<\/p>\n
Purdue players have some questions about being assessed a foul on a play that left Arizona center Motiejus Krivas (13) stunned after bouncing his head off the floor in their Elite Eight game in San Jose, Calif., March 28, 2026.<\/p>\n
Kelly Presnell, Arizona Daily Star<\/p>\n
But after lying on the floor to recover, Krivas didn’t leave the game. And afterward, there he was, sitting in the locker room, wet and happy, having shaken it all off.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe I\u2019ll lose a couple of brain cells,” Krivas said, “but I feel great.”<\/p>\n
Staffers celebrate<\/p>\n
While none of the UA players were even born the last time the Wildcats reached a Final Four, mostly having only heard of their five previous Elite Eight losses, the moment was not lost on staffers Justin Kokoskie and Brian Brigger.<\/p>\n
Kokoskie has been the UA\u2019s men\u2019s basketball athletic trainer since 2002, before all of UA’s five previous Elite Eight losses, while Brigger was on a personal 0 for 4 streak in Elite Eights.<\/p>\n
The Wildcats\u2019 equipment manager since 2012, Brigger was a part of Xavier and Pitt teams that lost in the Elite Eight, as well as the Sean Miller-coached UA teams that lost in the West Regional finals of 2014 and 2015.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s awesome,\u201d Brigger said, after helping carry the West trophy to the locker room. \u201cIt\u2019s excitement. It\u2019s awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lloyd named COY finalist<\/p>\n
Arizona\u2019s Tommy Lloyd was named one of four finalists for the Naismith Coach of the Year, though UA point guard Jaden Bradley was dropped from Naismith Defensive Player of the Year consideration.<\/p>\n
The Naismith Award announced four finalists for its coach, player and defensive player awards during the week, with Michigan\u2019s Dusty May, Duke\u2019s Jon Scheyer and Nebraska\u2019s Fred Hoiberg joining Lloyd as the four finalists for Naismith Coach of the Year.<\/p>\n
The remaining candidates for the Naismith\u2019s Defensive Player of the Year include Kansas\u2019 Flory Bidunga, Florida\u2019s Reuben Chinyelu, St. John\u2019s Zuby Ejiofor and Houston\u2019s Joseph Tugler. Bradley had been named to a 15-player late-season watch list for the award.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Purdue players have some questions about being assessed a foul on a play that left Arizona center Motiejus…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242286,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[13689,2454,895,88,90,89,127],"class_list":{"0":"post-242285","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-jose","8":"tag-arizona-wildcats","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-men","11":"tag-san-jose","12":"tag-san-jose-headlines","13":"tag-san-jose-news","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}