Arizona

What Tommy Lloyd and Arizona players said after road win over Cincinnati

Published

1 year ago

January 4, 2025

What Tommy Lloyd and Arizona players said after road win over Cincinnati

It was the first road game in the Big 12 for the men’s basketball team, and the Wildcats came out with a close win against Cincinnati 72-67. Arizona is now 2-0 in Big 12 play. The road trip continues on Tuesday when it plays West Virginia.

Our game recap can be found here. Below is what Tommy Lloyd and forwards Henri Veesaar and Carter Bryant had to say afterward:

Lloyd on the differences in finishing between Cincinnati and UCLA: The biggest situation is we found a way, and, you know, our guys kind of hung in there. We had a big lead, and it’s happened to us before. This year, happens to UCLA a couple weeks ago. We’re up 13, and the games get tough, these other teams are good, they’re talented. They amp up the pressure. I thought our guys did a good job of hanging with it. The turnovers crushed us. The offensive rebounding hurt us. Then KJ Lewis made two amazing kind of driving plays where he didn’t have much at the end, he got on two feet, pivoted, pivoted, and just found a way to wheel in two baskets. That’s what we didn’t do against UCLA. We were never able to kind of hold on to that lead a little bit longer and and then, then the game got tied. I’m like, come on, we got to find a way on this one. These guys deserve it. They’re amazing, and it’ll be a kind of a pivotal moment for our season.

On what went on during the final moments of the game: We kind of drew up something out of the time out that we’d never really done before. It allowed Jaden Bradley to get downhill and make a layup. The play wasn’t necessarily for that, but that was one of the options, and he made a layup. I think when the game was tied, we got that two point lead, and I think we got to stop, and we were able to, kind of possession by possession, find a way from there.

On Carter Bryant’s performance: Carter is really making progress and the one thing about Carter is, I’ve told him, he checks two boxes that are really hard to check. He’s an elite talent, and he has elite character. The game is going to come to him, the refinement is going to come, the experience is going to come. The progress he’s made in the last month has been game changing for us and I’m really proud of him. When you’re somebody with Carter’s stature, and you come to a place out of Arizona, the expectations might be a little unrealistic. Sometimes it works out for freshmen right away. A lot of times it doesn’t, and you just kind of hang with it, and he’s hung with it. He’s continued to get better, he has an amazing attitude. He’s five for five, three for three. He should have made that other free throw. He had a perfect night. Super proud of him, super proud of him, and the person that he is.

On Caleb Love’s shooting: They’re good defenders. Cincinnati is a great defensive team, and we knew that coming in. We knew they were going to pay a lot of attention to Caleb and really make his touches harder. I thought he had a few good looks and a few drives that were 50/50 foul calls he maybe could have got, but he didn’t. I know we ran an out of bounds play for him at the end, he got stripped at the top of the key, three that kind of iced the game that rimmed out. Those are shots I want him taking. He’s a winner. Caleb is someone I love and, and I love being in the fight with him and I love that. Sometimes maybe people aren’t rooting for him, because you know what? We love the guy, and we’re gonna ride with him every day.

On trying to pull away when up 19 points: I’m hoping, you know you never know, right. These games are tough, and you’re hoping. It’s obviously a great environment when you show up before tip off, and every seat’s full, it’s going to be something special. I thought for 30 minutes we did an unbelievable job keeping that crowd really quiet, and then we maybe got a little fatigued. The sense of urgency amped up a little bit, created some turnovers, and they got out in transition and got themselves back in the game. That’s something for us to continue to look at. It’s tough to get a 19 point lead at a place like Cincinnati, so we got to put that in our back pocket, and know we can do it. The next thing is, how do you manage that? I think we can grow there.

On how Trey Townsend and Anthony Dell’Orso have adapted to the expectations at Arizona: Well, they’ve been great. I mean, they’re first class individuals, first class dudes. One of the things we try to spend a lot of time on, some of these guys won’t be at Arizona for three or four or five years. We really do as good a job as we can educating them on the history and the legacy of Arizona basketball, the former players, the great teams, the tough moments. We spend a lot of time talking about that stuff. There’s a lot of conversation between former players and current players, and they’ve been awesome and they’re helping us so much. Everybody that got on the court today really contributed, which makes us a total team effort.

