt like practice has been a little disjointed because we’ve had to stack some days off in there to make up for some extra practices we had early. So yeah, I’m excited to get back to work and keep things moving.”
On Caleb Holt’s ability to forget mistakes on offense: “Caleb’s relentless, and part of the deal when you have somebody like him who’s so talented is he just gotta ride some waves. I mean, there’s gonna be some aggressive plays, and there’s gonna be some mistakes. It comes with the territory. He has five turnovers today, which is too many. We’ll take a look at where and why those are coming, and hopefully he’ll be able to learn from it. He’s been a great student so far, and a big part of the development with him is kind of teaching him what we do and why we do it. While that process is taking place, let him play with that energy and effort and those natural instincts he came here with.”
On Arizona’s 20 turnovers: “I just thought it was guys being really soft and maybe a little bit selfish. We did things today that I was just like guys, I don’t know, you remember those Mad Lib books they were just kind of filling in their own words.”
On Kevin Pangos joining the staff: “Kevin and I have a long history together, and it’s something he and I have been talking about for a while. I was lucky enough to recruit Kevin, and he came to Gonzaga and obviously had a great career there, and went overseas. Even had a short stint in the NBA. Just was a guy who, I don’t know, I hate the word overachieve but he got everything out of his potential he could and he’s a great student of the game and a great worker and I think he has a lot of potential as a coach so he and I have kind of been talking about this for a while and it just kind of lined up and he was ready to be done and we had an opportunity, so I’m glad we finally got it through the immigration system. It’s been a long haul, but you have to be patient with that stuff, and it’s no fault of anybody. I appreciate Rachel Blunt on our side has really did a good job helping guide me through the process and I think he’s going to be a great asset for our team over the course of this season.”
On if there was any foreshadowing of Pangos having potential to become a coach: “I mean for sure. That’s an easy assumption to make. He grew up the son of a coach. His dad was a long time women’s university coach in Canada at York University, so he just grew up in a basketball family, and just was such a diligent worker and about all the right things that I think he’ll be a great asset.”
On Arizona’s perimeter defense: “I mean, they shoot 2-14 from three. I don’t know if that’s us or them, and we got to figure it out. I think we have potential to be a good defensive team, but again I felt like we played good defense for long stretches in that game, and then we just kind of made up our own rules. With anything you do in this game, there has to be discipline. That doesn’t mean you can’t be aggressive, but you just have to temper some of this stuff with discipline and make good decisions at both ends of the floor. So we have to continue to get better at that, and that’s why seasons are long because you hope you’re not the final version of yourself in basically just outside of mid-October. So long season, and I’m looking forward to getting better.”
On if he’s figured out the main rotation: “We’ll see. It depends on how practice goes next week. I mean obviously we’ve kind of been consistent thus far with who we’ve been playing and giving guys some chances. The guys that are playing right now probably are going to be the ones that are playing, unless a hail mary happens or something like that.”
On the big three of Holt, Ivan Kharchenkov and Motiejus Krivas: “I’m not into big three. I’m into big big seven or eight. That’s how I always like to roll. I know who you’re talking about, they’re good players. Ivan, Caleb, and Derek today combined with 13 turnovers. That’s tough. That’s tough sledding. They’ve done a good job the first two games. So we got to figure out why, but I don’t think 13 turnovers you can just chalk up to bad luck, and so we have to look at that. That’s real stuff. For us to not score 100 points today is a little disappointing for me, but at the end of the day, exhibition, we’re learning and we got a lot of good stuff to teach.”
On containing Andrew Cook: “Andrew Cook’s a hooper. He’s kind of got this crafty old man game with these step backs and these shot fake step through type things. So we just wanted to be really attentive with them, and we wanted to be physical. Obviously, he was the leading scorer two years ago, and hopefully our size and athleticism bothered him a little bit. He has the makings, looks like he’s going to be a really good player in that Big Sky conference. He’s pretty impressive.”
On what he wanted out of Bryce James in the exhibitions: “Bryce has been good in practice. He got a little bit sick this week, and maybe wasn’t himself, but he didn’t start good today. I want Bryce to take advantage of this opportunity and just play with this relentless effort and energy. I think he keeps raising the standard there. I think that confidence will seep into the other parts of his game. He’s had really good stretches of practices, and so he’s right there. He’s right on the cusp of being a real player, and I’m excited to keep pushing him. He’s young, and we always knew Bryce was going to be a little bit of a late bloomer, so I’m hoping to keep pushing him and I hope he learns from today a little bit. He can’t start the game kind of the way he did today. He had a couple defensive errors. He didn’t run our first play right, and that’s stuff that he really hasn’t been doing. So hopefully, he’s just kind of a little bit of bad luck, and he’ll learn from it and be better.”
On the backup centers: “That wasn’t very pretty today. I didn’t sit there and think, ‘Oh, that’s great, you know, like let’s keep building on that.’ I mean, here’s the deal: if they want to do that, they got to make it obvious for me we should do that, and the way they make that obvious for me is they go in there and kick ass. If they don’t go in there and kick ass. I try to evaluate with my eyes, not closing my eyes and dreaming. I evaluate by what I see, not what I hope I saw, and I just didn’t see it today. So those guys kind of step it up. I mean, they got to step it up. It’s time. They’re playing at Arizona. They belong here, and I expect more out of it.”
