The Arizona Wildcats interviewed Damon Stoudamire for their head coaching job on Thursday and will hear from fellow UA alum Miles Simon on Friday, according to Stadium’s Jeff Goodman.
Goodman is also reporting that Gonzaga associate head coach Tommy Lloyd is in the mix.
Arizona interviewed Damon Stoudamire today and will interview Miles Simon tomorrow, source told @stadium. No decision has been made yet on a successor to Sean Miller. Gonzaga associate head coach Tommy Lloyd is also in the mix.
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) April 9, 2021
Stoudamire is the only one of those three with college head coaching experience. He has been at the helm at Pacific for five seasons now, turning around a program that won eight games and was dealing with NCAA sanctions when he took over.
Stoudamire has a 71-77 career record, including a 23-10 mark in 2019-20, Pacific’s best season since 2012-13. That led him to be the West Coast Conference Coach of the Year.
Stoudamire was an assistant at Memphis and Arizona before that and received high marks as a recruiter. Of course, he is most known in Tucson for his time as a player. He was an All-American and the Pac-10 Player of the Year in 1995 after averaging 22.8 points per game. In 1994, the high-powered backcourt of Stoudamire and Khalil Reeves helped lead the Wildcats to the Final Four.
Simon, the face of Arizona’s 1997 national championship team, is currently serving as an assistant coach for the Los Angeles Lakers. Before that, he coached on the AAU circuit and was an assistant at Arizona for a few seasons under Lute Olson in the mid 2000s.
Lloyd has been Mark Few’s right-hand man at Gonzaga for 20 years. He’s most known for his recruiting and player development, especially when it comes to international players.
Arizona athletic director Dave Heeke didn’t provide a timetable for when a hire will be made and said UA will be using a search firm to help find the right candidate.
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