That didn’t take long, Arizona Basketball is a destination school once again

College GameDay, one of the best records in the NCAA, landing a five-star commit, and Tommy Lloyd bringing back Olson’s mindset/style of play make Arizona Basketball a destination program once again.

On Monday, the last day in February, Class of 2023 five-star point guard Kylan Boswell committed to the University of Arizona over UNLV and the University of Illinois.

Boswell cited three reasons why he wanted to come to the Desert and join Arizona Basketball; it was the atmosphere and fans, the relationship with coaches (he feels like family), and the development opportunity in Sports Performance program.

“Go Wildcats! I’m feeling very very excited!” Boswell exclaimed.

And just like that, head coach Tommy Lloyd has landed his first five-star commit. The Wildcats haven’t received this type of commitment since Nico Manion and Josh Green in 2019, and he is the Wildcats’ third-highest point guard commit in program history behind Nico Mannion and Mustafa Shakur per 247Sports.

Lloyd’s Wildcats had been on a nine-game win streak before losing on the road to Colorado on Saturday evening. And don’t tell me altitude had nothing to do with it. That said, Lloyd’s win/loss record is currently 25-3 overall, and his team sits comfortably atop the Pac-12 with a 15-2 record.

Only Murray State (28-2, Ohio Valley Conference) and South Dakota State (27-4, Summit League) have a better overall record than Arizona.

This years’ team has a legitimate chance to win the NCAA Tournament, and if Lloyd happens to achieve this feat, he would be the first, first-year head coach to accomplish this since Steve Fisher did it at Michigan in 1989.

In addition, Lloyd just picked up two bonuses totaling $40,000 so far this season:

1. $20,000 for reaching 25 wins for the season.
2. $20,000 for reaching 20 wins for the season.

The media keeps reporting that Lloyd installed the ways and methods, the playbook of Mark Few from Gonzaga, his boss for two decades. But recently it came to light from Lloyd’s assistants that Few actually copied Lute Olson and Mike K.

Assistant coach Riccardo Fois on what Arizona’s Lloyd is building in Tucson:

“Arizona was the blueprint for the original Gonzaga,” the Wildcats assistant said. “Arizona and Duke. Lute Olson and Coach K and the brotherhood and the way everybody was together, was one of the things Coach [Mark] Few tried to build.”

Assistant coach Jack Murphy, a former Arizona Wildcat and assistant on three coaching staffs during his tenure coaching at Arizona agreed:

“The things they did early on at Gonzaga mirrored our program,” Murphy said.

Is your mind blown yet or did you recognize this was the case? I guess Lloyd is taking it back.

What’s the recipe you ask? According to Jeff Borzello of ESPN, who has nice things to say about Arizona’s men’s basketball program:

1. Developing unknown or unheralded talent.
2. An uptempo, simplified version of offensive basketball.
3. Connection with players and with a community.

Arizona is still ranked No. 2 in the Nation per the AP Poll published today after No. 1-6 all lost this past weekend.

Don’t forget College GameDay was recently broadcasted from McKale Center too.

Enough of the talk that Sean Miller handed him the team, Miller does have a great eye for talent, not taking that away from him, but what Lloyd did is bringing back is Lute Olson basketball. And with the commitment of Kylan Boswell, the University of Arizona is now officially a destination program once again.