As he takes powerhouse Arizona into the Final Four, Tommy Lloyd’s humble Gonzaga beginnings don’t feel that distant
Tommy Lloyd’s tenure as a graduate assistant was all of two weeks old when newly appointed Gonzaga coach Mark Few phoned predecessor Dan Monson.
It was 1999 and Gonzaga had just carried out Monson’s only request by hiring Few as its next coach, weeks after the Zags made their fabled Cinderella run to the NCAA Tournament Elite Eight.
When Monson accepted the head-coaching job at Minnesota, he had a series of asks for Few, including one that pertained to Lloyd. Monson previously made a promise to former Walla Walla Community College coach Jeff Reinland – Lloyd’s high school and junior college coach – that the 24-year-old would have a spot on Gonzaga’s coaching staff once he returned from a professional basketball career in Germany and Australia.
All good, Few said.
As Monson was settling in at Minnesota, he and Few spoke over the phone, mostly commiserating about the shared challenges they faced taking over new jobs. Monson was dealing with NCAA sanctions at Minnesota, Few was trying to build a coaching staff while navigating financial limitations at Gonzaga.
During the call, Few provided an update on his young graduate assistant. Lloyd had made a good first impression at Gonzaga. He was working the phones. Observing practices. Generally showing up to the gym with a positive attitude.
Just one thing, though.
“What’s his name?” Few asked.
“I laugh when I tell that story every time,” Monson said. “Fewie, he’s so intelligent but he’s not a big name guy. … I just visualize that story of him standing in the corner at a Gonzaga practice and people not even knowing his name to now standing in college basketball’s elite, elite, marquee event of not just the season but of your career.
“He’s gone from the corner where nobody knows his name to the spotlight of center court of college basketball.”
Lloyd’s humble, unpaid beginnings at Gonzaga have come up numerous times this week as the fifth-year Arizona coach leads the Wildcats into the Final Four, where they’ll square off with fellow No. 1 seed Michigan at 5:49 p.m. (TBS) on Saturday at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.
Last Saturday, Few contacted Monson to see if he wanted to meet up in Spokane to watch Arizona’s Elite Eight game against Purdue. The neighboring coaches at Gonzaga and Eastern Washington are also neighbors in the literal sense, living 200 yards apart. Monson was just getting home from a family obligation, so he and Few instead handicapped the Arizona-Purdue matchup over the phone.
“I said, ‘What do you think?’ ” Monson said. “(Few) said, ‘Oh I think they’re going to blow (Purdue) out.’ He said ‘they’ve got a look to them.’ ”
The prediction wasn’t looking so good at halftime with Purdue staked to an eight-point lead. Watching with his kids and wife, Monson expressed some hesitation.
Shot out of a cannon, the Wildcats went on a big run to start the second half, outscoring the Boilermakers by 22 points in the final 20 minutes to win 79-64, punching Arizona’s first Final Four ticket since 2001.
“When the game got over, my wife said, ‘Well, once again, Mark knows more than you do,’ ” Monson laughed.
Maybe an hour after that, Few, Monson and former Gonzaga assistants Leon Rice and Bill Grier all heard from Lloyd in a group text message chat.
“ ‘Thanks to you guys for putting up with a young punk back in the day,’ ” Lloyd’s text read, according to Monson. “ ‘Wouldn’t be here without you guys and thank you Fewie for being such a great example for me. You’ve really changed my life.’ ”
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On the precipice of college basketball’s biggest prize, Lloyd is still operating like an assistant coach with something to prove, rather than the highly coveted leader of a dominant Big 12 basketball power.
Steve Robinson, a 42-year basketball coach who had head-coaching stops at Tulsa and Florida State before working at Kansas and North Carolina under Roy Williams, made an astute observation while working on Lloyd’s staff from 2021-25.
“Coach Rob used to always say, ‘Tommy hasn’t turned in his assistant coaching card yet,’ ” said former Gonzaga walk-on guard Rem Bakamus, who served in multiple capacities on Lloyd’s staff from 2021-25 before joining Texas Tech as an assistant last year. “Because he still prepares like he’s an assistant in charge of every scout and he wants to know every detail. And so it’s such a separator when your head coach is that thorough in that detail.”
Moments after Arizona’s Elite Eight triumph in San Jose, Lloyd took a clump of red, white and navy confetti to the face as he celebrated with Wildcat players on a postgame podium. After a few minutes, he stepped away from the celebrations, walked behind the risers and took a solitary moment to himself.
It’s possible Lloyd was thinking about what Arizona just accomplished, or potentially about the test(s) still to come.
“His mind doesn’t shut off,” wife Chanelle said from the court at the SAP Center. “He’s constantly thinking, dreaming about it. Yeah, constantly working on it.”
A day before Arizona matched up with Arkansas in the Sweet 16, Lloyd and the Wildcats took the court at SAP Center for an afternoon practice session.
