Head coach Tommy Lloyd and the Arizona Wildcats suffered a heartbreaking first-round defeat in March at the hands of 15-seed Princeton. That team lost a lot, but like usual, Lloyd worked the transfer portal and the international scene well. There’s a reason Jon Rothstein always tweets, “Grab your passport,” talking about Lloyd. I seem to be a little higher on the Wildcats than others, but this retooled squad is really talented.<\/p>\n
Previous teams in my rankings can be seen here<\/a>.<\/p>\n Lloyd loves his international players. Oumar Ballo<\/a><\/strong>, a Mali native, started with Lloyd at Gonzaga, then followed him to Arizona two years ago. Last year, Ballo took on a starting role for the first time and had a breakout season. He doubled his scoring and rebounding averages. He was top seven in the PAC-12 in total points, rebounds, and blocks. Fellow seven-foot international center Henri Veesaar<\/strong><\/a> returns. The Estonian was a top-40 recruit last year but didn’t play a ton as a freshman due to the presence of Ballo and \u0104\u017euolas Tubelis<\/strong><\/a>. But with the latter gone, he should have a much bigger role this year.<\/p>\n Swedish guard\u00a0Pelle Larsson<\/a><\/strong> looks ready to move into a full-time starting role this season. Two years ago, he won PAC-12 Sixth Man of the Year, and last year, he started just over half of their games, with Cedric Henderson Jr.<\/a><\/strong> starting the others. Larsson set new career highs in points, rebounds, and assists and tied his high in steals. Returning with him in the backcourt is Kylan Boswell<\/strong><\/a>. All the buzz right now is that the former five-star recruit is poised for a breakout campaign as a sophomore.<\/p>\n Alabama transfer Jaden Bradley<\/a> <\/strong>is another player who could be in line for a breakout sophomore campaign. He proved last year as a freshman for the Crimson Tide that he can play well in both starting and bench roles. Caleb Love<\/a><\/strong> is coming off of a disappointing season at UNC<\/a>. The disappointment came more from the team’s performance than his own. He should add a lot of scoring and creativity to this offense, which could benefit the team. Keshad Johnson<\/a><\/strong> transfers in fresh off a magical Final Four run with San Diego State<\/a>. He gives the Wildcats a lot of experience at the forward position, something they don’t have at that position anywhere else on this roster.<\/p>\n Putting more emphasis on this team’s international flair, Lloyd is bringing in two four-star recruits, both of whom are from Lithuania. Those two are power forward Paulius Murauskas<\/strong><\/a> and center Motiejus Krivas<\/strong><\/a>. With Lloyd’s history with international big men such as Ballo and Tubelis, those two could develop well.<\/p>\n C – Oumar Ballo (14.2 PPG, 8.6 RPG, 1.6 APG, 0.7 APG, 1.3 BPG)<\/p>\n PF – Keshad Johnson (7.7 PPG, 5.0 RPG, 0.7 APG, 0.5 APG, 0.5 BPG at San Diego State)<\/p>\n SG – Pelle Larsson (9.9 PPG, 4.3 RPG, 3.1 APG, 0.8 APG, 0.2 BPG)<\/p>\n PG – Kylan Boswell (4.6 PPG, 1.6 RPG, 1.6 APG, 0.7 APG, 0.0 BPG)<\/p>\n PG – Caleb L0ve (16.7 PPG, 3.7 RPG, 2.8 APG, 1.1 APG, 0.2 BPG at UNC)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Head coach Tommy Lloyd and the Arizona Wildcats suffered a heartbreaking first-round defeat in March at the hands of 15-seed Princeton. That team lost a lot, but like usual, Lloyd worked the transfer portal and the international scene well. There’s a reason Jon Rothstein always tweets, “Grab your passport,” talking about Lloyd. I seem to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3948,"featured_media":57979,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[773,1608,2],"tags":[846,3796,3801,4010],"class_list":["post-57976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-basketball","category-basketball","category-featured","tag-arizona-wildcats","tag-ncaa-preseason-rankings","tag-preseason-rankings","tag-preseason-top-25"],"modified_by":"Kayla Fonte","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3948"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Preseason College Basketball Rankings: #11 Arizona Wildcats<\/h2>\n
Projected Lineup<\/h3>\n