"Are We in the Sweet 16 or the Elite Eight?"

Tommy Lloyd woke up Saturday morning in a San Jose hotel room and could not remember which round of the NCAA Tournament his team was playing. "I woke up this morning — this is a true story — and I thought, are we in the Sweet 16 or the Elite Eight?" he told reporters afterward, laughing at himself. The answer was the Elite Eight, and by 10 p.m. Pacific time it wouldn't matter anymore, because Arizona would be in the Final Four for the first time in a quarter century, and Tommy Lloyd would be standing in a locker room full of players young enough to be his children, trying not to cry.

The Wildcats beat Purdue 79-64, erasing a seven-point halftime deficit with the kind of second-half performance that turns a program's history from one chapter to the next. Koa Peat, an 18-year-old freshman from Phoenix, scored 20 points on 9-of-18 shooting with 7 rebounds. When it was over, Peat said the thing that mattered most to Lloyd: "Coach, he's great. I'm just happy to be able to win games for him. He deserves it."

Spokane, 2001-2021

Tommy Lloyd did not take the conventional path to a head coaching job. He took no path at all, because for two decades he chose not to leave. Lloyd grew up in Washington state, played junior college basketball at Walla Walla Community College, and got his start when Dan Monson offered him an opportunity on staff. When Mark Few replaced Monson in 1999, Few honored the commitment. Lloyd became a volunteer administrative assistant and stayed.

He stayed for 20 years. He stayed through 20 NCAA Tournament appearances, two championship game runs, 16 conference titles, and the transformation of Gonzaga from a mid-major curiosity into a permanent national power. He became Few's top assistant and the architect of the international pipeline that delivered Domantas Sabonis, Rui Hachimura, and Przemek Karnowski. Other programs called. Lloyd said no. Few guaranteed Lloyd the Gonzaga head coaching job upon his retirement — in writing. "This is the only place I would ever leave Gonzaga to be the head coach at," he said at his Arizona introductory press conference in 2021.

Inheriting the Wreckage

The Arizona job Lloyd walked into was not the Arizona job Lute Olson had built. Olson coached the Wildcats for 25 years and won the 1997 national championship. His successor Sean Miller reached the Elite Eight twice and compiled a 302-109 record, but the FBI's corruption investigation landed squarely on Tucson. Arizona self-imposed a postseason ban. Miller was fired in April 2021. The program was radioactive.

Lloyd took the job anyway, and the skeptics were loud. A career assistant? From Gonzaga? But in his first season, Arizona went 33-4, won the Pac-12, and Lloyd won AP Coach of the Year. His 61 wins in his first two seasons set an NCAA Division I record. Yet the tournament kept saying no — four straight trips to the Sweet 16 or earlier, zero trips past the second weekend. The 25-year Final Four drought stretched to its breaking point.

Koa Peat and the Answer

The answer arrived wearing number 1 and standing 6-foot-8. Koa Peat scored 21 in the Sweet 16 and 20 in the Elite Eight, becoming just the sixth freshman in NCAA Tournament history to score 20-plus in both rounds — joining Derrick Rose, Jalen Rose, and Kon Knueppel. He was named West Region MOP at 18 years old.

But Peat did not do it alone. Jaden Bradley, the Big 12 Player of the Year, scored 14 in the Elite Eight. Ivan Kharchenkov added 18 and 8. At halftime against Purdue, trailing 38-31, Lloyd made a decision. "I said, 'Guys, the coaching staff and I are going to leave right now. You guys got a few minutes to talk amongst yourselves and kind of figure this deal out, and let's go kick their butt in the second half.'" Arizona outscored Purdue 48-26 after the break.

Indianapolis Awaits

Arizona enters the Final Four at 36-2, riding a 13-game winning streak, as the No. 1 overall seed. They face Michigan or UConn on April 4 — a stage the program hasn't stood on since 2001. Lloyd acknowledged that history: "Without Lute — without Sean doing what he did for those 12 years he was here, I wouldn't be able to do what we did today."

North Carolina has been mentioned as a suitor. When asked, Lloyd offered a response that sounded like a man who spent 20 years learning how to stay: "Arizona deserves my full focus."

Twenty seasons as someone else's assistant. Five seasons building his own program from the wreckage of an NCAA investigation. One freshman from Phoenix who scores 20 in the biggest game of the year and says, simply, "He deserves it." Tommy Lloyd woke up Saturday morning unable to remember which round he was coaching. By Saturday night, the answer didn't matter. He was going to Indianapolis.