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The UA coach admitted he has actually considered where the Wildcats might fit into the Big 12 Tournament in a few weeks. So far, and especially if ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ can beat BYU on Saturday, it looks pretty good for the Wildcats.

Beating the Cougars (18-8, 9-6) would mean the No. 19-ranked Wildcats (18-8, 12-3) could fall no further than into a fourth-place tie in the Big 12 standings, making UA all but certain to earn one of the conference’s four double-byes for its conference tournament.

“That double-bye is an important thing if you want to give yourself the best chance to get to that (Big 12 final) game on Saturday and see if you can win a conference championship,� Lloyd said on his radio show Thursday.

Lloyd said his staff usually puts up conference standings later in the season and, when they did Thursday, the sheer volume of the Big 12’s 16 teams struck him.

Because of its size, the Big 12 is giving the top four teams a direct pass to the conference tournament quarterfinals on Thursday, March 13, meaning they will play no more than three total games.

Teams finishing fifth through eighth receive one bye and will start playing on March 12. And the eight teams in the bottom half of the standings will have to start on March 11, forcing them to make an improbable ride of five wins in five days to pull out a title.

But during his weekly pregame press conference Friday, Lloyd clarified that he is not plotting out different scenarios or anything like that, for the Big 12 Tournament or anything else.

“Here’s how I look at the standings: Everyone’s going to play one game in the next couple days. How does it look after one game?� Lloyd said. “Then I look at the next time: How is it going to look after the second game? I don’t look four or five games ahead and say, ‘Well, you know, they’re playing here, and that could be a tough game. They could go 2-3, and we could go forward. My mind would explode.

“So I literally keep it simple, and I just want to know where we’re at. And right now we’re in the top four. Obviously, there’s advantages to staying in the top four, and the best way for us to stay in the top four that I know of is for us to win on Saturday.�

In theory, that shouldn’t be too difficult a task for the Wildcats. They already beat BYU at its rowdy Marriott Center home on Feb. 4, and now get to face the Cougars at McKale Center after a five-day break following a win at Baylor on Monday. Kenpom has UA as a seven-point favorite, too.

But BYU may be better and more confident than it was on Feb. 4, having lost at Cincinnati but then beating West Virginia, Kansas State and Kansas. And, while the Jayhawks are notably nose-diving, it might be worth noting that the Cougars were never challenged and beat KU by 34 points on Tuesday in Provo, Utah.

“Everything they did in the Kansas game worked. That’s what stuck out to me,� Lloyd said. “Their defensive game plan worked. Their offensive execution worked. It’s not very often you go into a game, especially against a great opponent, where everything you do works.

“They had a great game plan that their staff put together, and their players executed it almost to perfection. That tells me you have a team that’s playing with a lot of belief and a lot of confidence.�

That BYU beat Kansas wasn’t really a shock in itself. The Cougars were favored by 2-3 points and Kansas was coming off a 74-67 loss at Utah. But the way it played out, BYUtv host Spencer Linton said, was a surprise.

“Nobody anticipated running Kansas out of the building as quickly and efficiently as the Cougars did,â€� Linton said Thursday. “It was so one-sided. It’s been a celebratory 36 hours coming off that but ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ won at BYU and the Cougars understand what it takes to compete.â€�

Linton said the Cougars’ win was evidence that first-year coach Kevin Young is finding a payoff in relying on his veteran players. BYU has played a former starter, freshman forward Kanon Catchings, for just single-digit minutes in its past two games, while shifting slightly to older and more defensive-minded players.

But while BYU has not changed its starting lineup since its Feb. 4 game against ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥, the Wildcats have. Lloyd said he “hasn’t thought about it muchâ€� since Monday, when he first started redshirt sophomore 7-footer Henri Veesaar over 6-6 senior Trey Townsend at power forward on Monday at Baylor, but he is expected to continue with the new look.

Townsend has averaged just 4.8 points and 3.6 rebounds over his past five full games — he suffered a concussion early in the second half of the Feb. 4 game at BYU and missed UA’s next two games — and Lloyd said Townsend “just needs to play better.�

But Lloyd also said he didn’t view the move as a demotion as much as that it gave him a guaranteed chance to play Veesaar and center Tobe Awaka together in what has proven an effective post combination because of the players’ complementary skillsets.

“If you want to try a group of guys to play together, the best way to do that sometimes is start them,� Lloyd said. “If you don’t start them, there’s so many little factors that play into a game. Could be a foul, could be a matchup. Could be fatigue.

“So I was just like, ‘Well, I really want to play that lineup, so maybe the best thing I can do is start it.’ It really wasn’t any more complicated than that.