TUCSON – Although the college basketball season is still several weeks away, excitement is growing about the men’s team Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd has built in Tucson.
After the Wildcats suffered a heartbreaking loss to Duke in the Sweet 16 last March, Arizona brought in seven highly rated freshmen to complete the second-best recruiting class in the nation behind Duke, according to 247sports.
Led by five-star, three-time Gatorade Arizona Player of the Year and Arizona native Koa Peat, the Wildcats are set to have one of the younger starting lineups in recent years with a young supporting cast of Brayden Burries, Dwayne Aristode, Bryce James and some key international players such as Ivan Kharchenkov, Mabil Mawut and Sidi Gueye.
All of those freshmen are expected to have impactful roles on the squad this year, which makes the team one of the deepest that Lloyd has coached in his Arizona tenure.
Despite the youth and relative inexperience of playing tournament games, the Wildcats believe they have something special because of the veteran leadership mixed into the roster.
“I think the mix is perfect,” Aristode said. “The freshmen players are veteran-grade, very talented and very poised. They’re calm under pressure.”
Even though the Wildcats are under a heavy spotlight that includes championship expectations, they seem unfazed about the pressure, which is a trait relatively uncommon for young freshmen.
“I don’t feel like we feel a lot of pressure,” Peat said. “I think, honestly, our main focus right now is just to keep getting better as us and as a team, and I think we’re going to keep doing that, and we’re super excited to get it rolling.”
Raised in Gilbert and a star at Perry High School from the moment he took the court as a freshman, Peat is used to the noise and eyes on him. He was the highest-rated recruit in Arizona, and rated ninth nationally in the 2025 class, according to 247sports, choosing to sign with the Wildcats over several blue-blood programs.
“It definitely played a role in my decision to come here,” said Peat, a power forward. “Being a kid from Arizona, playing in front of those fans in Chandler and now coming to Tucson and playing in front of even more fans in Arizona. It means a lot, especially when I put that on my chest to go out there and just play as hard as I can.”
Although Peat’s impact will be a focal point as one of the top recruits in the nation and a potential future NBA lottery draft pick, don’t discount the rest of the freshman class.
Burries was a five-star recruit as well out of Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Eastvale, California, and is expected to start as a combo guard for the Wildcats. Burries and Peat already have chemistry after playing together on USA’s U19 team.
“I’ve known him since I was 14,” Peat said. “So we’ve built a relationship over the years, and I recruited him here when I committed, and we’ve built our relationship since we’ve been here, and that’s my guy.”
Aristode, a four-star recruit from Brewster Academy in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, has high expectations and is expected to have a big role. James, a three-star recruit who played at Sierra Canyon School in Los Angeles, is the son of legendary NBA player LeBron James, and is ready to carve his own legacy.
After only a few weeks of practice, the Arizona veterans are impressed at how the freshmen are acclimating to the next level of basketball and what the Wildcats could look like when the regular season starts. But that doesn’t mean the teaching stops.
“They love to work,” senior guard Jaden Bradley said. “They love to get better. Very coachable, gym rats that can really play at a high level physically. They fit right in.”
Other veterans who haven’t been around the McKale Center as long as Bradley seem equally impressed with the underclassmen.
“Their ability to grow, not only as players, but just as people,” said Evan Nelson, a senior guard and transfer from Harvard. “Starting out, college is never easy, it’s a turbulent time. You’ve got to time manage, take classes.”
Despite the steep learning curve the freshmen face as they prepare for the season, the veterans are picking up new things from the young guns as well.
“I’ve got to be able to take advice,” senior guard Anthony Dell’Orso said. “They can give me a lot of great tips. “I think it’s a mutual respect that both of us can help each other because we’re all here to make one goal happen, and that’s a national title.”
So far, the mutual learning experience has been beneficial for the entire team, and has led to blossoming chemistry.
“They’re willing to teach us,” Aristode said. “They bring us under their wings. Just being together. We have great chemistry. It fits well together. Everything is perfect.”
While the Wildcats will certainly need their veterans like Bradley and Dell’Orso to play well, the freshmen will also need to be a key cog in Lloyd’s system.
The old saying that “it takes a village” rings true for the Wildcats as they prepare for the season, and what they hope will be a championship run.
“It’s going to take everyone,” Dell’Orso said. “We saw last year that the Big 12 is no joke. Every night it’s a big game and it’s a big opponent, and no team has one player or two players. It’s four, five, six players. It goes into the bench. Everyone has to really be locked in.
“Everyone has to understand what the goal is and everyone has to be bought into that, and that’s where you have winning moments.”
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