To many Arizona fans, college basketball season technically begins with the Red-Blue game, or even after the first time football loses. Officially, it starts Monday, and boy does it ever.
The Wildcats, who begin the 2025-26 season ranked No. 13 in the Associated Press Top 25, open play in Las Vegas against No. 3 Florida, the defending NCAA champions. It’s part of a doubleheader at T-Mobile Arena along with No. 8 BYU against Villanova.
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“I’m sure there will be a lot of eyes and interested parties watching,” UA coach Tommy Lloyd said Friday.
It will mark the first time Arizona opens the season away from McKale Center since 2016 when it beat Michigan State in Hawaii. Normally the Wildcats begin with a handful of bye games at home before getting into the tougher matchups, but Lloyd said this was a game that he couldn’t pass up.
“That option wasn’t on the table,” he said. “The game was presented to us on this certain date against this certain opponent. It was a great opportunity.”
Florida is just the first of several big-name opponents Arizona will face during nonconference play. Lloyd made sure to point out that the season is a marathon, not a sprint, despite the quality of that first foe.
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“This is a season; it’s a journey,” he said. “It’s not a single, singular instance, it’s not just an event. It’s a smaller part of a much bigger season. I’ll evaluate it just on what it looks like and how it feels after we play. That’s a lot of the fun and coaching is figuring that stuff out. I’m not acting like we have all the answers. We prepared how we usually prepare to start a season.”
Arizona hasn’t lost its season opener since 2006, at Virginia, but it also hasn’t played someone this good to start. The last time it faced a top-3 opponent as the opener was 2001 when it knocked off No. 1 Maryland—which would go on to win the NCAA title—in New York City … and then Florida the next day.
Here’s what to watch for when the Wildcats and Gators get together in Sin City:
The freshmen firsts
This will be the 146th game coached by Lloyd, and unless he throws a curveball it will be just the sixth time he’s started a freshman. Carter Bryant got five starts last season but still averaged less than 20 minutes per game, which remains the most any first-year college player has played under Lloyd.
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Lloyd’s first four teams didn’t need to rely on freshmen, nor did it have that many who could make instant impacts. This season is different, with six on the roster, and during the two exhibitions Dwayne Aristode, Brayden Burries and Koa Peat each started at least once.
“These are really good basketball players who’ve played on big stages before,” Lloyd said of his freshman class, which was ranked No. 2 in the nation. “This is another big stage, at a different level of basketball. I’m not going to act like everything equates. But these guys, for freshmen, they’re seasoned. They didn’t just turn up and end up being a good player. These guys have been in the limelight, and they performed in the limelight and been very successful.”
Burries looked the most polished during the preseason, scoring 10 against Saint Mary’s and 13 against Embry-Riddle, making 10 of 16 shots with one turnover in 40 minutes.
“He’s a dynamic offensive player,” Lloyd said. “I see him as a guy that, when the ball is in his hands, he’s going to make the right decision for the team, whatever that may be. And the right decision could be him scored in any one of those three levels, or making a play for someone else. He’s somebody that I’m sure over the course of year is gonna grow in that role. We’re very comfortable when the ball is in hands.”
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Burries, Jaden Bradley and Anthony Dell’Orso are likely to start in the backcourt, with some combination of Peat, Tobe Awaka and Motiejus Krivas in the frontcourt. Lloyd said that decision hadn’t been made as of Friday but it’s not a priority for him who the first five on the court are.
“It makes it more concrete and it feels better for you guys, but it’s just not how I operate,” he said. “We’re a team that, we really don’t care about the starting lineup. We’re going to figure out a rotation. We’re going to figure out a rotation that we feel like makes the most sense. We’re going to figure out a rotation we feel like puts guys in the best position to be successful. I always feel it’s a luxury to have seven starters.”
Aristode, Ivan Kharchenkov and Evan Nelson will round out what should be a 9-man rotation.
A (re)loaded champ
Florida lost three starters from the team that went 36-4 and won its third national title in April, outlasting Houston in the championship game. The Gators aren’t rebuilding, though, as they return their entire frontcourt including 6-foot-11 junior Alex Condon, a preseason All-American.
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They had to replace their backcourt and did so via the portal, bringing in guards Boogie Fland from Arkansas, Xaivan Lee from Princeton and Isaiah Brown from Ohio. The UA has previously faced Lee and Brown in first round NCAA Tournament games, with mixed results.
How those newcomers gel with the returning talent is a bit of an unknown, though. While Arizona’s exhibitions and the Red-Blue intrasquad game aired on ESPN+, Florida opted to stick with the “secret scrimmage” format against Florida Atlantic and Illinois.
“You’re going in a little more blind, but that’s happened in years past,” Lloyd said. “Common sense says they won the national championship last year, right? They have a lot of recruiting players, so whatever they did worked. So my guess is they’re going to really lean into heavy what won them a national championship would be my guess.”
Lloyd and Florida coach Todd Golden have history from their respective time in the West Coast Conference. Golden was head coach at San Francisco during Lloyd’s last two seasons at Gonzaga, serving as an assistant for the Dons before that, and was a point guard at Saint Mary’s from 2004-08.
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“Todd is a really talented young coach,” Lloyd said. “He’s found a really good identity with how he wants to play with his teams. They built a team that was capable winning the national championship, and being capable of winning it and winning it are two different things. And then they got it done. So, you know, got a ton of respect for what he’s done.”
Return to McKale North
Lloyd has made it very well known he wants to play a game in Phoenix every year, outside of the one at ASU, and this season that will be Dec. 20 against San Diego State. Arizona is also making a return to Los Angeles on Nov. 14 to face old Pac-12 foe UCLA after not playing a game in the state of California last season for the first time in forever.
Las Vegas is another home away from home for the Wildcats, and T-Mobile Center in particular has been incredibly friendly. Arizona is 9-2 at “McKale North” including the 2022 and 2023 Pac-12 Tournament titles.
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“I’m zero for zero this year,” Lloyd said. “I don’t think past history is going to be an indicator of what will happen this year. From what I’ve heard it’s going to be a great crowd, I’ve heard it’s pretty much sold out.”
Arizona and BYU figure to have the bulk of the fans, and each could be rooting for the other. A strong following has been nothing new for the Wildcats outside of Tucson.
“I experienced last year basically anywhere we were, whether it’s Vegas or anywhere, we get a lot of fans, and that’s a great part of being U of A,” Dell’Orso said. “Vegas, being so close, I’m expecting a huge turnout.”
