Former Alabama guard Jaden Bradley hoping to be one of Tommy Lloyd’s development successes at Arizona

Former 5-star recruit and Alabama transfer Jaden Bradley chose Arizona because of the development and experience that he’s seen from Tommy Lloyd with the UA roster.

“Coach Lloyd and everybody on the staff, as they have a history of developing their guys and that’s one of the key things they preach when they are recruiting development, and they show different clips and stuff,” Bradley said Tuesday. “So, as a player, you want to get better, and your head coach is kind of hands-on with development. That’s kinda big so that’s what sold it for me.”

Bradley, a sophomore guard, played alongside two teammates at Alabama (Brandon Miller and Noah Clowney) who were selected in the 2023 NBA Draft. He plans to bring what he learned from them to Arizona.

“We had some great players that moved on to the next level… so it was just learning their work ethic,” Bradley said. “Just something they did every day to get to the next level, take bits and pieces from that and try to bring it here and give it to my teammates and hopefully, one day everybody on the team can get to that next level.”

Taking that work ethic that Bradley learned at Alabama, and applying that with the experience that Arizona added in the transfer portal in Caleb Love and Keshad Johnson, can be big a weapon for UA this season.

“Experience is definitely big, kind of having players that’s been to that level, knowing what it takes, know what it takes to get there, and then mixing that with the younger hungry guys that we have, I think that’s a great mix,” Bradley said. “We can learn a lot from them and Caleb and Keshad told us, they’re older veterans and they still want to learn too so we can teach them things and they can teach us things as well. So I love that.”

Arizona released its nonconference schedule on Monday and Bradley likes the challenge early on in the season. Among the teams the Wildcats will face is Alabama.

“That’s big, you know, as a player, you want to play just the best of the best so that you can compete with the top guys and top teams,” Bradley said. “So we know early on in the season, it’s good to get those big time matchups and see where we are as a team, see what we need to improve on and see what works for us.”