At the beginning of the season Arizona head coach Tommy Lloyd spoke about the benefit of having long layoffs during the season. Arizona has an eight-day break in between their loss to West Virginia in the Battle 4 Atlantis third-place game and hosting Southern Utah on Saturday.
Lloyd and his staff have a lot for Arizona to work on during the worst stretch of his tenure at Arizona. Arizona has lost four of its last five. After suffering consecutive losses for the first time under Lloyd as a head coach earlier this month at Wisconsin and versus Duke, Arizona did it again in the Battle 4 Atlantis,.
Before losing to Oklahoma on Friday, Arizona lost its Battle 4 Atlantis semifinal to Oklahoma on Thursday. Arizona won its Battle 4 Atlantis quarterfinal versus Davidson on Wednesday. Following the two losses at the Battle 4 Atlantis Arizona is expected to drop out of the national polls on Monday.
Lloyd is still searching for a lineup that works best for Arizona. Jaden Bradley, Caleb Love and Trey Townsend are the only Arizona players who have started every game this season. Tobe Awaka and K.J. Lewis have started six games each and Carter Bryant and Motiejus Krivas have started once each.
My panic levels for teams with multiple losses:
— Evan Miyakawa (@EvanMiya) December 1, 2024
No Concern
Duke (5-2), #3 at https://t.co/cegyfz96ax
Houston (4-3), #7
Alabama (6-2), #9
A Little Panic
UNC (4-3), #18
Arizona (3-4), #23
Total Panic
UConn (5-3), #28
Creighton (4-3), #43
Krivas has been the highest-performing player for Arizona in the Bayesian Performance Ratings with a grade of 5.23 by Evan Miya. Krivas has played 194 possessions. That is half of what Caleb Love has played. Love is second with a BPR of 5.20. Arizona has graded out much higher offensively than defensively.
Krivas is the highest-performing offensive player for Arizona with 3.71 BPR. Love is second 3.68. Bradley is the only other Arizona player with an OBPR above 3.0 at 3.11. Lewis with an OBPR of 2.9 and wing Anthony Dell'Orso at 2.3 are the only other Arizona players with OBPRs over 2.0.
Lewis at 2.22 is the top graded Arizona player on defensive BPR. Awaka is the only other player over 2.0 in DBPR at 2.08. Lewis is third, Bradley fourth and Carter Bryant fifth overall as the top five graded players for Arizona. Lloyd could choose to start his top five graded players versus Southern Utah.
Arizona has another week off after Southern Utah when they play UCLA at the Footprint Center in Phoenix on December 14. Arizona hosts Samford and Central Michigan after playing UCLA before playing its inaugural Big XII conference game versus TCU on December 30.