On Veesaar playing more minutes: The only indication on this team is how the game’s going. Henri’s getting better and better, and Henri knows this. I stuck with him through thick and thin, and I’ve always been a huge Henry Veesaar fan. He and I have always had great conversations. And you know what? He’s finally getting his chance. He’s getting some game confidence, and so is Carter. Game confidence is a huge deal to have confidence in games. You get better in workouts, you get better in practice, but to be able to do it in games really kind of cements it. I think these guys are taking the next steps as players, and I look forward to that. They know that I’m going to probably come with three or four things on film tomorrow that they can do better and, and that’s just how we operate.

On Tobe Awaka struggling in the game: He had a couple of tough fouls, you know, the intentional foul or the flagrant foul, and he had another play where he chucked the guy in the lane. Henri gets in there, I think Henri was plus 20. That matters, you know. I don’t know the stats in the moment of the game, but you feel him as a coach, and the guy that’s got a guy that’s plus 20 and helping you move the ball and handle the pressure. You kind of roll with that guy. Other days it might be Tobe, but Tobe has been getting better and better and better. His feel for the game, his understanding of what we’re trying to do is getting better every day as well.

On Love and Jaden Bradley playing more minutes: One thing I’m learning about the Big 12 that I guess we weren’t doing right early. Since our inaugural year, they have longer timeouts. These timeouts are like three minutes against honestly, it’s like the NCAA tournament. Your guys get rested, and you don’t have back to back games. You don’t have a game between games very often. I think you’re comfortable playing, you know, some of your guys more minutes.

Lloyd on the significance of equipment manager Brian Brigger: I’m just gonna say this, and I’ll probably get a little bit emotional. Brian Brigger, that’s a great effing dude. This guy, he’s an Xavier guy, so he doesn’t love the Cincinnati people, but what he’s been to our program, and he came before I was there, it’s so special. What we told our guys, we have to dig deeper today. Think of Brian Brigger. The passion he brings, and this is our equipment manager, the passion he brings every day, the professionalism he brings to his job, the team player that he is, It says something about our culture and our guys. I think, you know, the easiest guy to pick up. I think they picked him up after the game in the locker room. I thought we might have to wheelbarrow him out, but they picked him up, and so hey, I mean, Brian Brigger, someone we love. Our love for him helped us dig a little bit deeper today. I know normally coaches don’t start out talking about an equipment manager at a press conference, but this dude is something different. He’s special.

Veesaar on responding to losing the 19-point lead: We just knew we had to pull away with this one. Obviously, we had the UCLA game, so we had experience already from the season. So this one, we just knew we had to win that like state poise and make play by play.

Bryant on responding to losing the 19 point lead: Coach Lloyd said it was just one we had to get. We fought with it. We started building. We trusted our game plan. We executed everything to not necessarily a tee, but as well as you can ask for with the environment and playing against a great defensive team like this.

Bryant on his role with the team right now: Just being ready when my number is gone. I think me and everybody that played did a great job of contributing the way that we needed to. We know every night it’s gonna be somebody’s night, because we have such great players, and we work on it every day. I see all these guys in the gym every day, so I don’t think it’s necessarily the position that I’m in or the spot. I think it’s just a game to game thing.

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Arizona

New study reveals how victimized Arizona women end up behind bars

Published

7 hours ago

January 9, 2026

Press Room

New study reveals how victimized Arizona women end up behind bars

PHOENIX (AZFamily) — It’s a first of its kind study to better understand an often overlooked group of people: women behind bars.

“No other jail system in the country is doing this,” said Dominique Roe-Sepowitz, director of Arizona State University’s Office of Sex Trafficking Intervention Research. “Many of them have offenses that are related to other people’s interference. So whether they were forced to commit that crime with someone else, they were under someone else’s control.”

