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He heard about it, too.

“I saw them three straight days at Atlantis, and I had a couple of conversations with Tommy about his team,� Dykes said of UA coach Tommy Lloyd on a recent ESPN media conference call. “He kept saying, ‘Man, I just don’t know. I don’t know if we’re gonna be able put this thing together or not.�

Lloyd says now he never lost belief in the Wildcats, just that “we hit a hard stretch, we had a hard schedule, and things kind of unraveled faster than we could put them back together.�

But the concerns Dykes relayed from the Bahamas could not have been a surprise. While the Wildcats have since rebounded into a first-place tie atop the Big 12 and back into the Associated Press Top 25, anyone following the Wildcats in nonconference play might have wondered if they would figure it out, also.

Ranked No. 10 to start the season, ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ showed a few concerns with its playing rotation, even in early wins over Canisius and Old Dominion, before suffering humbling losses to Wisconsin and Duke.

Then, after beating Davidson in the Battle 4 Atlantis first round, they lost to two largely unheralded teams — Oklahoma and West Virginia — to fall to 3-4 and out of the national rankings.

The Wildcats had 7-2 center Motiejus Krivas back from an offseason foot/ankle injury, but his presence might have been stifling Tennessee transfer Tobe Awaka to a degree. Mobile 7-footer Henri Veesaar and talented freshman forward Carter Bryant couldn’t carve out productive spots in the rotation and nobody knew how to win a game if Caleb Love’s shooting touch was off.

“I left Atlantis thinking, man, they got a lot to figure out,� Dykes said. “A lot to figure out.�

Two weeks later, it was former St. John’s and New Mexico coach Fran Fraschilla’s turn to analyze the Wildcats for ESPN. He sat down for UA’s Dec. 14 game against UCLA in Phoenix, where Krivas sat on the sidelines in a boot and the Wildcats kicked away a 13-point lead in a 57-54 loss to the Bruins.

UA left the Footprint Center at 4-5.

But after returning to call the Wildcats’ Jan. 4 win at Cincinnati and their Jan. 27 overtime victory against Iowa State at McKale Center, Fraschilla saw the Dec. 14 meltdown differently.

“That game turned them around,� Fraschilla said.

Fraschilla paused before saying exactly how. The fact that Krivas was sitting on the bench in a boot, missing his first game because an offseason foot/ankle injury appeared to be flaring up again, was the biggest clue.

Cleared to play in the Wildcats’ Nov. 4 opener after missing much of the preseason, Krivas had played in UA’s first eight games but never reached the level expected of a projected first-round NBA pick whose return this season enabled UA to worry much less about all-conference center Oumar Ballo’s transfer to Indiana.

By the end of December, Lloyd confirmed that Krivas was out for the season. That allowed Awaka full possession of the starting center spot, lit a fire under the easygoing Veesaar, and allowed Bryant to soak up more minutes by playing power forward in addition to small forward.

“It’s going to sound harsh at first, but this was a case of addition by subtraction,� Fraschilla said. “They had high hopes for Mo Krivas, obviously, and he would have been terrific, but when he got hurt, they had to juggle that lineup, and it’s made the team tighter.

“There’s less confusion about where Carter Bryant is going to play. He’s playing mostly at the four. Tobe Awaka had to step up, Veesaar had to step into a role as a 7-footer, and I think Tommy did a masterful job.�

The pieces began fitting. Lloyd said it even filtered down to the perimeter, where KJ Lewis embraced a defensive-stopper role off the bench, Love found more consistency and point guard Jaden Bradley was able to direct a smoother overall operation.

“We were playing good basketball, but it wasn’t together,� Bradley said of UA’s early season efforts, on Tuesday after UA won at BYU. “I feel like now we’re just getting back to our fundamentals, trusting coach and trusting each other, and it’s really helping us…. We’ve got a free flowing offense, but we have a system. We have a plan. We know where everybody’s going to be at.�

In the final seconds of regulation on Jan. 27, it wasn’t hard to figure out where Love was going to be. He stood about 20 feet away from the baseline, catching an inbounds pass from Anthony Dell’Orso, dribbling twice and lofting a 60-foot buzzer-beater that elevated the Wildcats another notch.

They went on to beat then-third-ranked Iowa State 86-75 that night, when Fraschilla called the game.

“I love their team,â€� Fraschilla said. “In the Big 12, there’s some excellent backcourts — Iowa State, Houston, Baylor — and I think the ÃÛèÖÖ±²¥ backcourt is probably one of the best in the country.

“Caleb Love is the home-run hitter. He’s going to hit 45 homers. He may hit .240, strike out 200 times, but he’s gonna hit 45 homers. I like their team. I wish they had one more body, maybe one more scorer, but their team, I think, can get to the Sweet 16.�

Dykes said he can see the Wildcats in the Sweet 16, too, something that hardly seemed possible just a month or two ago.

“I know it was early, but you’ve got games coming at you and you’re trying to figure your own team out,� Dykes said. “To me, that’s a sign of a guy that can really, really coach.

“I love their individual pieces. When I saw them in Atlantis, those pieces weren’t fitting but now they are.