Arizona’s coach glanced toward the upper level of the arena and instantly found the face he was looking for. Operating a video camera roughly 100 feet away was son Liam, the former Gonzaga Prep standout who’s in year one as a graduate assistant for the Wildcats. Tommy shot a smile and pointed an index finger toward his son.
“He’s always learning, he’s always talking to people, he’s always bouncing ideas off of people and he’s not afraid to learn from his mistakes and be honest with himself,” Liam said from Arizona’s locker room 24 hours later after the Wildcats dispatched the Razorbacks 109-88 to reach the Elite Eight. “I think that’s really helped and allowed him to grow. You’re seeing it now.”
Born into the “basketball business,” mornings in Spokane looked different for Liam than they did for most of his childhood friends.
Cartoons and cereal? Not quite.
Instead, Liam would get out of bed to find his father in the office poring over basketball film. College basketball. NBA. Obscure European club teams. Didn’t matter. By the time Liam’s friends were getting into basketball, he could’ve written a full thesis on Maccabi Tel Aviv, given Tommy’s admiration for the Israeli powerhouse and head coach David Blatt.
“Growing up, all I can remember is we’d wake up in the morning and I’d go to his room when I was little and he’d be on his computer watching film,” Liam said. “Him watching film, I’d watch film with him growing up. … He’s put in the hours, he’s put in his 1,000 hours, probably plus.”
Few’s one-time grad assistant became an integral part of Gonzaga’s rise to college basketball prominence, leading the international recruiting crusade that’s played a factor for two of the four teams in Indianapolis this weekend and dozens of other high-major programs around the country.
Lloyd usually took on the scouting report for Gonzaga’s biggest games and helped with key in-game adjustments during high-pressure NCAA Tournament situations.
It’s not clear exactly how many times he passed on interviews for head-coaching jobs, but Lloyd was content at Gonzaga, where the Kelso, Washington, native had been named the head-coach-in-waiting when Few decided to retire or leave to coach elsewhere – the former always seeming more likely than the latter.
It took one of the other premier coaching jobs on the West Coast opening before Lloyd finally gave real consideration to a career outside of Spokane.
“Arizona is a job you just don’t turn down on the West Coast,” Liam said.
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Five years after the fact, Arizona’s hire of Lloyd has unanimous support from fans – many of whom are pleading for the coach to stay in Tucson amid reported interest from North Carolina – but it didn’t gain immediate support from certain Wildcat alums.
Former NBA players Richard Jefferson and Gilbert Arenas were outspoken, insisting Lloyd didn’t have the credentials necessary to lead a prestigious program while criticizing the school for venturing outside the “Arizona family.”
Rest assured, Lloyd also had plenty of believers – a few of whom followed him from Spokane to Tucson, with unwavering confidence the longtime assistant would succeed from the jump.
“I just think from knowing him the last however many years it’s been, he’s someone that (helped with) some personal things I went through and obviously helping me grow as a coach,” said TJ Benson, the Arizona assistant coach and recruiting coordinator who worked one season at Gonzaga as its coordinator of basketball administration. “I think just his leadership qualities. He’s someone that helped me develop as a young coach, he continues to help me daily, so someone there’s never been a point where I felt he’s steered me wrong individually.”
Lloyd borrowed many of Gonzaga’s concepts and continues to buck college basketball trends by playing through bigs and funneling Arizona’s offense through the paint.
Of 361 Division I teams, Arizona ranked No. 356 averaging 16 3-pointers per game. Gonzaga was only slightly higher, averaging 19.5 3s – good enough for 306th nationally. It worked for both, with Arizona ranking No. 2 in KenPom’s adjusted efficiency margin and Gonzaga finishing No. 14.
“I always say, he’s like the football coach that wants to go I-formation and run it for 6, 7 yards over and over and over again,” Bakamus said. “He’s got no problem just beating you down throughout 40 minutes of a game. Those things definitely transferred and then getting in the Big 12, knowing that that’s how you have to build your team to win it. I think they did a great job at establishing that was who they recruited. Similar to Gonzaga, just the bigger prototypes.”
Parallels between the two programs aren’t exclusive to X’s and O’s and recruiting preferences, either. Coaches who’ve spent time at Gonzaga and Arizona identify culture as another area Few and Lloyd emphasize.
At Gonzaga, strength and conditioning coach Travis Knight leads “PGMs,” or “Personal Growth Mondays,” where players connect with each other and go through team-building exercises in a setting where Few and his assistants aren’t present.
It’s not an exact replica, but Arizona has established cohesion through “culture days,” designed to give Wildcat players the opportunity to speak openly and honestly in front of peers.
“I think anytime you share personal stories, whether it’s good or bad, you create a natural connection and now you’ve got empathy for other guys and I think it just creates a stronger bond,” said Ken Nakagawa, a fifth-year Arizona assistant who spent five years at Gonzaga as a GA and video coordinator. “Now you’ve got guys looking after you, everybody knows what the deal is.”