Roe-Sepowitz spearheaded the effort that explores the pipeline between victimization and incarceration for Arizona women. What she uncovered was even worse than she expected.

“The scope of trauma, the sheer amount of violent experiences was a surprise to me,” she said.

Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Chief Brandon Smith teamed up with Roe-Sepowitz for this project.

Since 2018, they’ve worked together to identify and support sex trafficking victims inside county jails.

“A lot of them could be they were more of a victim than a suspect in a crime,” said Smith.

In May 2025, the pair decided to dig deeper with a survey to learn more about the life history of all female inmates.

“We didn’t want to re-traumatize them. We were very careful about asking appropriate questions in the right way,” said Smith.

More than 400 women in the Estrella Jail completed the questionnaire which represents 49% of the female population.

The results show most are mothers, locked up for drug offenses.

77% reported a mental health diagnosis, more than 78% have been homeless, just over 50% have been sex trafficked, and 80% said they were victims of domestic violence.

With that knowledge, there is hope that jail programs can help break the cycle.

“We’re able to tailor programming to that in order to hopefully keep them out of jail, become more productive members of society, be with their children,” said Smith.

About 14% of participants were there for their first arrest.

New trauma-informed programs and training will soon be implemented.

“We’re looking at what can we do for that 14% that are here for the first time to hopefully make sure it’s their last time,” said Smith.

“How to build hope for the future, how to stabilize their life, how to continue the relationships they have in healthier ways,” said Roe-Sepowitz.

More research is on the way. ASU just wrapped up a similar survey in the Perryville prison and plans to conduct it again at Estrella Jail this year to collect additional data.

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Arizona

This prominent attorney collects art to celebrate his Mexican heritage

Published

19 hours ago

January 9, 2026

Press Room

This prominent attorney collects art to celebrate his Mexican heritage

Prominent Arizona attorney Jose Cardenas possesses a large private collection of Mexican and Mexican American art.
Cardenas, who rose from humble immigrant roots, amassed the collection with his late wife, Virginia, as an embrace of their shared Mexican heritage.
He frequently opens his home to visitors for tours and events, sharing stories about the artwork and his life.

Prominent Arizona attorney Jose Cardenas loves to show off his vast collection of Mexican and Mexican American art.

But he once made a fool of himself arguing with the legendary Mexican journalist Elena Poniatowska over a piece of artwork on display in his spacious 4,000-square-foot Chandler home.

Cardenas was giving Poniatowska a tour of his art collection during a reception he hosted for the writer. She was in town giving a lecture at Arizona State University.

“This is a self-portrait of Siqueiros,” Cardenas remembers telling Poniatwoska, referring to David Alfaro Siqueiros, one of Mexico’s three most famous muralists.

Poniatowska took a look at the sketch and shook her head, “No it’s not.”

The two got into a back and forth, with Cardenas continuing to insist the man depicted in the painting was Siqueiros.

“That’s what they told me when I bought it at the gallery in San Francisco,” Cardenas remembers telling the Mexican author.

Finally Cardenas backed down, thinking, “She’s getting up in years. I’m not going to embarrass her and argue with her.”

A few days later, Cardenas was flipping through TV channels. He came across a PBS documentary about the 1970 Chicano riots in East Los Angeles. The documentary highlighted a portrait Siqueiros had painted in homage to Ruben Salazar, the Los Angeles Times journalist killed by a tear gas canister fired by a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy during the protests.

Poniatowska was right. The figure in the painting was not Siqueiros, the Mexican muralist. It was indeed Ruben Salazar, the Los Angeles Times journalist, as painted by Siqueiros.

Cardenas tells this story when he gives tours of his art collection to visitors. They break out in laughter.

“You were mansplaining” one visitor told him. “No, I was being an idiot,” Cardenas said, “because why would you argue with her, of all people. She knew (Siqueiros). She wrote about him. She interviewed him. Not the person to say, ‘No, you are wrong.’”

Cardenas built prestigious career from humble roots

The personal art tours Cardenas hosts weekly at his home are peppered with similar stories that showcase his self-deprecating humor and highlight his enormous pride in his humble upbringing and Mexican heritage.

