NCAA Tournament notebook: Arizona freshmen ready for next big stage, Long Island not just happy to be here
SAN DIEGO—Much has been made about the unique nature of Arizona’s starting lineup, one that includes three freshmen. That formula has only produced two national champions in the past 30 seasons, none since 2015, and hasn’t worked out for the Wildcats in the past.
But as Tommy Lloyd has said over and over, his freshmen aren’t the textbook version of that term. Brayden Burries and Koa Peat have won championships, while Ivan Kharchenkov played professionally in Germany before entering college.
“I haven’t sensed that our freshmen don’t know what this is about,” Lloyd said Thursday. “I told our freshmen, hey, you guys won a state championship? Yeah. Then let’s go win another state championship. And the way you win a state championship, you win a state championship game by game. This just happens to have the word ‘national’ in front of it. But it’s no different approach.”
Mike Bibby is the only UA freshman to start on a Final Four team for Arizona, and in its history just 26 have started an NCAA tourney game. The first were Anthony Cook and Sean Elliott in 1986, and two years later they’d be part of the 1988 squad that got the Wildcats to the Final Four for the first time.
Deandre Ayton (2018) was the last freshman to start in the tourney for Arizona, while Rawle Alkins and Lauri Markannen in 2017 were the last to win a game.
This will be the first time since 2000 that three freshmen start. Gilbert Arenas, Jason Gardner and Luke Walton got Arizona to the second round before falling, but a year later they made the program’s last trip to the Final Four.
Burries and Peat, who became the first freshman teammates to score 20 or more in a conference title game since 2000, could both challenge the school freshman NCAA tourney scoring record. Marcus Williams had 24 in a second round loss to Villanova in 2006, while Stanley Johnson had 22 in the opening round against Texas Southern in 2015.
Arizona still has plenty of NCAA tourney experience, though. Jaden Bradley has made the Sweet 16 each of his first three seasons, including as a freshman at Alabama, while Tobe Awaka and Anthony Dell’Orso were part of last year’s Sweet 16 run and Motiejus Krivas logged time in all three games in 2024 before missing last season’s tournament.
“I think it’s just kind of just telling them one game at a time, don’t try and reinvent the wheel,” Awaka said. “You guys have been successful throughout the whole season. I think they’ve done a great job of handling adversity, and just handling the ups and downs of the college basketball season. So just really stay true to who they are and just keep doing what they’re doing.”
Long Island is making its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2018, and no one on its roster has been in the Big Dance before. That was evident when players came to their press conference, each with phone in hand to capture the moments and one asking if he could take his name placard before being told he might have to do media again.
It’s also the first tourney appearance as a coach for Rod Strickland, though as a player at DePaul in the 1980s he went dancing three times with a pair of trips to the Sweet 16. That was before before a first round draft pick and playing 18 seasons in the NBA, though those aren’t things Strickland talks about with his team.
“I think I had a hell of a basketball career, but it’s over,” Strickland said. “I think I protect it more because it’s over. But it’s not really about me. I know what I’ve done. I think the older folks know what I’ve done. These players have no clue. They’ve got to look on YouTube to understand what happened with me. And I just don’t think that’s what it’s about. I think I have to give my knowledge and experience as best I can to them, and I want to help them grow. This is more important for them than me. I’ve been on this stage before. I’ve done some things. I’ve been in the spotlight. I’m cool right here in the corner. Let’s let these guys, let them have their time and let them do something special.”
Winners of the NEC regular season and conference tournament titles, LIU has a small but loyal fanbase that’s gone viral with the “Fins Up” mantra. That, combined with the team’s success and Strickland’s rep in New York City have made the Sharks popular on social media.
Not all of it might be serious, though.
“I don’t know if you watched TikTok, but there’s a lot of TikToks edits of the Sharks right now,” senior Greg Gordon said. “A lot of people are picking us in their bracket to win the national championship. As much as like it I get some of it as a joke—most of it is a joke, but it definitely stores belief in us. It makes us feel like the world kind of believes in us. So it has given us a different type of drive. We’re not going to come out scared or timid. We’re just going to come out and play.”
Kindred perimeter avoiders
Arizona averages 16.3 3-point attempts per game this season, which ranks 358th out of 365 Division I teams, and at 26.8 its percentage of shots taken from outside is 5th-lowest in the country. Yet Long Island is basically in the same boat, taking 16.5 per game which accounts for 29 percent of its shots.
“We have the ability to make 3s but we’re trying to take the best shot possible,” said Strickland, whose team shoots 52.9 percent on 2s and 48.1 percent overall. “So we’re not searching for the 3s, as I know other teams are.”
Strickland and LIU players made mention to Arizona being deficient at shooting from 3, though at 36 percent that’s better than one-third of the teams in the NCAA field. It’s likely the undersized Sharks, who don’t start anyone over 6-foot-9, are going to try and pack the paint and force the UA to take 3s, but when that’s happened this season the Wildcats have been fairly successful.
They’re 11-0 when taking at least 31 percent of their shots from beyond the arc, going 98 for 243 (40.3 percent). And in each of those games they still got more points in the paint than from the perimeter.
Clean bill of health for Bradley
Bradley gave Wildcat Nation a major scare when he went to the locker room during the second half of the Big 12 title game, coming back a few minutes later with his left thumb and wrist taped and playing the final 14-plus minutes but not scoring.
Lloyd said Sunday that he thought Bradley was fine and doubled down on that Thursday.
“I haven’t heard one thing about the wrist all week,” Lloyd said. “So it seems to be in good shape. He’s been practicing normal. Nothing on his hand. So he’s looked good to me.”
During Arizona’s open practice Bradley participated fully without any wrap on that hand or wrist.
