UA's Tommy Lloyd Named AP National Coach of the Year

NEW ORLEANS, LA—Although the University of Arizona men's basketball team is not playing in the Final Four this weekend in New Orleans, the program did pick up a victory there on Friday when head coach Tommy Lloyd was named Associated Press National Coach of the Year.

In his first season in Tucson, Lloyd led the Wildcats to a 33-4 overall record, which included an 18-2 mark in the Pac-12. UA won both the Pac-12 regular-season and postseason tournament titles.

The Cats earned a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament and defeated Wright State and TCU before losing to Houston in the Sweet 16.

The 47-year-old Lloyd, a native of Washington state, spent 22 years as an assistant at Gonzaga before being named the Arizona head coach on April 14, 2021.

Lloyd also was named the National Coach of the Year by the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) and the United States Basketball Writers Association (USBWA) earlier this week.

In the AP National Coach of the Year balloting, Lloyd received 28 votes from a 61-person media panel. Providence's Ed Cooley (21 votes) finished second.

"He's a player's coach —he does everything for his players," Arizona junior center Christian Koloko told the AP about Lloyd. "He's a very detail-oriented coach, goes into the detail to really teach you the game."

Lloyd is just the third coach in history to be named AP National Coach of the Year in his first season at a school. The others were Indiana State's Bill Hodges in 1979 and Drake's Keno Davis in 2008.