Cardenas comes from modest working-class Mexican immigrant roots. But he rose to become one of the most prominent and successful attorneys in Arizona. He has used his considerable wealth to amass what artists say is the largest collection of Mexican and Mexican-American artwork in the state, which he shares often with visitors during various events at his home, from personal tours to his annual post-Christmas bash.

Born in 1952, Cardenas is the son of an immigrant dad from the Mexican state of Sinaloa, and a Mexican-American mom. Cardenas grew up in Vegas Heights, a working-class Hispanic neighborhood west of Las Vegas that was still segregated. His father, Fortunato Cárdenas Sánchez, had a sixth-grade education. He worked as a foreman for construction company that laid pipelines. He was killed in a work accident when Cardenas was 15.

His mother, Gloria Frances Gómez Vigil, was born in a small town in northern Nevada to Mexican immigrant parents who eventually moved to Las Vegas. She only attended school through eighth grade.

After his father died, Cardenas, the second-oldest of four children, wanted to quit school and work to help his family with finances. But Cardenas was a good student, and his mother insisted he stay in school and encouraged him to attend college.

Cardenas became the first person in his family to graduate from high school and then college. He earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and then a law degree from Stanford.

After law school, Cardenas clerked for a federal judge in San Francisco and then moved to Arizona in 1978 to work for the powerhouse law firm Lewis and Roca. Cardenas mostly handled commercial litigation but also did pro bono work on death penalty cases. In 1999, he was named managing partner, becoming one of the few Hispanic managing partners of a major law firm in the nation.

In 2009, Cardenas left Lewis and Roca to serve as chief legal adviser and senior vice president at Arizona State University, a position he held until 2022.

For nearly 20 years, Cardenas also hosted Horizonte, a public affairs show focusing on Arizona issues through a Hispanic perspective on Arizona PBS (KAET-TV Channel 8). He stepped down in 2023. Now semi-retired, the 73-year-old Cardenas continues to serve as special senior university adviser at ASU.

Cardenas and his Mexican-born wife, Virginia, were childhood sweethearts. When Virginia turned 15, Cardenas was one of the escorts in her quinceañera coming-of-age celebration. The two then began dating in ninth grade. They married when Cardenas was 19 and Virginia was 20 by one month. She worked as a counselor at Chandler High School. She died in July 2012 of kidney cancer.

Cardenas and Virginia bought their first artwork when he was still a financially struggling law student at Stanford. The two prints Cardenas purchased from a fellow student are now among the thousands of pieces of artwork that adorn his home.

Couple made frequent trips to purchase art

Cardenas said he and Virginia were introduced to the world of Mexican and Mexican American art when they moved to Arizona and met artists Zarco and Carmen Guerrero at a party. They are the founders of Xicanindio, the original name of Xico, a nonprofit organization that promotes Latino and Indigenous art and culture.

The couple became deeply involved in the organization. Virginia became the program director for several years and Cardenas served on the board of directors, including a stint as president.

Over the years, Cardenas and Virginia traveled frequently to Mexico City, Sante Fe and San Francisco to purchase paintings, crosses, ceramics, prints and pottery that cover practically every inch of Cardenas’ ranch home in Chandler.

Cardenas said he considers the collection an embrace of the Mexican heritage he and Virginia shared.

“It’s pride,” Cardenas said during an interview at his home.

“Virginia was born in Mexico. She came here when she was eight,” Cardenas said. “And I never considered myself Mexican American because when I was growing up, those terms weren’t used. So we were Mexicans.”

After Virginia died in 2012, Cardenas commissioned East L.A.-born artist George Yepes to paint a portrait of her. Yepes is best known as the artist who painted the cover of the 1988 Grammy Award-winning album by Los Lobos, “La Pistola y El Corazón.”

At first, Yepes turned down the commission after Cardenas showed her photo of Virginia, who was known for her dazzling smile.

“I can’t do it,” Cardenas recalled Yepes saying. “She’s always smiling. I don’t do smiles.”

