Behind the scenes as UA basketball prepares to face Purdue
Arizona head coach Tommy Lloyd mulls over a query throughout a press convention on the day earlier than his Wildcats face Purdue in an Elite Eight sport in San Jose, Calif., March 27, 2026.
Kelly Presnell, Arizona Daily Star
Outliers
The Boilermakers nonetheless have three starters who performed key roles in that 2023-24 sport — and have been additionally round the earlier season.
That’s right: Braden Smith, Fletcher Loyer and Trey Kaufman-Renn have all performed for the identical faculty since their freshman seasons of 2022-23.
This is faculty basketball, in any case, the place the switch portal guarantees immediate leverage for high gamers to get seven-figure offers the following season, making rosters flip throughout the nation each spring.
“I think you see some of the money some of the guys go get and you think, ‘Man, I’m a lot better than that guy. What could I be doing?'” Loyer mentioned. “But in the end, we get treated pretty well, and we got a team and a coach and a university that believes in us. A couple million dollars more sounds nice, but I think happiness is a lot better.”
Purdue head coach Matt Painter fields a query from the dais on the day earlier than their Elite Eight sport in opposition to Arizona in San Jose, Calif., March 27, 2026.
Kelly Presnell, Arizona Daily Star
Smith indicated he views all of it in a much bigger image sense, too.
“I think our values and morals are different than a lot of people, and I think we appreciate other things that people don’t,” Smith mentioned. “I just feel like we’re all here for one reason, and that’s to win basketball games at a high level. Obviously, with money and things, don’t get me wrong, but there’s obviously temptations of, like, ‘OK, I could go get more here, here or here,’ but at the end of the day, is that better for us as competitors and people?
“It reveals who you might be like an individual, too, that you simply’re keen to depart a very good scenario for one thing the place you do not even know what is going on to occur due to extra cash. What if you find yourself solely hating basketball due to how that have goes?”