On if he sees Krivas and Ugnius Jarusevicius playing at the same time: “I’m not ruling anything out. We got to be able to survive defensively if we do that. We got to be able to move the ball offensively, and today I know we didn’t do Uggi and Mo. We did Uggi and Evan, but it just felt like the ball didn’t move. The ball screens didn’t work. The guards were just doing random things, so it was hard to evaluate because I don’t know what we were doing on offense.”
On JJ Mandaquit: “JJ, he was maybe one of the bright spots today. I thought he played pretty well. I thought he turned down too many shots in that second half. We had a few good possessions where the ball kind of hanged around, and maybe he found the third pass and kind of opening in the corner, and he shot faked himself out of the three and drove it because he wants to make a play for somebody else. JJ is also a really good standing three-point shooter, so I want him to be comfortable letting that rip.”
On if there is any possibility that RJ Godfrey pulls out his court case: “We’re not there with any definitive decisions, but we’re definitely looking at options, and I just don’t have a good option to give you guys right now that would be worthy of you printing.”
On if Godfrey’s condition would be ready if he was eligible: “He’s fine. He’s been practicing every day. I mean, obviously he’s not getting a ton of reps with the main group because we gotta prepare with what we currently have eligible. I’m not worried about the first game. I’m worried about the season, so getting him back would be a definite boost to our program and to our roster, and I would feel pretty good long term if we get him back. We’re at where we’re at, so we’ll just keep pressing forward, and we’ll see where we end up.”
On if it has felt like a long road from Final Four to the opener: “Really long and slow, but it was awesome. I like long and slow. I love long days. Isn’t it great when you get home at like four and you think, man, it feels like eight o’clock right now, and then at nine, you’re like, man, it feels like midnight. I love that. It’s been a great off season. Every off season is tough, but like, it really has. That seems so long ago that it’s hard for me to even think about it. So it’s been a great off season, but I’m also looking forward to the season. It’s gonna be tough. Don’t read into rankings like that. That’s fool’s gold right now.”
On blocking expectations for this season given the success of last season: “I don’t think you need to guard against it, and it could happen again. You have to do the work, and the work’s going to be painful. There’s going to be some tough moments. There’s going to be some growing pains, and we’ve got to get better this week in practice from how we played today. That’s how you can do it. There’s no other way to do it other than like, hey, tough moments and adversity creates opportunity for growth and learning. So we got to take advantage of every one of those. We talked like hey, like last year when we played St. Mary’s it felt like we had to empty the tank. Mo coming off the surgery had to play 30-something minutes. Tobe was out with a crack in his sternum or something like that. Brayden was getting scored on every time when they were on this little mismatch deal they were running, so this was a lot of learning that had to take place, but so that’s just how seasons go. So I’m excited to see where we end up, and I’m glad we didn’t play great today. Now let’s get this film broken down and let’s do some learning.”
Holt on moving on from mistakes: “It’s a long game. I’m gonna make mistakes, but next play.”
On if he ever feels sped up within the game: “Yeah, I feel like I can play fast sometimes. Just finding a balance of changing my paces is one thing I’ve been working on in my individual workouts. Just knowing to slow the game down and knowing to turn it up.”
On playing games that count from here on out: “Definitely looking forward to the season. Very excited for the season. Honestly, I feel like you know these are good games to get under our belt. I feel like we play to our standard today.”
On prior knowledge of the Arizona/UCLA rivalry: “I just know it’s very historic, and we don’t lose. That’s the one thing we’re going to not lose.”
On Arizona’s three-point shooting: “I think we have a whole bunch of guys from one to five, who shoot the ball, like everyone on the court flat can shoot the ball. Even having Mo shoot three balls.”
On what kind of dog he has, his name, and what his dog means to him: “A chocolate golden doodle. It’s great. Keeps me locked in, focused. Instead of me going out trying to do this and that, I have to go take care of my dog, and it just keeps me locked in. I love it. I love taking my rides, taking them to the park. Name is Prynxton, P. R. N. Y. X. T. O. N.”
Mandaquit on Lloyd saying he was a bright spot: “I just get a feel for the game out there. Obviously coming off the bench, I’m able to see how the game is flowing a little bit, and so I think tonight I was just trying to be a connector. I think he’s right. I did turn down some shots, but I gotta look for those sometimes. At the same time, it’s like I want to be the guy that’s able to connect and move the ball side to side and get others going. I live with those here and there, but I’ll be ready when the ball comes my way again as games go on.”
On his ability to backdoor cut and how it opens up the offense: “It’s something we work on a lot. I would say before I got here, I had a really bad habit of just watching the ball and just standing there, and so just super grateful for the coaches. We work on that so much during practice. We’re repping them out a lot, and I just think it opens up a lot of space on the floor.”
On playing games that count from here on out: “Really, really excited. Obviously, exhibitions are great. Good to be back in McKale, playing for these fans for both of us, the first time, really. November 2 is the real thing. National television game, and it’s what you dream about when you’re little. So we’re excited for it.”
On prior knowledge of the Arizona/UCLA rivalry: “I would just say it’s the two two biggest brands on the West Coast when it comes to basketball, and so it’s going to be a showdown, and we’re excited for it. Obviously, really looking forward to it, the opening night of college basketball.”
On feeling comfortable with the rotation: “For me personally, I mean, I feel comfortable. I think we all feel comfortable. I mean, we do such a good job of having culture, building stuff off the floor. We’re a very close knit team, and when it comes to on the floor, we do a really good job at practices, gelling together, everybody getting reps together, and then when you get along off the court, it’s a lot easier to play well together on the court.”