A few weeks later, Yepes emailed Cardenas. “I think I can do it.”

The 7-foot-tall portrait Yepes painted of Virginia now hangs in Cardenas’ living room, where it dominates one of the walls. Cardenas considers it his most treasured piece, along with a portrait by a different artist of his three grown sons when they were young.

“The funny thing about this is she was pretty short, she was barely five foot tall. This painting is seven feet. And she’s sitting down. So talk about bigger-than-life-size,” Cardenas told a group of visitors during one of his tours.

Home is an art gallery, with frequent visitors

Cardenas frequently opens his home to visitors, serving as docent as he escorts visitors from room to room, telling stories along the way about various pieces of artwork.

In addition to the personal tours, Cardenas hosts an annual open house to showcase the ofrendas he creates in honor of Dia de los Muertos. At his Day of the Dead open house in November 2025, during the Trump administration’s ongoing mass deportation effort, one of the ofrendas focused on immigration. The ofrenda included photos of Cardenas’ relatives from Mexico, along with numerous quotes by Pope Francis that Cardenas printed out and framed.

“Migrants and refugees are not pawns on the chessboard of humanity,” read one quote.

“It is necessary to respond to the globalization of migration with the globalization of charity and cooperation, in such a way as to make the conditions for migrants more humane,” read another.

Cardenas also hosts an annual Los Tres Reyes Magos party every January in honor of Three Kings Day, a Christian holiday that is popular in Mexico and Latino America and marks the biblical visit of the three kings to the baby Jesus. This year’s party, attended by some of the most influential people in Arizona, will be Jan. 10.

One of the most powerful pieces on display in his home is a painting Cardenas commissioned as a tribute to the victims of the 2022 mass school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. The shooting killed 19 students and two teachers, and injured 21 others. The artwork, which Cardenas displays in his dining room, also was painted by Yepes, the artist who painted the portrait of Virginia.

The painting depicts a woman draped in an American flag, her arms and hands outstretched in the shape of a crucifix, with swords piercing her exposed heart, while doves flutter around her head, wrapped in a crown of thorns.

‘Everything they have in the collection was for them’

One of the most striking pieces is a massive Talavera ceramic jar created by artist and restauranteur Gennaro Garcia, a native of San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora, who now lives in Phoenix. Garcia created the piece in Puebla, Mexico, where he studied the hand-painted Mexican ceramic artform that blends Spanish and Indigenous influences.

Cardenas had the piece shipped to his home, where he had to remove the table from his kitchen to make room for the artwork, which towers over six feet in height.

Garcia said he strived for years to have his artwork included in the Cardenas’ collection.

“As an artist, you want you want to be in in collection that you admire,” Garcia said. “His collection was already so good, and I wanted to have my name associated with those other artists” and with Virginia and Jose Cardenas as collectors.

Garcia describes the collection as a love story between the couple.

“Everything they have in the collection was for them,” Garcia said. “I always remember them standing in front of the art, talking about it, and then deciding to buy it” as a couple.

Garcia said he was not aware of a larger personal collection of Mexican and Mexican American artwork in Arizona.

“It’s the biggest one. Easy,” Garcia said.

Cristina Cardenas, a Mexican-born artist based in Tucson, agreed.

“In Arizona, to tell you the truth, I haven’t met anybody else with a bigger or more rich collection” especially of Mexican-American and Arizona artists, said Cardenas, who is not related to Jose.

She has sold numerous paintings to Cardenas. The collector also has commissioned her to paint several murals at his home, including a mural of a smiling Virginia that adorns an outdoor wall in the home’s sizable patio, and a mural of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo that greets visitors to his home.

The artist said Cardenas and Virginia have supported many artists through their collecting. They have played a role in opening the door for Latino artists to sell their work to other collectors, Cardenas said, noting that she once sold a print to former Arizona governor and U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano through an introduction by Cardenas.

“It’s a commitment to represent our people, our communities, and to represent Mexico and the really highest rich cultural history that it has,” the artist said.

