A mid-February storyline nobody saw coming months ago: The Arizona Wildcats have a convincing case to claim top-two status among all teams in men’s college basketball.

The AP Top 25 ranking currently says No. 4 for Tommy Lloyd’s team, but that’s going to change when the polls refresh Monday. Computers are even more complimentary for this group. U of A sits at No. 2 (behind Gonzaga) in the NET, at KenPom.com, at Sagarin.com and in Strength of Record. That’s No. 2 in predictive and results-based metrics. Not only has Arizona proved it from a résumé perspective, but it’s also winning games it is expected to win — often doing so by a lot.

This team is for real. 

Arizona is beating opponents by more than 20 points on average, which it did again Saturday night. The Wildcats pulled a cruel trick on the road against Washington, allowing the so-so Huskies to build up a little false hope by letting the game get to a 25-11 lead in favor of UW. A few beats later, like big brother snatching a treat from little brother’s hands, Arizona took the lead. By halftime, Arizona was up nine. The Wildcats bloated their lead to as many as 28 points in the second half.

Final: Arizona 92, Washington 68. 

Lloyd’s team is 22-2, and considering No. 1 Auburn and No. 3 Purdue lost in recent days, the Wildcats should take the No. 2 spot in the AP Top 25. Lloyd has been one of the best coaches in college basketball this year, his first year as a head coach. 

Sure, he inherited an enviable roster situation from Sean Miller, who left him multiple NBA picks (including potential 2022 lottery selection Bennedict Mathurin). That said, don’t examine Arizona today and retroactively assume this was destiny. The Wildcats were not ranked in the preseason. Lloyd was a lauded hire but no one knew what to expect right away; after all, he’d never coached a game in his life. Let’s not pretend that any coach in Lloyd’s situation would be thriving nearly as well as he is. After serving as an assistant under Mark Few for 20 seasons, Lloyd’s been sensational in his first season.

And doing it at a place that’s considered a top-10 program to boot. He’s encroaching on an all-time debut season.

Arizona has a maximum of 10 games remaining before the NCAA Tournament: seven in the regular season, three total (if necessary) in the Pac-12 Tournament. Lloyd is headed toward rare company. Few men’s basketball coaches are immediately outstanding. Saturday’s victory made him the winningest first-year coach in Arizona history, surpassing Russ Pennell’s 21 wins in 2008-09. The only coach with a better first-year record at Arizona is the one they named the damn basketball arena after. J.F. McKale started 9-0 in 1914-15, ultimately going 21-0 through his first three seasons. Additionally, Lloyd is only the third Pac-12 coach to win at least 20 of his first 22 games.

KenPom projects U of A to go into postseason play with a 28-3 record. If that were to happen, Lloyd would have a .903 win percentage leading into the Pac-12 Tournament. He currently holds a .917 win percentage. While short of historic, Lloyd’s Arizona launch is tracking to something rare. The NCAA Tournament began conventionally seeding the field in 1979, when the bracket was 40 teams. Since then, there have been 168 No. 1 seeds.

Only two people — Bill Hodges at Indiana State in 1979 and Bill Guthridge at North Carolina in 1998 — earned a top seed in their first season as a head coach. Lloyd has a healthy chance at becoming the third.

If curious, the ones who came close but needed a second season as a head coach to earn a No. 1 seed:

Guthridge was similar to Lloyd in that he spent an era serving as an assistant. That could’ve still been Lloyd now if he wanted it to be, but the 47-year-old who was the coach-in-waiting at Gonzaga decided that, when an elite college job is on the table, you’d be a fool not to take it.

Lloyd will have to seriously outperform preseason expectations in order to match Guthridge or Hodges. At the tender age of 61, Guthridge won the Naismith National Coach of the Year award in 1998 and made the Final Four with his top-seeded Tar Heels. Hodges took over Indiana State with Larry Bird and made the national title game with an undefeated record. 

In terms of overall winning percentage, Lloyd is pacing himself toward the NCAA record book. By win percentage, these are the best single-season debuts for a head coach in men’s basketball history. (Bolded are power-conference programs.)

• Norman Shepard, North Carolina: 26-0, 1.000 (1924)
• Bill Hodges, Indiana State: 33-1, .970 (1979)
• Tom Gola, La Salle: 23-1, .958 (1969)
• Lou Rossini, Columbia: 21-1 .955 (1951)
• Steve Prohm, Murray State: 31-2, .939 (2012)
• Brad Underwood, Stephen F. Austin: 32-3. .914 (2014)
• Earl Brown, Dartmouth: 19-2 .905 (1944)
• Phil Johnson, Weber State: 27-3 .900 (1969)
• Bill Guthridge, North Carolina: 34-4 .895 (1998) 
• Gary Cunningham, UCLA: 25-3, .893 (1978)

Additionally, if Lloyd is going to rank among the best in his first season running a program, he’ll need to clear 30 or more wins. Here are the eight ones to do that.

• Guthridge, North Carolina (34-4)
• Hodges, Indiana State (33-1)
• Underwood, Stephen F. Austin (32-3)
• Prohm, Murray State: (31-2)
• Jamie Dixon, Pittsburgh (31-5, 2004)
• Brad Stevens, Butler (30-4, 2008)
• Stan Heath, Kent State (30-6, 2002)
• John Warren, Oregon (30-13, 1945)

Arizona projects as a comfortable No. 1 seed in CBS’ most recent Bracketology forecast. The Wildcats are 6-2 in Quadrant 1, their only losses coming on the road to ranked teams (Tennessee, UCLA). Arizona fans expect national relevance and great teams. There’s a reason for that. The program has earned a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament six times and been a No. 4 seed or better 20 times.

It will almost certainly be 21 in a month, when Selection Sunday arrives.

As I was saying: top-two material. No. 1 seed material. Lloyd is national coach of the year material as well. There are a lot of viable candidates out there, including Auburn’s Bruce Pearl, Providence‘s Ed Cooley, Kentucky‘s John Calipari, Wyoming‘s Jeff Linder, Texas Tech‘s Mark Adams and Murray State’s Matt McMahon. Right now, Lloyd’s case is as good as anyone’s.