The final game of the first regular-season of the Tommy Lloyd era is in the books. The Arizona men’s basketball team defeated the University of California, Berkeley by a score of 89-61.

Today was Justin Kier’s third and final senior day of his colligate career. He played four seasons at George Mason University and one at the University of Georgia. Tucson will indeed be the last stop on his journey.

Kier provided energy, passion, leadership and heart for this young Arizona team and has become a huge part of the program during his only season in Tucson. Head coach Tommy Lloyd gave Kier the start in tonight’s game over Kerr Kriisa to honor him on his special night.

Kier finished his senior night and final game in McKale Center with 13 points, five rebounds and three assists.

Oumar Ballo was excellent in today’s game and was the Wildcats leading scorer with 16 points on a perfect 7-7 from the field.

Arizona’s leading scorer during the season, Bennedict Mathurin added 13 points of his own while grabbing six rebounds against the Golden Bears.

The Wildcats were very efficient from the field during today’s contest, finishing the game 62.5% (30-48) from three.

Tommy Lloyd talked about playing freshman guard Adama Bal his most minutes of the season in the game and his development throughout the season.

“I wanted to reward him for having a great season of practice behind the scenes and working, and I think he’s going to be a big part of the program going forward,” Lloyd said.

Arizona has struggled with turnovers throughout the entire season but has recently shown improvement during the last few weeks of play. Tonight they totaled only eight turnovers and zero from their two-point guards in Kier and Kriisa.

The Arizona men’s basketball team will now travel to Las Vegas to compete in the Pac-12 Tournament. They will be the No. 1 seed and have a bye in the first round of the competition.

Head coach Tommy Lloyd talked about why he picked last night’s game to celebrate their Pac-12 regular-season championship.

“I’m proud of the guys and I just didn’t want to celebrate too early and tonight was the right time,” Lloyd said.

The McKale Center experience has been one of the best in the country for college basketball but coach Lloyd wants to continue to improve it in the coming years.

“Yeah, I mean, definitely, it got better. I’m looking forward to this offseason. One of my goals is, you know, how do we make the gameday experience even better in McKale,” Lloyd said. “I want it to be an event every time we play. I don’t want to be about who we’re playing necessarily, and I get that a little bit but I want it to be about Arizona basketball.”

The Wildcats will face the winner of Stanford University and ASU game in the quarterfinals on Thursday, March 10 at 10 p.m. This will be the first Pac-12 tournament that Arizona has participated in since March 11, 2020.

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