The 2025-26 Arizona Wildcats just authored the greatest regular season in program history — and maybe the best the sport has seen in years. Tommy Lloyd's fifth team opened 23-0, spent nine straight weeks ranked No. 1 in the AP poll — unanimous for four of them — finished 29-2 with a program-record 29 regular-season wins, and claimed the school's first Big 12 regular-season championship: the 30th regular-season conference title in Arizona history. They added the Big 12 tournament crown for good measure, earned a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament, and rolled through Long Island, Utah State, Arkansas and Purdue to reach the Final Four — the program's first since 2001 — before falling to fellow No. 1 seed Michigan. Thirty-six wins, the most in school history. It was a masterpiece, and it reset the standard in Tucson for a program whose standard was already sky-high.
The honors matched the season. Lloyd was named Big 12 Coach of the Year — his first in the league, adding to the AP National Coach of the Year award he won in his debut season of 2022. Senior guard Jaden Bradley earned Big 12 Player of the Year, averaging 13.4 points, 4.6 assists and 3.5 rebounds a night as the team's undisputed leader, the first Wildcat to win the Big 12 honor and only the third Arizona player to be named a conference player of the year. Forward Tobe Awaka took Sixth Man of the Year, pouring in 9.9 points and pulling down 9.5 rebounds in just 21.5 minutes off the bench. Bradley's big-game credentials — 20-point outings against No. 4 Florida, No. 6 UConn and BYU — and Awaka's relentless glass work became the heartbeat of a team that won with depth, defense and Lloyd's famously free-flowing offense.
The expectations for 2026-27 are exactly what you'd expect at a place like this: national-title expectations. Preseason analytics from Evan Miyakawa slot the Wildcats at No. 4 nationally — behind Florida, Duke and Illinois, one spot ahead of Lloyd's old stomping grounds at Gonzaga — and the roster gives every reason for optimism even after the departures of Bradley, one-and-done freshmen Koa Peat and Brayden Burries. The two returning starters are among the best players in the conference: Lithuanian senior center Motiejus Krivas, a likely preseason All-Big 12 pick coming off 10.4 points, 8.2 rebounds and 1.9 blocks a game on 58.4 percent shooting inside the arc, ranks as the No. 13 player in the sport on Miyakawa's board with legitimate national player of the year buzz; German forward Ivan Kharchenkov, also at 10.4 points a night with 4.3 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 1.4 steals, is a popular breakout candidate whose two-way versatility could land him on the Big 12 First Team by March. The only question mark is forward RJ Godfrey, whose eligibility status remains in limbo — and even the doomsday scenario barely dents the projection, dropping Arizona from No. 4 to No. 5.
All of this rests on the foundation Lute Olson built from nothing. When Olson arrived in Tucson in 1983, Arizona basketball was an afterthought; when he left, it was a machine. The 1997 national championship remains one of the most improbable title runs ever: a 4 seed that beat three No. 1 seeds — Kansas, North Carolina, and Kentucky in overtime of the championship game — behind Mike Bibby's poise and Miles Simon's brilliance. No team has matched that gauntlet since. The 1988 Final Four with Sean Elliott and Steve Kerr, the 1994 run, and the 2001 title-game loss to Duke round out the Olson-era March lore. Eighteen conference titles in 38 Pac-12 years followed, and the move to the Big 12 — now in its third season — has only sharpened the edge.
The player pipeline remains staggering: Sean Elliott, Steve Kerr, Damon Stoudamire, Jason Terry, Gilbert Arenas, Andre Iguodala, Lauri Markkanen, Deandre Ayton — the No. 1 pick in 2018. Arizona guards have run the NBA for three decades, and the program's reputation for developing pros is unmatched in the West. Sean Miller's era (2009-21) kept the machine humming with Elite Eight trips and Pac-12 dominance, and Lloyd's arrival brought a fresh offensive genius — immediate Pac-12 titles, then last season's coronation in a tougher league. This is year six of the Lloyd era and the 53rd season at McKale Center, and the building remains the West's loudest room: 14,000-plus in the desert, the ZonaZoo student section, a sellout streak that ran for decades. Opponents don't just play Arizona in McKale; they survive it.
What defines Arizona is the standard: 1997's impossible run, the point-guard lineage, McKale's roar, and now a 36-win Final Four season that proved the Wildcats belong in any era's conversation. In Tucson, the Wildcats don't rebuild — they reload, and the next Final Four is always the expectation. After 2025-26, that expectation isn't hope. It's the recent past. The only thing Lloyd's teams haven't done is cut down the nets on the season's final Monday. Everything about this season says that drought is living on borrowed time.
