Arizona Wildcats receive West's No. 1 NCAA seed, will face LIU Friday in San Diego

After a 32-2 romp through the regular season and Big 12 Tournament, the Arizona men's basketball team received exactly what was expected: A No. 1 NCAA Tournament seed in the West Region, and a first-round game Sunday in San Diego.

They will open against 16th-seeded LIU at 10:35 a.m. Friday at San Diego State's Viejas Arena.

Even without the audio, just a flash of Duke at the top of the show was enough to generate boos from the crowd, while UA players, fans and cheerleaders later cheered the official word that the Wildcats were in as a No. 1 seed. 

While Duke was the top overall seed, UA was given the No. 2 overall spot, with Michigan No. 3 after the Wolverines lost to Purdue in the Big Ten Tournament, and Florida was the fourth overall.

The only real news for the Wildcats was that their Friday game will be against LIU, and that a win against the Sharks of Brooklyn, N.Y., would put UA in a second-round game against the winner of a first round game between Villanova and Utah State.

Also in the West Region: Third-seeded Gonzaga, where Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd spent two decades as an assistant coach, which could potentially meet UA in the Elite Eight.

In addition, the West includes Purdue as the No. 2 seed, Arkansas as No. 4, Wisconsin as No. 5, while Big 12 rival BYU was given the No. 6 seed.

After the first weekend pods, the four West teams advancing to the Sweet 16 will play in San Jose for West Regional games, meaning the Wildcats have an all-California path to the Final Four.

As usual, though, all that was too far in the future to bank on for Lloyd, who discussed the Wildcats' placement during a news conference later Sunday afternoon at McKale Center.

"I don't even know" deep into the brackets, Lloyd said. "Honestly couldn't even tell you. LIU, Utah State and Villanova. That's my bracket."

Arizona won the Big 12 regular-season and tournament titles after being picked to finish fourth in the league. LIU (24-10), of Long Island University's Brooklyn campus, won the NEC Tournament and is coached by former NBA standout Rod Strickland.

Lloyd said he didn't yet know much about LIU but did know plenty about Strickland.

"They got a good coach, and he was a heck of a basketball player," Lloyd said. "I grew up a Portland Trail Blazer fan, and Rod had a great stretch of his career in Portland. He's one of the best point guards in the NBA. No one could keep him in front. I definitely remember that.

"It's a really cool story to see him have success."

It’s the second No. 1 seed for the Wildcats in five years under Lloyd. UA was a No. 1 seed in the South region during his first season of 2021-22, and reached the Sweet 16 before losing to Houston.

The Wildcats were a No. 2 seed in 2023 but lost to Princeton in the first round and a No. 2 again in 2024, when they lost to Clemson in the Sweet 16. Last season, UA was a No. 4 seed and reached the Sweet 16 again, this time losing to Duke in Newark, N.J.

The other No. 1 overall seeds this season were Duke (East), Michigan (Midwest) and Florida (South) but Houston, which finished second in the Big 12 behind Arizona, picked up the No. 2 seed in the South and has a chance to advance to Sweet 16 and Elite Eight games that will be played at Houston's Toyota Center.

The Big 12 tied its record of eight total bids among its members, including UA as a No. 1 seed, Iowa State (in the Midwest) and Houston (South) as No. 2s, and Kansas (East) as a No. 4. Both TCU (as a No. 9 seed) and UCF (as a No. 10) also landed in the East, while Texas Tech is the No. 5 seed in the Midwest, and BYU is joining UA in the West.

Even without the audio and an unseasonably warm afternoon, the St. Phillips Plaza crowd nearly overflowed Sunday, and had considerably more security than ever, another indication of the increasing interest in the Wildcats.

Still, Lloyd is pushing them to keep proceeding as they have all season, as much as possible. 

"I just told our guys, the best thing we can do is just stay out of the spotlight a little bit, do our normal obligations and lead our normal lives," Lloyd said. "Guys need to go to class and do normal stuff.

"It's been a good process and I don't know why we'd want to change that right now. I think you just have to be intentional, and you have to value being steady and understand that real value in that."