8. Tommy Lloyd (Arizona)
1997 was a magical season as Arizona won their lone national title, a success they haven’t been able to recreate in the last three decades. Lute Olsen did fantastic work in Tucson, but eventual successor Sean Miller couldn’t even get the Wildcats back to the Final Four. Lloyd was thrown into the mix in 2021 and is off to a great start, but is he the one destined for great things at Arizona?
A native of Washington, Lloyd spent the first two-plus decades of his coaching career at Gonzaga, becoming an international recruiting wizard under Mark Few. He was on staff for Gonzaga’s two trips to the national title game and a slew of other conference and postseason success. Arizona gave him his first head coaching shot and he’s rewarded them with three Sweet Sixteen’s in his first four seasons. In addition to a few Pac-12 titles, Lloyd has led a very solid transition into the Big 12 as well.
Arizona was upset in his second season, but this team has been talented in each of his four years and been a second-weekend team. There’s a lot of evidence that Lloyd could get this program into the third weekend for the first time in more than two decades. He has a brilliance in the same vein as Golden and some other recent new champions and at just 50 years old still has plenty of time to deliver glory to Tucson. Winning a national championships isn’t easy, but Lloyd has almost tasted it at Gonzaga and could be on the precipice.