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“I want to walk around Tucson as a normal guy, just like you guys do,� Lloyd said earlier this week.

Among other things, Lloyd’s most critical public statements of Wildcat players often start with the phrase “I love him, but …� and he’s even told some of them, including standout guard Caleb Love, that they need to smile more.

But if any of that suggests there isn’t something lit inside of Lloyd, ESPN’s telecast of the Big 12 championship between Arizona and Houston last Saturday showed quite another side.

“Gimme tough!!� Lloyd shouted at his players, wrapping his fists together and shaking his arms up and down, during a first-half timeout speech that ESPN captured. “You gotta be tough! They’re gonna go for the ball!�

Lloyd then slapped the knee of UA forward Henri Veesaar, who would go on to foul with Houston’s Ja’Vier Francis for a rebound 21 seconds after the timeout, and continued.

“They’re gonna go for the ball!� Lloyd said, screaming. “They’re gonna go for the ball! Squeeze it and keep it high! Then they got nothing!�

Lloyd finished by pounding his wrists together, and sent his players back on the floor.

Trailing 19-16 during the timeout with just under eight minutes left in the half, the Wildcats took a five-point lead at halftime before losing 72-64 ... and sending their coach off to wonder what sort of impression he left.

Not only was the moment aired on ESPN’s main platform but a clip of it that Awful Announcing posted to X had over 43,000 views as of Monday.

While UA forward Trey Townsend said Lloyd’s timeout rant “just shows the passion he has and how much he wants us to win,� the UA coach was aware not everyone would see it that way.

They might actually think he’s the polar opposite of easygoing.

Like, a nut job or something.

“Here’s the deal: I’m not a psycho. Obviously, I was trying to get my team’s attention in a big game,� Lloyd said a day later. “That’s coaching, and I don’t do that stuff because I’m not trying to look smart. I’m not trying to look crazy. I’m just a normal guy.

“I mean, I don’t want people to come in and look at me like a crazy guy and with pictures of my face on their T-shirt, yelling at somebody. That’s kind of embarrassing for me.�

Normally, what a coach says in a huddle remains private. Teams even pull chairs out onto the court for timeouts, decreasing the chance that media and fans pick any words up, while TV cameras often stay behind the boundary.

But, this time, Lloyd said he gave permission to ESPN to direct cameras and microphones at him.

“ESPN was really on me about doing it,� Lloyd said. “I’m gonna be honest with you: I had a friend who’s high up in ESPN reach out to me and kind of made me feel guilty for not doing the in-game stuff.

“So I said yes because it was for a friend. It probably didn’t turn out the way I would like.�

Although a local sports radio show followed up that comment by telling Lloyd that UA fans “loved it,� even that didn’t appear to be much consolation.

“They love it, but I’m the guy who has to wear it,� Lloyd said. “My kids live in this town. When they’re out hanging out with their friends, I don’t want them to say, ‘Man, your dad’s crazy.’ I want them to say, ‘my dad’s a normal, average guy. He gets home, he takes his pants off, he puts his shorts on. He walks around the house with no shoes. He wears T-shirts. He doesn’t comb his hair in the morning.’

“You know what I mean? Like ‘he’s just normal, like everybody else’s dad.’�

So maybe Tommy Lloyd is that. But maybe he’s also that.

It’s a balance he says coaches need to succeed and keep from getting eaten alive by the pressure.

“You don’t do this job if you’re not competitive. You don’t do this job if you’re not wired a little different,� Lloyd said. “But that doesn’t mean when you step away from it that you can’t be a normal person.

“My job doesn’t define me. Who I am as a person, how I treat people, the relationships I have, my family — those are the things that define me. I just happen to coach basketball, and I coach basketball in a really competitive space.

“I think you can be both things.