She noted that visitors will notice that Cardenas and Virginia have had a strong interest in collecting female figurative art. They were influential in shifting Xico artists away from depictions of low-riders and other traditional Chicano symbols toward prints and paintings that celebrate female figurative art.

Cardenas the artist, and others, often wonder what will happen to the massive collection after Cardenas is gone.

“It has to be preserved and it has to stay together. That’s my recommendation,” Cardenas the artist said.

Collection is a priceless legacy

Jose Cardenas said he isn’t sure what will become of his collection. He knows that some of the pieces will be passed down to his children and family, including the portrait of Virginia. The rest may go the Hispanic Research Center at Arizona State University, he said.

In the meantime, his collection continues to expand. He recently mounted two new pieces by renowned contemporary American artist Ayana Jackson, who reconstructs the portraiture of the 19th and early 20th centuries to, according to her bio, “assess the impact of the colonial gaze on the history of photography.”

The two pieces Cardenas acquired depict the artist suspended in midair in a battle stance while in character as Adelita, the Mexican female revolutionary soldier.

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Arizona

Multiple freeways closed as snow moves into northern Arizona

Published

1 day ago

January 8, 2026

Press Room

Multiple freeways closed as snow moves into northern Arizona

A winter storm sweeping across the state was dumping snow and whipping up gusty winds in northern Arizona, forcing multiple highway closures and travel advisories throughout the region.

Snow moved into the high country early Jan. 8 and was expected to continue through the afternoon and evening. Flagstaff had picked up 2 to 4 inches, with snow reaching lower elevations, including Prescott and Sedona, according to the National Weather Service in Flagstaff.

“In our area we expect it to come to an end here later this afternoon and early this evening, with only an inch or two more here in the Flagstaff area,” said Brian Klimowski, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Flagstaff. “It’s going to continue this evening and overnight to our east.”

Snow levels dropped as a cold front moved into the region, falling from about 6,000 feet at sunrise to as low as 4,000 feet by late evening. Forecasters say heavier snow was likely this afternoon and evening as the system moves through.

“Roads are bad right now,” Klimowski said. “The highways will be very slick, and we expect conditions will remain in a deteriorated state here this afternoon to this evening, especially along and east of the I-17 corridor.”

Which highways are closed in northern Arizona?

Several major highways across the high country were closed on Jan. 8 due to winter weather and related crashes, according to the Arizona Department of Transportation.

As of the afternoon, the following closures were in place:

Interstate 40 eastbound at US 93 (milepost 72)
Interstate 40 eastbound at State Route 89 in Ash Fork (milepost 146)
Northbound Interstate 17 at State Route 169 (milepost 278)
State Route 64 (both directions) between mileposts 244-264

ADOT said there is no estimated reopening time for any of these highways.

Drivers can check the latest road closures and travel conditions through ADOT’s AZ511 system, with an online interactive map and mobile app. Information is available at AZ511.gov or by calling 511 from within Arizona.

Snow, wind and cold persist

Flagstaff could see snow totals around 2 to 5 inches, with more at the higher elevations. Snow will continue across eastern Arizona into the evening Jan. 8 and early on Jan. 9, including parts of Black Mesa, the Chinle Valley and the Chuska Mountains.

Gusty winds could reduce visibility, especially in areas with blowing snow. Winds will shift northerly overnight, summoning colder air as the system departs.

“It’s going to dry out,” Klimowski said. “It’s going to be cold and blustery tomorrow and then a slow warming trend through much of next week.”

Lows on Jan. 9 will be 10 to 15 degrees below normal, with wind chills near zero in the High Country. While snow will cease by Jan. 9, slick roads and hazardous conditions could remain,

“Be careful if you’re traveling tonight,” Klimowski said. “It’s going to be slick out there.”

Why does it snow so much in Flagstaff? Here’s what to know

Flagstaff may be in a state known for its scorching summers and years-long droughts, but it is one of the snowiest cities in the United States.

Hayleigh Evans writes about extreme weather and related topics for The Arizona Republic and azcentral.com. Email her with story tips at hayleigh.evans@arizonarepublic.com.

(This story has been updated to add a new video).

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