Is this finally the year for Arizona
It’s been 25 years since the Wildcats made the Final Four, back in 2001 when they lost to Duke in the national championship game. That was the last of four Final Four appearances under Lute Olson, including in 1997 when Arizona claimed its lone national title.
Since then it’s been a lot of heartbreak.
In the 2026 NCAA Tournament, Arizona (32-2) is the No. 1 seed in the West Region and actually the betting favorite to win it all. According to FanDuel Sportsbook, the Wildcats are -145 to get to the Final Four and +330 to cut down the nets on April 6.
But the UA has been in this position several times since last getting there and come up short. It was a No. 1 seed in 2022, only to fall to Houston in the Sweet 16, and top-seeded Wildcat squads in 2014 and 2003 both lost in the Elite Eight. They also lost in the regional final in 2005, 2011 and 2015.
So what makes this year different?
In Tommy Lloyd’s fifth season the UA has swept the Big 12 regular season and conference tournament titles, and recent history indicates that’s a sign of good things to come. Houston did the same last year en route to the national final, and the last two times Kansas did that it also made the final (and won a championship in 2022).
Despite starting three freshmen and taking fewer 3-pointers than almost every team in the country, Arizona has thrived on offensive with an efficient, paint-first approach. Defensively, the Wildcats hold opponents below 40 percent shooting and only two have won the rebounding battle.
“We have enough in the tank to go see if we can win this thing,” Lloyd said Sunday, after Arizona learned it would open the NCAA tourney Friday in San Diego against Long Island.
But having a good team is only one piece to the puzzle. The other teams will have a say in whether Arizona ends its 25-year Final Four dought.
The potential path
With a 99.6 percent chance to beat Long Island, per KenPom.com, Arizona should have no problem avoiding being just the third No. 1 seed to lose in the first round. Then again, the Wildcats are one of two schools (along with Purdue) to have multiple losses to teams seeded 15th or worse.
The UA opened as a 29.5-point favorite, per FanDuel, and that has climbed to over 30.
The second round matchup would be against either No. 8 Villanova (24-8) or No. 9 Utah State (28-6). Four years ago Arizona was taken to overtime by eighth-seeded TCU but in its history has only lost in the second round three times and most recently in 2006.
The West Regional is in San Jose, like San Diego another area with a large alumni population. When the Wildcats would play Pac-12 games at Cal and Stanford the crowds were usually in their favor, and that would likely be the case at the SAP Center.
No. 4 Arkansas (26-8) and No. 5 Wisconsin (24-10) are the most likely opponents in the Sweet 16, unless either No. 12 High Point (30-4) or No. 13 Hawai’i (24-8) can pull a pair of upsets.
If the UA makes the Elite Eight, No. 2 Purdue (27-8) or No. 3 Gonzaga (30-3) could be all that stands between it and a return to the Final Four. A matchup with Gonzaga would pit Lloyd against longtime mentor Mark Few, his boss in Spokane from 1999-2021 before taking the Arizona job.
The toughest tests
Since the NCAA Tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985, a No. 1 seed has been knocked off by an 8 or 9 seed in the second round 24 times. Arizona was one of those, in 2000 to No. 8 Wisconsin, but since 2021 it’s only happened three times with the last in 2023.
The Sweet 16 is where it starts to get dicey for the Wildcats, both because of the opponent and its tourney history. Under Lloyd the UA has crashed out in this round three times, twice as the higher seed, and the same was the case in Sean Miller’s last Sweet 16 appearance in 2017.
Of the potential Sweet 16 opponents, Wisconsin might be the most dangerous. The Badgers have five wins over Top 3 seeds this season, including a victory at No. 1 seed Michigan and two over No. 3 Illinois. They also take more than half their shots from 3-point range, and are 20-2 when making at least 34 percent from deep.
Get over that hump and there’s an even bigger mountain to climb. The Elite Eight has thwarted Arizona in so many different ways, including in 2005 when it led No. 1 overall seed Illinois by 15 points with less than five minutes to go only to lose in overtime.
Purdue, the preseason No. 1 pick, struggled down the stretch in the regular season but looked the part of a title contender in the Big Ten Tournament and features one of the most experienced lineups in the country. Braden Smith, who by then would have broken Bobby Hurley’s NCAA career record for assists, is one of three starters that played in the 2024 national final.
If Arizona needed to get past Gonzaga to get to Indianapolis, the storylines would be through the roof. It would be teacher versus student, and all the pressure would be on Lloyd to show how well he’d learned from Few.
The prognosis
Arizona won its first 23 games this season, the best start in school history and best by a Big 12 school. After dropping consecutive games, by four at Kansas and in overtime at home to Texas Tech, it has run off nine in a row with five of those victories against Top 10 opponents including twice against defending Big 12 champ Houston.
Eight different players have led the team in scoring, with seven getting to 20 or more points. Senior guard Jaden Bradley has reached the Sweet 16 every year of his career, including as a freshman with Alabama in 2023, and the Wildcats sport the most talented trio of freshmen in the country.
If any Arizona team is going to break the Final Four drought, this is the one.