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Four years of hard work and success that included an upset over Kentucky in the 2024 NCAA Tournament with, ultimately, a wave goodbye.

“It was a childhood dream that I was able to live out, close that chapter and have that senior night,� Townsend said. �That was something I always wanted to do.�

Now he gets another one Tuesday, before UA hosts ASU for its final home game of the season.

Already long obsolete in the NIL/transfer portal era, Senior Days (or Nights) have become even more unpredictable since players who participated in the “COVID� season of 2020-21 were granted an extra year of eligibility if they wanted it.

That gave Townsend the chance to have a new one-year experience at ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ as a fifth-year senior and it also allowed guards Caleb Love and Grant Weitman came back for a second “seniorâ€� ceremony at ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ — after doing the same thing at McKale Center last year.

As what UA coach Tommy Lloyd calls “my double-dippers,� they are set up for a senior encore.

Counting Lloyd’s son, Liam, who graduated from NAU last year, the Wildcats actually have four seniors participating Tuesday who already went through Senior ceremonies.

Two of them, Love and Weitman, already did so at ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥, even though only Weitman has actually played for the Wildcats his entire college career – even though his own coach wondered if he shouldn’t have.

“I thought maybe he should spread his wings and go play somewhere else,� Lloyd said of Weitman, who had said publicly late last year he wasn’t sure if he would return to UA. “There were some real opportunities for him to maybe go to some Division I programs and play. I was really pushing him to do it, and not that I didn’t love him, but I just thought it would be a good opportunity for him.

“I remember we had an emotional meeting in my office and he left and didn’t make a decision. Then he came back with one of the coolest quotes of all time about ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ basketball. He said, ‘You know, I love basketball, but I love ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ basketball more, so I’m going to come back.’

“And I was like, ‘Wow.’ I mean, that’s pretty powerful. When you have young men like that serving your program, it’s pretty special to come to work with those guys every single days

Lloyd similarly complimented another ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ local, forward Will Menaugh, a Catalina Foothills High School graduate who had an agreement to join Sean Miller’s program before Miller was fired in April 2021.

“This was back in the Zoom era, so we did a Zoom with him and his family and just solidified it,� Lloyd said. “Will’s come here and he’s crushed it academically.�

ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ also will honor a pair of other walk-ons who have long been friends thanks to a connection between their fathers: Lloyd’s son, Liam, and Luke Champion, the son of a former Gonzaga standout who began his career as a scholarship player for Samford in 2020-21.

While Liam spent two years each at GCU and NAU – making him the only player to play for three different ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ Division I programs – Champion spent one season at Samford, then played in 2021-22 at Division II Missouri Western State, before transferring to ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥.

Champion’s dad “caught passes from John Stockton and his dad and I developed a relationship over the years,� Lloyd said. “Luke and Liam are the same age and played on the same AAU circuit, so we got to spend a lot of time together… and one thing led to another.�

Liam’s arrival, meanwhile, may have had less to do with dad the coach than dad the babysitter. Liam and his fiancée, Halle Jenkins, had a baby boy, Luka, in June who changed the direction of Liam’s life.

“The priority for him became more about starting his family and getting some more hands on support from his parents to kick start his life,� Tommy Lloyd said. “That was the driving force to get him down here. … We’ve loved having him around as his parents, because you just never know. When I was 18, I never went back home. You just never know, are you going to be around your kids?�

So, in all, the Wildcats will celebrate six senior players on Tuesday: Love, Townsend, Weitman, Champion, Menaugh and Liam Lloyd plus senior managers Coleman Chennault and Elan Tenenbaum. Considering the current era and UA’s past history, they will probably also be suiting up two or three other players for the final time who aren’t seniors and won’t return to ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ next season.

While Love said it “for sure� seemed weird that he will participate in senior ceremonies for a second straight season, he said he didn’t know if he would return a year ago.

As it turned out, Love went down to the wire in the NBA pre-draft process, participating in the G League Elite Camp, before announcing just before the NCAA-imposed withdrawal deadline that he would return to ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ and play a fifth year of college basketball.

“Obviously, my mind was probably just trying to win in March,� Love said.

The same thing is true now, or at least Lloyd hopes it is. ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ needs to beat ASU on Tuesday in order to clinch a double-bye in the Big 12 Tournament next week, in which case they would play a maximum of only three games that would begin on Thursday, March 13.

The Wildcats also might want to take care of business after their messy Feb. 1 win at Tempe, where Love was ejected over his response to a head-butting and guard Jaden Bradley picked up a technical for gesturing toward the ASU bench.

Then there’s the fact that ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ has lost four of its six games to jeopardize its grip on a preferential, top four NCAA Tournament seed.

All that is what really matters for the Wildcats, at least in the short run.

“Our guys know where we’re at,� Lloyd said.

The long run is different.

“Senior days are an opportunity to honor people who’ve given your program a lot, so we’re going to take advantage of that opportunity to honor them,� Lloyd said. “And some of them, we’re going to honor them again.