Tommy Lloyd Analyzes Team Ahead of First Exhibition

Whether or not the Wildcats can hold on to the high ranking remains to be seen, as they have to go through a gauntlet of elite-level teams, with the No. 3 Florida Gators, No. 12 UCLA, No. 4 UConn Huskies, No. 20 Auburn Tigers, and No. 15 Alabama Crimson Tide on the schedule. That's not to mention the list of contenders that Arizona must play when it gets into the Big 12 schedule.

Head coach Tommy Lloyd discussed the current state of his team, its preparation for the Gaels and the challenges they may present.

Here are five interesting things that he had to say in the latest press conference.

On the decision to play St. Mary's in an exhibition

"It's a great program. I mean, it's been one of the most consistent programs in the country for 10, 15, 20 years now. Randy's a great coach, and we have a good relationship.. And then the relationship with Arizona goes before me. My relationship with him goes before me coming here. So, yeah, it just makes great sense. We played him a number of times."

On scheduling tough opponents like St. Mary's in the future

"For sure. I mean, but you also have an obligation to everybody in your roster to make sure they get opportunities in these games and you want guys to play. And, there's a lot of great basketball being played at the Division II, the Division III, the NAIA, and JUCO level. So, I think it's great for those kids to have an opportunity to play a program like Arizona as well, and I don't think that should be lost."

On being ranked in the preseason polls

"I have no problem with that. I mean, the other coaches voted on it. Everyone gets their vote and that's the decision. That's how the numbers shook out. Now, let's go play basketball... I have not spent one second thinking about it, talking about it."

"We're going to try to have a good practice today. You know, we're building for what we hope is a successful, tough season, and hopefully at the end of the day, our team plays well enough, and some of the individuals play well enough on it that they get, they get the real honor that matters."

On getting a look at everyone on the roster

"I hope everyone gets an opportunity to play. We just got to figure out what that looks like. And we have an obligation to prepare the team for tough games ahead. So, we got to figure out if there's certain lineups we need to look at, or a certain number of minutes we want to get guys we kind of got to figure out what that looks like."

On what Brayden Burries brings to the team

"Brayden is a really good player. And I don't think there's, not a lot on the court that Brayden can't do or can't handle. So, I'm sure being one of our guards, the ball is going to find him and some of those tougher moments."

"And I'm pretty confident he'll do good things when he has those opportunities. So, I'm not, we're not a team that tilts it to one guy, where this guy is going to get all this into the shot clock stuff or stuff like that, but he's somebody that is definitely dynamic enough that he's going to, I think he could be really successful in those situations."