Raised to coach internationally, Tommy Lloyd gets his shot with USA Basketball starting this week (2024)

If there’s such a thing as an American destined to coach FIBA basketball, Tommy Lloyd might be it.

Arizona’s head coach grew up in small-town Kelso, Washington, soaking up international culture from the foreign-exchange students his parents routinely hosted. He spent a year after his college graduation touring the world with his wife while working and playing basketball.

Then he became known as one of college’s top international recruiters as a Gonzaga assistant over two decades, recruiting at countless FIBA events overseas.

And, not long after Arizona hired him away to become the Wildcats’ head coach in April 2021, Lloyd leaned semi-jokingly on his international reputation to pull back point guard Kerr Kriisa from the transfer portal after UA fired Sean Miller earlier that month.

“I was like, ‘Kerr, listen, I’m the most European-American coach in the game — and if you’re gonna walk away from this, you’re gonna regret it,’ “Lloyd said in November 2021.

After that exchange, Kriisa stuck around for two more seasons with the Wildcats, before moving on to West Virginia and most recently Kentucky, while Lloyd continued to pull in international players at Arizona — and deployed a free-flowing, high-scoring strategy with the Wildcats on the floor over the past three seasons.

But now, it’s official: Lloyd is an international coach.

USA Basketball will open training camp for its top 2024 junior team on Thursday in Colorado Springs, with 30 players competing for one of 12 spots on the team that will compete in the FIBA U18 AmeriCup.

Having served as a camp assistant for the U18s in 2022, Lloyd was named head coach of the 2024 team, which will compete in the FIBA U18 AmeriCup in Argentina.

Lloyd is also expected to coach what could be a similarly constructed USA U19 team next summer in the more prestigious FIBA U19 World Cup.

It’s on.

“I’m excited about it,” Lloyd said earlier this month. “I’ve been scouting and recruiting from these FIBA tournaments for over 20 years so it’s gonna be fun to be on the other side. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do. You probably never think that your name is going to be called but now that it’s going to happen, I look forward to taking advantage of the opportunity.”

Lloyd will have plenty of talented players to work with, and plenty of accomplished peers to lean on. He’ll be assisted by Texas Tech coach Grant McCasland and Notre Dame coach Micah Shrewsberry, while Duke’s Jon Scheyer is among the four “camp coaches” who will help run drills and scrimmages during the week-long training camp.

While Lloyd will compete against McCasland in the Big 12 next season, he and Scheyer will finish out the two-year series agreement they came to when the Blue Devils visit McKale Center on Nov. 21.

But that’s all about the competition ahead. This is about everyone working together for their country’s basketball federation.

“For us coaches, this is pretty cool because we kind of have our own little silo during these seasons,” Lloyd said. “So now you get a breakout and you get to work with coaches that are other head coaches and successful head coaches. As much as anything, I’m looking forward to the camaraderie and learning.”

Lloyd also has a deep connection to USA’s Senior Team, which will be led again in the Olympics this summer by former UA standout and Warriors coach Steve Kerr, while Few is serving as one of Kerr’s assistants. They all spent time together last August in the United Arab Emirates, when Arizona was on a foreign exhibition tour and Team USA was playing exhibition games to prepare for the World Cup.

This summer, Lloyd says he’s looking forward to “learning and getting better” from the USA Basketball experience while his players can learn from – and about – him.

Among the 30 players invited to camp is one of his top 2025 recruiting targets, four-star Texas wing Hudson Greer, along with several others UA has expressed interest in, including 2025 Las Vegas center Xavion Staton and 2026 guards Kaden and Kalek House of Phoenix Desert Mountain.

Lloyd will also be working with five incoming college freshmen who were young enough to qualify for U18 play (players can’t turn 18 before Jan. 1 of the competition year), including five-star centers Jayden Quaintance (ASU) and Patrick Ngongba (Duke).

The other class of 2024 players heading to camp are Purdue-bound center Daniel Jacobsen, Texas-bound guard Tre Johnson and Illinois-bound center Morez Johnson Jr.

One of UA’s top 2025 targets, Gilbert Perry’s Koa Peat, is expected to play instead for USA Basketball’s U17 team in the U17 World Cup in July. But there’s still plenty of talent around for USA to again become the odds-on favorite to win the U18 AmeriCup.

USA Basketball holds FIBA’s No. 1 ranking in boys basketball – a composite of results from events ranging from U16 and U19 – and will no doubt be the favorite in the AmeriCup, which is a qualifier for the U19 World Cup among countries from the Americas.

The Americans are expected to have much more competition next summer in the U19 World Cup, in which they finished fourth last summer. But they’ll be expected to win that, too, at least by their own standards.

“It’s simple: Don’t lose. Gold medal,” Lloyd said. “That’s the advice I’ve been given.”

That sort of win-or-else pressure could be the one drawback of coaching for USA Basketball.

But, when asked if so, Lloyd smiled.

“Well, listen,” Lloyd said. “It’s like coaching at Arizona.”

Rim shots

Arizona has received the paperwork for Campbell transfer Anthony Dell’Orso, while Lloyd praised the Australian wing’s versatility in a statement officially announcing his addition. “He has been an efficient scorer in college from inside and outside the 3-point line and is able to get to the free throw line and convert at high level,” Lloyd said.

A second-team all Coastal Athletic Association honoree last season, Dell’Orso is expected to play a key reserve role next season for the Wildcats, who are still waiting to learn whether guard Caleb Love will return next season or stay in the NBA Draft. Love has until May 29 to decide.

ESPN moved Pelle Larsson into the No. 43 spot on its updated mock NBA Draft, with former UA teammate Keshad Johnson at 47. ESPN had Larsson rated the No. 48 best available player entering the NBA Combine last week, with Johnson at 47.

Arizona’s previously reported game against UCLA in Phoenix next season will be part of a multi-year agreement in which the teams will meet in Las Vegas during 2025-26 and in Los Angeles in 2027-28, according to College Hoops Today’s Jon Rothstein.

Greer is transferring from Austin’s Lake Travis High School to Florida powerhouse Montverde Academy for his senior season in 2024-25.