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Gonzaga ties run up and down Lloyd’s staff and the fifth-year coach has relied on relationships built in Spokane to assemble and develop Arizona’s 2025-26 roster – one that mowed down Big 12 opponents en route to regular season and conference tournament championships.
Big 12 Player of the Year Jaden Bradley initially heard from Lloyd in 2021, when the Gonzaga assistant was recruiting him out of IMG Academy in Florida. Lloyd continued to pursue Bradley when he took the Arizona job, but the five-star high school prospect signed at Alabama. When Bradley entered the transfer portal after one season in the SEC, Lloyd’s prior relationship played a role in bringing the guard to Arizona.
“He was kind of running the same stuff at Gonzaga almost, but putting his own twist on it and stuff,” Bradley said. “I just love coach Lloyd, playing for him and just the guy he is off the court. Just happy for his success right now, the team’s success and we’ve got to keep going.”
Midway through Lloyd’s tenure at Gonzaga, the assistant’s connections in Europe helped him sign a physical German forward named Elias Harris, who’d turn into a three-time all-conference player for the Zags. Last year, Arizona was in pursuit of another German player, Ivan Kharchenkov.
At the time, the versatile 6-7 wing was playing for Bayern Munich of Germany’s Bundesliga. One of Kharchenkov’s teammates? Harris.
“We were talking almost every week about (playing for Lloyd),” Kharchenkov said. “We were still playing our playoffs back then, so basically every time we saw each other in practice they were already making jokes, ‘Bear Down.’ I didn’t know what Bear Down meant at the time and they told me it was their slogan.
“It was great, we talked about it and he told me everything about Tommy, how he played for him for four years, how he grew as family and he didn’t want to leave, which he had to because of eligibility.”
Another foreign player who’s keyed Arizona’s run is 7-2 center Motiejus Krivas. Two summers ago, Krivas was competing with Lithuania’s U-20 team when the senior national team called him in to help out as a practice player. That meant a steady diet of low-post battles with former Gonzaga standout Domantas Sabonis, a three-time NBA All-Star Krivas was able to build a relationship with.
Lloyd recently credited another ex-Zag for his role in Krivas’ development over the last three years. Przemek Karnowski, the popular 7-foot center who helped guide GU to the 2017 national championship game, was on Lloyd’s staff for multiple years as a graduate assistant. Karnowski helped Arizona’s bigs with the principle of verticality, or contesting shots without fouling.
“Przemek was great at that and I kind of learned how to teach that through coaching Przemek,” Lloyd said. “… Mo’s probably blocking a few more shots than Shimmy was. I know those two worked on it together the past couple years, that’s done with intent for sure.”
Ask different members of Arizona’s roster where Lloyd’s made the biggest impact and most talk about his knack for infusing confidence into players.
During a Big 12 game at Houston, Lloyd had the Wildcats in a huddle during a second-half media timeout. As he designed an “ATO” (after-timeout play), Lloyd posed a question to backup guard Anthony Dell’Orso: “What side do you want to shoot from?”
“It wasn’t ‘what should we run, what do you guys think, do this and don’t turn it over,’ ” Dell’Orso recalled. “It was straight up, ‘Where do you want it? All right, come this way and shoot and make sure we crash the glass.’ ”
Early in the season, guard Brayden Burries was dealing with “freshman struggles.” His turnover count was too high, his point total was too low. Lloyd cautioned Burries to be patient, advising him “experience is the best teacher.”
“He was right and he never lost faith in that and he always believed in me,” said Burries, now a top producer for Arizona and potential NBA lottery pick.
• • •
Days after Gonzaga’s loss to Baylor in the 2021 national championship, Lloyd drove to campus to break the news to his longtime boss. He found Few walking around barefoot in the workout facility at the Volkar Center.
“I went in there and said I’m going to take the Arizona job and thank you for everything,” Lloyd said. “He just said to me, ‘Who would’ve thought when we started this deal that we would’ve lost two national championship games and Arizona would be hiring Gonzaga’s assistant?’ I thought that was a pretty powerful statement. Who would’ve thought he was going to be a hall of fame coach?”
Monson considered the improbability of it all earlier this week – Few’s Naismith Hall of Fame induction, Lloyd’s impending trip to the Final Four, that either could’ve reached this level of success coming from a small Jesuit school in Spokane.
“The charm of (Gonzaga), it’s still kind of a mom and pop store, but back then it was a mom and pop store that they were thinking of making into a popsicle stand,” Monson said, “because they were talking about taking it to Division II and nobody had any money.”
Now 80 minutes from a national championship, the humble beginnings aren’t lost on Lloyd.
The only difference now? Hundreds of thousands of people know his name.
Yes, including his former boss who will be in Indianapolis watching this weekend, alongside Monson and other members of Gonzaga’s coaching circle.
“We’ve had no grand plan or master plan or ideas. We’re never chasing these things,” Lloyd said. “We just wanted to be good basketball coaches and be good people.”