PHOENIX – The University of Arizona men’s and women’s basketball teams are coming off vastly different 2025-26 seasons. The men’s team went 36-3 overall, 16-2 in the Big 12 and made the NCAA Tournament Final Four. The Wildcats women’s team posted a 12-18 overall record, and a 3-15 conference record that left them 15th out of 16 Big 12 teams.

But a new season brings new expectations. Wildcats players and coaches from both teams spoke at the Big 12 Basketball Media Days on Wednesday at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, providing insight on what to expect in their 2026-27 campaigns.

No skipping steps for men’s team

The men’s team was on the verge of making it to the championship game before falling to Michigan in the Final Four. Arizona finished first in the Big 12 Conference regular season, then defeated Houston in the conference tournament championship.

Arizona comes into the 2026-2027 season ranked No. 5 in the country and is projected to repeat as Big 12 champion.

“The first thing with expectations is they’re a privilege,“ Wildcats coach Tommy Lloyd said. “I don’t think you should look at it any other way.” 

Arizona returns two core players in center Motiejus Krivas and forward Ivan Kharchenkov, both of whom played instrumental roles in the Wildcats’ run to the Final Four. Krivas was recently named Big 12 preseason player of the year by the conference’s coaches, while Kharchenkov was named to the preseason all-conference team. 

In addition, Arizona brought in freshman shooting guard Caleb Holt, one of the nation’s top prospects.

“There’s no skipping steps to having a successful season and building a team,” Lloyd said. “You just have to kind of get back to square one and be OK with that. The journey is going to be rough. There’s going to be some rough seas ahead. With these three dudes next to me I feel pretty good no matter what you’re navigating.”

Arizona, which opens the season Nov. 2 against No. 22 UCLA at T-Mobile Arena as part of the Hall of Fame Series Las Vegas, features a fairly new look this season, bringing in 10 newcomers. But even with the fresh set of faces, the Wildcats remain confident they can make a run for a national championship they last won in 1997 for the program’s only title.

“I would say it’s not easy to rebuild almost a whole new team,” Krivas said. “It’s still an ongoing job. The trip to Lithuania really helped us to kind of see where we are as a team and where we need to get better.”

Krivas was referring to the Wildcats’  trip to Lithuania over the summer where they competed in exhibition games against teams from Lithuania and Ukraine. They finished with a 2-1 record.

Holt is expected to fill large holes from departing players, including Suns first-round draft pick Koa Peat, and increase the team’s chances for a run at the championship. He spent his high school days at Prolific Prep in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

“Every two nights a week it’s probably going to be one of the biggest games of my life,” Holt said. “I’m looking forward to competing with the guys every night in the best conference in the country.”

Narrowing the gap key for women’s team

Arizona’s women’s basketball team struggled last season, winning just 12 games and going 2-8 in its final stretch while missing the tournament. Those numbers aren’t indicative of the Wildcats’ Big 12 performance, coach Becky Burke said.

“I think it was just a super competitive league every single night,” said Burke, who is in her second season at the helm. “We felt like we had an opportunity to win every night. We also felt like it was going to be a tremendous battle every single night.”

Arizona rebuilt its roster during the offseason, adding nine new players.

“Obviously, we knew that we had a talent deficit. We addressed that in the offseason,” Burke said. “With recruiting our freshmen class, the returners that we brought back, but also the transfer portal class that we brought in, we really feel like we’ve narrowed that gap.”

One of the biggest additions the Wildcats acquired came from USC in the transfer portal. Gerda Raulušaitytė, a power forward-center who was named Lithuanian Women’s Basketball Player of the Year in 2024 , has just one year of college experience, but has spent plenty of time playing basketball overseas.

“I have a little bit of a different experience than most of my players on the team,” Raulušaitytė said. “But I’m also a senior, so I think that I bring this experience for the freshmen also, not just from the basketball side but off the court as well.”

As the Wildcats prepare for their season opener Nov. 2 against Stanford, also at T-Mobile Arena as part of the Hall of Fame Series Las Vegas, Burke feels like the team is making strides in its scrimmages,  showing vast improvement from last season. 

“I feel like we’re right where we want to be, which is nowhere close to where we will be, ” Burke said. “We’ve had a couple scrimmages. We’re going into this week with two exhibition games. (We) scored more points in our scrimmages than we would have dreamed of this time last year. Offensively, that’s been a pleasant surprise.”

This article first appeared on Cronkite News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.