Arizona basketball needs a power move to stop Tommy Lloyd from exiting

2026-03-31 · Yahoo Sports

Arizona basketball needs a power move to stop Tommy Lloyd from exiting originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

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A first-round exit by a prominent program produced a coaching vacancy that was bound to get people talking. After losing to No. 11 seed VCU, the University of North Carolina chose to relieve Hubert Davis of his coaching responsibilities.

UNC is a program that has enjoyed incredible success over much of their existance, specifically in the world of college basketball. Commonly thought of as a college basketball powerhouse.

Six national titles, 21 Final Four appearances, 134 NCAA Tournament wins as well as many star players. Including a player many believe to be the greatest basketball player of all time in Michael Jordan. The concern with the legend of UNC in 2026 as it pertains to a coaching search is what are they now?

UNC will always be a powerful name in the world of college basketball. However, they are searching for a new coach because UNC hasn't been the UNC people think of since at least the Roy Williams, if not the Dean Smith eras.

North Carolina's most recent national title came under Roy Williams in 2017 or almost a decade ago. The difficult truth of the matter is that college athletics is changing and long gone are the days of the top 5-8 teams being able to do whatever they want. Specifically as it pertains to coaching vacancies.

Name, reputation, hardware and the number of players a program puts in the league pales in comparison to NIL budgets and recruiting potential in today's game. There was a time when Duke, North Carolina, Syracuse, Georgetown, etc could simply put their name in the hat and get mostly anything they want. That has not been true for a while.

UNC is falling for the same trap football teams did a few months ago

The prevailing rumor around sports media circles is that North Carolina plans to pursue Arizona head coach Tommy Lloyd. The logic is pretty obvious. Lloyd at Arizona is the fastest coach to 100 wins in college basketball history.

In his first four seasons, Arizona has made the Tournament all four years and that includes multiple Sweet 16 appearances as well as an Elite Eight and a Final Four appearance. Lloyd has also been a great recruiter at Arizona bringing in four and five star talent, including a recruiting class in 2025 that ranked No. 2 overall.

However, this is the current trap big programs fall into. Believing that the power of their subjective view of their program means they can poach a great coach in a great situation. From November of 2025 through January of 2026, there were several open coaching jobs in college football. About ten teams were all looking at the same three or four candidates.

Each believing the power of the name they carry would be stronger than the names other programs carry. This is trap in mentality. That was true even ten years ago but is not true now. Despite Lane Kiffin's comments after taking the LSU job, a place being special or having a storied history isn't moving the needle for coaches the way it used to because they understand how the equation has changed.

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During that stretch of football openings, Fox analyst Joel Klatt claimed these great programs must force these coaches to say "no". Do you know what happened next? Those coaches told all of those programs no. This is the new reality. Coaches must fall in love with the situation not the name.

Arizona could be preparing for a Lloyd-Cignetti parallel

During that stretch of coaching candidate chess, one name kept coming up. Curt Cignetti at Indiana. With so many programs and media personnel falling into this same trap, many believed Cignetti could be lured away from Indiana for what they believed was a "better situation".

That discourse lasted about a week. Long enough for media outlets to weigh in and for teams to make inquiries. Indiana wasted little time in putting an end to the narratives. Indiana signed Cignetti to an 8-year extension paying him roughly $13M per season. The move, while never articulated by Indiana, read like a "keep my coach's name out of your mouth" deal. Within one day of that signing, all rumors of Cignetti taking another job immediately died off.

According to Jon Rothstein, Arizona Athletic Director Desiree Reed-Francois told Rothstein, "Tommy has done a phenomenal job. He’s one of the best coaches in America. We have been engaged with his representatives about a new contract since before the start of the NCAA Tournament. Those discussions will continue and it is our goal that he retires as a Wildcat.”

Many will question Big 12 vs ACC or Big Ten. Many will speculate over the financial power Arizona has. However, like Cignetti, none of that seems to matter as much as the bigger programs think it will. Lloyd is in a great 'situation'. A situation that would be very different in Chapel Hill.

Money will always be a concern; we just no longer live in a world where the top teams are operating at an irrational benefit over the rest of the field. UNC can and did make calls to gauge interest. However, despite what history might say, over the last 5-10 years moving from Arizona to UNC would be categorically a lateral move. Villanova and UConn have a bigger claim to recent dominance than North Carolina.

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In the last ten years UNC has entered the NCAA Tournament with three No. 1 seeds (two of which were under Williams), one No. 2 seed, a No. 6 seed, two No. 8 seeds and a No. 11 seed. As well as missing the Tournament entirely twice. Arizona on the other hand, has two No. 1 seeds (both under Lloyd), three No. 2 seeds, and two No. 4 seeds. Lloyd is coaching Arizona in large part to Sean Miller missing the Tournament entirely for three years in a row.

Its time programs and certain media personalities warm up to the idea of what makes a coaching situation valuable or desirable. We no longer live in a time where the North Carolinas of the world are an automatic Final Four team simply by existing. The idea that programs like UNC should just poach other coaches in good situations simply does not make sense anymore. It was lazy before, but it's almost illogical now.

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