By the time Tommy Lloyd walked into Arizona's Final Four pregame press conference in early April, two stories were doing more public work than his team's actual basketball: a rumoured phone call from Michael Jordan and a coaching vacancy at North Carolina. The Wildcats' fifth-year coach used his microphone time to bury both — then redirect the conversation back to the program he is building.
The Jordan story had begun circulating during Arizona's tournament run, the suggestion being that the Bulls great had personally reached out to Lloyd ahead of the Final Four. Asked about it directly, Lloyd was unequivocal.
"You know, Michael Jordan, the phone call never did happen, so I'll put that to rest," Lloyd said. "But, I mean, come on. We all idolized MJ. I don't know how many hours I've watched that Come Fly With Me video. My kid grew up watching the movie he made and just, it's amazing."
Lloyd then made it clear who actually occupies the Jordan-shaped space in his coaching life.
"Steve Kerr is my Michael Jordan," he said.
The second story was harder to bat away. With North Carolina searching for its next head coach, Lloyd — now five years deep in Tucson and four trips into the NCAA Tournament — has emerged as a name the speculation cannot leave alone. He met the question with a flat refusal to be drawn in.
"I got my full focus on this team," Lloyd said. "Nothing is distracting me. That's just how I've decided to approach it. I'm excited. I thought we had a really good practice today. I'm excited to plan for a practice tomorrow. I'm a simple guy. I'm kind of just one thing at a time. I'm not a multitasker. You can ask my wife."
What motivates him, he insisted, is not the next job opportunity or his own coaching profile. It is the community waiting in Tucson after the longest Final Four drought in school history.
"My strongest motivating factor is our community and our fans," Lloyd said. "I know how much this run has meant for them to kind of get over the hump after 25 years to get back to a Final Four. If there's a way we could win a couple games here, I think it would be really special for our community and that would make me more excited than anything."
The team Lloyd has fielded in San Antonio is built on selflessness and player development rather than transient one-and-done star power. He pointed to senior forward Tobe Awaka, a player whose role this season has been one of the program's quiet architectural decisions.
"Tobe, he actually volunteered. It was his idea to come off the bench," Lloyd said. "He's such a mature guy and such a good player. He came in and said, you know, Big Mo had an injury last year and he's a developing player and he's really worked hard to come back at full strength and I think it would be a boost for his confidence if he started."
Lloyd repeated his praise for Awaka in the second pregame session, calling him a fan favourite for the things that do not always show up in box scores.
"People just respect the effort he plays with and the physicality he plays with," Lloyd said. "It really stands out and I think people can kind of identify, they see that blue-collar approach he has to the game. I've sung Tobe's praises a thousand times and I'd do it a thousand times again."
The coach also predicted that role players, not stars, would settle the Final Four matchups.
"There's always an X factor," Lloyd said. "There's always somebody that steps up for the winning team that maybe you didn't expect. Everyone on our team has had moments this year where they've been that guy."
On the Arizona end, Lloyd said NIL has changed his international recruiting calculations. "One of the detriments to international recruiting back in the day was if a kid wanted to get paid, the European clubs could pay them legally and obviously we couldn't," he said. "Now that hurdle's been taken away, you're seeing more international players come."
For Lloyd, the Final Four is not a launchpad to a different program. It is, in his telling, a chance to deliver something that 25 years of Arizona basketball has waited for.
