The Arizona Wildcats have been tested over the last week. The Wildcats have gotten the best out of their recent Big 12 rivals. That is because right now, the Wildcats are the best team in College Basketball, and they are leading every poll and every projection to have the top overall seed in March Madness. When you are the top team in the Nation and in your conference, you’re going to get the best out of your opponents, because they want to take you down.

Even more so when you are unbeaten. That is what this Arizona team is at right now. They are unbeaten and playing good basketball. Head coach Tommy Lloyd wants to be playing great basketball. Lloyd knows his team’s last two games have not been their best, but he also knows that those types of games will help this team in upcoming games and will help them in the biggest games later this season. That is the most important thing: learning from these games.

Arizona will get better because of last two games

“They’re very important,” Tommy Lloyd said. “These games are great. It’s a great opportunity in these games to learn a lot of things, and you always respect competition. You always respect the other coach. I tell our guys, like, listen, that other coach has a right to tell his team to do whatever they want to do. We’ve got to be ready for all this stuff. We’ve got to be ready to make adjustments. They have as much time to prepare as we do, so they’re going to throw things at us.”

“We always respect that, and we want to learn from these situations. They did a few things differently, ASU did, in the first half of the game than they had done in our place, and then those are good adjustments, and then we kind of figured out what they were doing and figured out different ways we felt like we could find advantages.”

Arizona will be back in action on Saturday and will look to remain unbeaten at home against its Big 12 rival, Oklahoma State. That is going to be another team that will give the Wildcats their best shot. It is going to be interesting to see if the Wildcats will improve and not let the Cowboys hang around and make them think they have a shot to win this game. Arizona has to handle its business and put this game out of reach early on and play well for 40 minutes.

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We move on to the slew of right-handed pitchers present as NRIs to spring training this year. There are no fewer than fourteen, so this will take us a few installments! A lot of relief arms: all five in this edition are potential help for the bullpen, though perhaps not as soon as this season.

Campbell is the first man born in Portugal to reach the majors in almost a hundred and fifty years, since the Madeira-born Frank Thompson in 1875. Isaiah was born when his father was serving there in the Air Force. He debuted in 2023 with the Mariners, and had a fine rookie campaign, posting a 2.83 ERA across 27 relief appearances. He has struggled since, missing much of 2024 with elbow inflammation. Last year, he pitched mostly for Triple-A Worcester, and had a 3.90 ERA for them, but couldn’t find success in the big leagues with the Red Sox. He’s not a terrible depth piece and, with just over a year’s service time, comes with a lot of team control.

A career minor-leaguer, Carrillo has bounced around since 2017, and only made two appearances above Double-A in that time. Now aged 27, he has seen time with the Dodgers, Nationals and Rangers organizations, before signing a minor-league deal for the D-backs. He actually appeared in the Arizona Fall League, back in 2019. Last year, he had a 3.59 ERA for Double-A El Paso, and over the winter had a 2.19 ERA for Jalisco in the Mexican League, though his K:BB ratio was an unimpressive 4:4 over 12.1 innings. He’s probably most famous for being part of the Max Scherzer + Trea Turner deal between Los Angeles and Washington in July 2021.

This name, however, should be familiar, because Curtiss – with the extra S – appeared thirty times out of the Arizona bullpen in 2025 (pictured, top). He didn’t do at all badly, getting a 3.93 ERA and 4.01 FIP. He got a decent 4.80 rating in our season review, but was outrighted off the 40-man roster at year end, and elected to become a free agent. However, he re-signed for the Diamondbacks on December 16, and the experience he picked up – Curtiss even notched a save – will stand him in good stead. He walked just five batters in 36.2 innings, and John should definitely be considered a contender for one of the open spots at the back of the 2026 bullpen.

Like Campbell, Dubin comes with major-league experience, having appeared 64 times for Baltimore and Houston, since making his MLB debut in June 2023. Last year, he started with the Astros, but was selected off waivers by the Orioles in August. All told, he had a 5.08 ERA over 33.2 innings, with a 28:11 K:BB. It’s possible health was an issue, as he was much better (1.33 ERA in 20.1 IP) before a forearm strain sent him to the IL for two months in June. Fun fact: Dubin originally intended to play soccer at college, and dropped out to work at Lowe’s. A friend convinced him to try out for the baseball team at Erie Community College… and here we are.

A 13th-round pick in 2023, Durke rocketed through the system last year, with stops at three levels. He started at High-A Hillsboro, where a 13.2 inning scoreless streak with 22 strikeouts led to him moving up to Double-A Amarillo. Despite its well-known reputation as a launching pad, Durke held his own, with a 2.31 ERA and 18:6 K:BB across 11.2 frames. He was then sent to Reno and… [loud buzzing sounds of static] Yeah, it didn’t quite go as well there, his control evaporating to the tune of more than a walk per inning, and a 9.53 ERA in 17 games. Still, he’s only 23, so has time to figure it out.

Mike LaFleur has spent the past three years working directly with Sean McVay, all while the greatest coach of this generation worked through a crucial transitional period. As far as LaFleur’s resume goes, this is bullet point 1A.

McVay’s teams are not associated with failure, but that’s where they were when LaFleur arrived as offensive coordinator. Fresh off a 5-12 season, the Rams were seeking an offensive identity. LaFleur helped them find it by working with McVay to overhaul the run game. This season, that new identity morphed even further, as the Rams led the NFL in three-tight-end usage — antithetical to the three wide receiver sets that McVay helped popularize league-wide when he first arrived.

McVay, of course, is the key architect in Los Angeles. But LaFleur was alongside him throughout those changes, helping implement the new ideas as McVay consciously began to delegate more work to his assistants.

It’s easy, then, to imagine that LaFleur might have learned some grand lessons from his time in Los Angeles. But in his first news conference as the new head coach of the Arizona Cardinals, when asked what he’s learned as a playcaller from McVay, LaFleur instead pointed to a seemingly tiny bit of minutiae.

“The worst playcall is the late playcall,” LaFleur said.

What?

“Everyone’s got good plays, everyone has good scheme,” LaFleur said. “But it’s really leading up to that moment. How clean do we get out of that huddle, how do we operate, how fast do I get that call in there to allow these players to go do what they do best.”

It’s something that seems microscopic in importance, but it reflects how an offensive system operates. Is everyone on the same page? Is there a clear plan of attack? Does the coaching structure make sense?

And it shows up on Sundays. There’s a reason that the Rams committed the fewest pre-snap penalties in the NFL this season, while the Cardinals were repeatedly undone by self-inflicted mistakes.

Perhaps better than anything else said in their 36-minute opening news conference, this explains why the Cardinals landed on LaFleur.