INDIANAPOLIS — In the bottom third of each Arizona player’s locker, right below the Final Four sticker slapped on each of them at Lucas Oil Stadium, was an 8×10 image of one of this group’s special moments.
One features Arizona forward Koa Peat flexing his jersey after a home win. Next to it is an image of a scene of delirium in which Arizona’s entire roster is engaged in a dogpile. Wildcats star freshman Brayden Burries has a rightful place, celebrating a 3-pointer. The printed-out pictures — including one that includes guard Jaden Bradley holding a commemorative basketball while surrounded by his teammates — memorialize this group’s best moments. It believed it had more where those came from.
Instead, after Saturday night, all that’s left is reminisces.
Isolated in the back of the locker room, there’s Peat — who was emotional when addressing the media at Arizona’s postgame news conference — sitting on a counter with his head pointed directly at the floor. Bradley assumed a similar posture while pacing around the room. In a few moments, those two would get on the golf cart and ride the carpeted floors to the news conference, but for now they were forced to sit with what had just happened.
“Being a kid from Arizona, putting on this jersey and having Arizona across my chest,” Peat said in a declaration that indicated the uncertainty surrounding his future. “I’m just really thankful for the brand and the program for everything they did for me.”
Nobody in the Arizona locker room expected a loss to Michigan in the first place, and no one could fathom a 91-73 trouncing. They were having to come to grips with it, though.
Around the corner, walk-on Addison Arnold sat staring a hole through the locker room’s carpet. Thirty seconds went by. Then it became a minute. Arnold wasn’t budging, and he didn’t until a reporter asked if he would talk, which he did.
Down the row from Arnold was redshirt freshman Bryce James — the son of LeBron James — who wasn’t speaking to the media. He didn’t need to speak to express himself, though. The actual actions James took while sitting at his locker next to his handler weren’t all that different from the ones during open locker room sessions Thursday and Friday, but they weren’t done the same way.
While Arnold stared at the floor, James combed through his goatee and doom-scrolled on his phone. He went through Snapchat, scanned his Instagram-recommended page and waited for all this to be over. The only time James budged was when Arizona athletic director Desireé Reed-Francois came to greet him and every Arizona player that wasn’t engulfed in a media scrum.
“It’s unfortunate because you get so close to a championship and you want to finish it off,” Arizona senior forward Tobe Awaka said. “Those are brothers for life. Appreciate them for all that they’ve done and all that they helped me with. It’s tough to come up short, to not get all the way.”
This season ending this way for this program was difficult to envision. Turns out, this sport doesn’t care all that much about fate or fairness. Arizona is the latest program to learn that the hard way. It felt as if this all should’ve ended differently for this program, in a season like this.
It’s not as if these Arizona players didn’t have it in them to advance to the title game, but here it was basking in the wounds that this cruel, beautiful event often provides. Coach Tommy Lloyd’s team was No. 1 in the nation for nine weeks and was in the top five for all but the first week.
Telling an uneducated observer who only saw Saturday night’s game that those numbers were fact-checked would’ve thrown them for a loop.
On paper, this was college basketball’s best matchup all season. It was the two best teams meeting on the biggest stage. Even if Arizona didn’t leave this thing as the winner, an instant classic appeared to be inevitable. The Wildcats likely could’ve eventually accepted that outcome. This one will sit with them for a long, long time.
“I wish we could play them again, but that’s the concept of the Final Four — you only get one chance,” Arizona junior center Motiejus Krivas said. “It is what it is.”
“It” was embarrassing. And it wasn’t indicative of what this team had been all season. This is the final taste of this 36-3 season, though. It could’ve ended with confetti and “One Shining Moment,” or at least a more easy-to-stomach ending that dignified the historically good season that Lloyd’s program had. No such luxury was given to this Arizona team.
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Michigan led by as much as 30. The Wolverines led for 39:44 and never trailed. The assist totals? Michigan 22, Arizona 5. Arizona was outclassed and Michigan’s student section let it hear about how it was fraudulent. This program had proved all season that it wasn’t, but nothing in its Saturday night performance insulated it from what the students chanted.
It’s the type of loss that begs difficult questions. Ones about the sustainability of Arizona’s model of being a low-volume three-point shooting team. Even ones that relate to things that likely didn’t have any effect on the outcome, like Lloyd’s name being tied to North Carolina’s vacancy.
“It didn’t get mentioned once,” Awaka said. “We didn’t mention it. Not once. You wouldn’t have thought it even happened, to be honest. Honestly, I wasn’t even on social media. So, obviously, we heard chirpings about it.”
It appears as if Lloyd never addressed the rumors directly with his team or coaching staff before shutting it down Friday afternoon. He couldn’t avoid addressing this and the way this all ended, though. Lloyd told his team that he was proud of them in the locker room after the game, and he appeared to mean it.
The consensus within Arizona’s locker room was that one day, they would like to remember all the good that happened throughout this season. That was a tall task as the Wildcats left the arena Saturday night, but one day it will be the case. Maybe Lloyd’s long-term goal will be, too.
“One Final Four? Why don’t we go five times in 10 years? That’s where my mind is at,” Lloyd said. “That’s my big dream. Maybe you guys will use that against me someday, but I’m going to dream big and work my ass off to try and make it happen.”
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