Arizona head coach Tommy Lloyd chats with an official about a call in the second half of the Wildcats’ Pac-12 matchup with UCLA at McKale Center on Jan. 20. No longer part of the Pac-12, the Wildcats and Bruins may still meet up this coming season anyway — possibly in Phoenix.
Knowing standout forward Azuolas Tubelis was gone heading into the NBA Combine last May, Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd was still scrambling to fill five open roster spots.
At the same point this year, he’s pretty much full.
While standout guard Caleb Love has a stay-or-go decision to make after the G League Elite Camp and NBA Combine play out next week in Chicago, the Wildcats have added Campbell transfer Anthony Dell’Orso to a perimeter crew that appears capable of soaking up Love’s minutes and shots if he stays in the draft.
The Wildcats have the maximum 13 scholarship players as of now, and could probably operate with 12 if Love leaves, albeit that means losing the 2023-24 Pac-12 Player of the Year.
They aren’t expected to drop below 12 since UA’s other draft-testing players are expected to return.
“To be honest, you never know,” Lloyd said Tuesday, before a “Wildcat Welcome Tour” stop at Union Public House in Tucson. “Situations play out. One decision impacts another decision and things can change from one week to the next.
“Our job is just to make sure that we’re putting in Arizona basketball in the most sound, solid place to be successful. Along the way, you’re having to make tough decisions, you’re having to make quick decisions. And hopefully you’re making the right ones.”
While Lloyd said last week that post transfers Trey Townsend (Oakland) and Tobe Awaka (Tennessee) helped create a frontline that “has a chance to be really, really good,” he wasn’t able to get into the details of his key new perimeter additions.
UA hasn’t received paperwork for Dell’Orso, meaning Lloyd isn’t allowed to speak about him publicly. Additonally, five-star guard Joson Sanon technically remains in the high school class of 2025, so he can’t sign anything yet — even as he says he plans to reclassify in order to join the Wildcats a year earlier.