Memory of Princeton loss helping focus Arizona Wildcats on first-round game this time

SALT LAKE CITY — When Long Beach State coach Dan Monson finally rolled in late to a coaching brotherhood gathering with Arizona’s Tommy Lloyd and Gonzaga’s Mark Few on Tuesday night at a pizza restaurant, his excuse was ready to go.

“Tommy tries to give me some grief,” Monson said. “I said, `Tommy, we’ve been putting in that Princeton offense for three days. It’s complicated. It took a little extra time today.’ ”

The ever-affable Monson told that story with a smile, of course, having said on Sunday there was no way he could possibly install such a thing in three days. It was the kind of joke that close friends, such as the three Gonzaga-bred coaches, can tell each other without hurting feelings, even if the memory itself still hurts.

Princeton. The 15-seeded team from the Ivy League that beat Arizona in the first round of the NCAA Tournament last season.

Lloyd remembers. Arizona fans remember. Millions of college basketball fans probably remember.

Even then-not-yet-Wildcats remember.

“I mean, everybody heard about it,” said UA guard Jaden Bradley, who was about to play for Alabama against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in a first-round game when it happened. “We were warming up and I kind of saw the ending of it on the big Jumbotron. So everybody kind of saw that.”

Of course, half of the current Wildcats didn’t need a jumbotron to etch the memory into their brains. They were on the floor that day at the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento.

“It would be dumb not to learn from it,” senior wing Pelle Larsson said. “It’s definitely in the back of our minds. But that was also last year. We’ve moved on and gotten a lot better. And I think our mentality right now is a lot better because of it probably.

“You learn, and it’s a new year. New opportunities.”

New team. New approach.

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“I think we’re just getting to this tournament a little different than last year,” sophomore guard Filip Borovicanin said. “Last year we started a little bit preparing for the next game, for the second game, and here we are getting ready to win first game ... and not (think) deep in the future. if you’re going to be Elite Eight, Final Four, you’re going game-by-game. That’s the biggest difference.”

Nobody knows the value of that approach more than senior forward Keshad Johnson, who started for a San Diego State team that made a stunning — and nerve-wracking — ride to the national championship game last season. Of the Aztecs’ five NCAA Tournament wins, four came by single digits – including one-point wins in the Elite Eight and Final Four.

“Keshad has been very vocal,” Lloyd said. “I think his message to the guys is, ‘You don’t ever assume anything. It’s literally a one-game-at-a-time approach. You got to come out and be willing to lay it on the line in that one game.”

“It’s simple but it’s beautiful because it’s very true.”

So maybe no words, no thoughts expressed about potential second-round opponents Dayton and Nevada. No looking ahead to Los Angeles, where senior guard Caleb Love could be matched up with his old North Carolina teammates in the Elite Eight.

Asked about how people must have at least pointed that out to him this week, Love would barely bite.

“I’m not really focused on them. I’m focused on us,” Love said. “We’re focused on Long Beach State.”

If there’s one thing the Wildcats have also proven over Lloyd’s three seasons with them: They also tend to focus better after a loss.

UA still has never lost two games in a row since Lloyd took over in 2021-22, so by that measure alone, the Wildcats’ Pac-12 Tournament loss to Oregon would suggest Long Beach State is in trouble.

So Oregon is motivation. And, of course, Princeton.

“Whenever we get stuff like that, we respond,” center Oumar Ballo said Wednesday. “That’s what championship teams do. They need to respond, especially when it’s most needed. I feel like (Thursday) we’re gonna show up.”