It was a Saturday afternoon of missed opportunities.
Plenty of misses making for not many opportunities.
That was the case for Tommy Lloyd & Co., in Lubbock, Texas when they faced Texas Tech. The result was a 70-54 loss in its first Big 12 Conference loss in six games. Arizona is now 11-6 overall.
Arizona had made good, sometimes clean work of its previous five Big 12 opponents. That was hardly the case against the Red Raiders, who didn’t particularly play well but made Arizona look marginal throughout the game. And yet, it stayed close throughout the game – until the bottom fell off in the end.
“I was proud they hung in there,” Lloyd told reporters in Lubbock.

Then really marginal in the final five minutes of the game when Arizona collapsed, making a single-digit defeat look like an ugly double-digit one.
Everything – seemingly – that had been going well in recent weeks didn’t go that way on Saturday. Of course, the Red Raiders had a lot to do with that, but KJ Lewis, Henri Veesaar, Caleb Love, et al had been pretty good during Arizona’s win streak.
Until Saturday, when it would seem there was a step up in class in the Big 12 when Texas Tech was involved.
“Texas Tech was great at playing possession-by-possession basketball,” Lloyd said on his postgame radio show. “We were never able to make a run to see what (would) happen.”
Arizona stayed close, even tying it midway through the second half. But, could never overcome Tech’s rebounding and its own poor shooting (more later).
Texas Tech beat Arizona on the boards 50-34.
“We gotta fight harder for it,” Lloyd said of the rebounds. “To be a good rebounding team, you jus don’t just show up. You gotta fight for it. We didn’t do that today and we paid the price.”
How heavy the price was this: Arizona fell out of the shared top spot of the conference. But there is plenty of regular season left.
Still, this season seeing doesn’t always equate into believing. Many – most fans with high hopes – were loving how Arizona had won seven consecutive games and seemed back to form, but was Arizona really back?
Maybe … maybe not. It’s salty enough to stir debate as Arizona heads to Oklahoma State on Tuesday.
Instead, Arizona’s performance was brought to you by Temu – clearly, a substandard team compared to recent weeks.
Only one starter hit 50 percent of his shots, Anthony Dell’Orso went 3 for 6. And Arizona’s bench – much ballyhooed recently – saw only Carter Byrant shooting better than 50 percent, hitting 4 of 5 shots.
It was a misery – or mastery – of missing.
By the end of the game – much like some moments throughout – the Wildcats were toothless.
Arizona shot just 31 percent from the floor, the second worst in Lloyd’s three-plus years. Had 26 first half points, the fewest this season – and it only seemed to get worse in the final minutes of the game, where UA missed 15 of its last 16 shots, including 12 straight.
And once again, Arizona’s leading scorer Caleb Love struggled to get on track. He went 3 for 13 and finished with nine points. He was 0 for 5 from beyond the 3-point line.
Lloyd’s message to Love?
“Play better,” he said. “Caleb is a good player; he’s gotta play better.”
Lloyd told reporters in Lubbock his team won’t “dwell on it” hoping to make improvements.
“It’s upward on onward,” he said.













