SAN DIEGO — It was after Duke dashed Arizona’s hopes of a national title a season ago in the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet 16 that the idea of winning with freshmen dawned on Wildcats coach Tommy Lloyd.
In an era of college athletics defined by the transfer portal and hodgepodging a roster together, Lloyd built the 2025-26 Wildcats into one of the best teams in program history by believing in freshmen.
On Friday, Arizona started three freshmen in an NCAA Tournament game for the first time since 2000. And in the first-round victory over Long Island University, the first-year trio of Brayden Burries, Koa Peat and Ivan Kharchenkov led Arizona in scoring, combining for 47 of Arizona’s 92 points.
“I mean, honestly I don’t look at them as freshmen, you know what I mean? I just look at them as really good basketball players,” Lloyd said following Friday’s win. “These guys, they have high IQs, they have great character and obviously they’re talented basketball players. And they put the work in.
“So when you have that combination of elements, I don’t think it matters what year you are in school. And I would have been more surprised had they come out and been a little bit nervous today than play the way they did.”
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Burries tallied a team-high 18 points in his Southern California homecoming, Peat added 15 points and seven rebounds, while Kharchenkov recorded his second double-double of the season, notching 14 points on 5-of-7 shooting and a career-high 10 rebounds. It was the fifth double-double by an Arizona freshman in the NCAA Tournament and the first since 2018 (Deandre Ayton).
Before Friday’s freshmen master class, before Arizona won this year’s Big 12 regular-season and conference tournament titles and before Arizona began the season 23-0, the best start in program history, there was last season’s heartbreak. But what came with last season’s heartbreak was Lloyd’s light bulb moment.
“I’ve had the good fortune of playing against Duke a few times, and Jon (Scheyer) is a good friend of mine,” Lloyd said of the Duke coach. “We played Duke twice last year. At the start of the year, we played them at our place and they got us. It wasn’t a great probably well-played game either side, but they came out on top. You might have felt like they were a little bit young but really talented.
“We played them at the end of the season. I feel they were young. I just thought they were really good.
“And, so, we were able to get involved with some freshmen that we felt could be just big-time impact players in college basketball, no matter what year or what class they were.”
Arizona’s eight-man rotation comprises four freshmen, three of whom average more than 27 minutes per game and three of whom score in double figures (Burries, Peat and Kharchenkov).
Dwayne Aristode, the other freshman who makes up Arizona’s rotation, averages 15 minutes per game and allows Arizona to space the floor. The 6-foot-8 forward is shooting 28 of 63 (44.4%) from beyond the arc this season.
“I mean, for me, it was a simply calculus,” Lloyd said on his strategy of building his roster with freshmen.
“The COVID eligibility was kind of timing out. So I just didn’t feel like — two things — I didn’t feel there was going to be as many quality transfers in the transfer portal, for one. And, two, I thought it was going to be overpriced.
“And then but the simplest answer for us is, we were able to get involved with freshmen that we really believed in from day one.”
Lloyd has been able to instill a level of confidence and self-belief that is rarely seen in freshmen. He said Peat and Burries have matured beyond their years when it comes to being competitors.
“Honestly, we don’t even pay too much attention to it,” Burries said of Lloyd playing freshmen. “We’re just focused. Everybody’s in college still. Everybody plays each other, no matter if you’re a freshman, sophomore, junior or senior, so just go out there and hoop and have fun and be coachable.”
“Just go out there and hoop.”
Arizona guard Brayden Burries said after a Round of 64 win over LIU that his team doesn’t pay attention to things like their three leading-scorers all being freshmen. pic.twitter.com/c0NgNJLUID
— Arizona Sports (@AZSports) March 20, 2026
Prior to Arizona’s opening-round victory, Lloyd told his star freshmen duo to treat the NCAA Tournament like a state championship, something Peat and Burries are plenty accustomed to.
Peat won four state championships in four years at Gilbert Perry High School, while Burries led Eastvale Eleanor Roosevelt High School to the Open Division state championship last season.
Burries’ 44 points in the state championship game broke the previous record of 35 points set by former Wildcat Jordan Brown (2017).
“I told our freshmen, ‘Hey, you guys won a state championship?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Then let’s go win another state championship,'” Lloyd said.
“And the way you win a state championship, you win a state championship game by game. This just happens to have the word ‘national’ in front of it. But it’s no different approach.”
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