Arizona's Tommy Lloyd aiming for consistent success on a fast-changing playing field

“To be honest with you, I'm done with the congratulations,” Lloyd told the Regents before they approved his new five-year, $37.5 million contract last Thursday. “You can pat me on the back and say, 'Coach, let's do it again next year,' and I'll be like, 'Yeah, let's do it again next year.' I'm ready to move on from what we just did.”

But while Lloyd says he wants to make a normal thing out of reaching the Final Four, as the Wildcats did in 2025-26, the ground beneath him keeps shifting.

This month, for example, he has big holes to fill in the Wildcats’ frontcourt at a time when top transfer portal big men are fetching $2-3 million — and when a proposed rule change allowing five years of eligibility theoretically could allow a four-year veteran such as forward Tobe Awaka to return to school, if enacted in time.

During an interview with the Star after the Regents’ meeting, Lloyd spoke of the shifting landscape he's dealing with, his roster transition and the two transfer portal recruits he has already brought in, Derek Dixon and JJ Mandaquit.

One of UA's departing seniors, wing Anthony Dell'Orso, said after he accompanied Lloyd to the meeting that “he’d have to think about” playing a fifth year if the rule was adopted suddenly, though Dell'Orso said he was otherwise focused on finishing spring classes and preparing for the predraft season.

Jaden Bradley has already declared he's leaving for the NBA Draft, while Awaka is not expected to return, either.

Lloyd: "No, no. I don't think it'll happen this year. Once something like that gets on the docket, it usually seems inevitable that it will happen in the future but just not quite yet."

One of the other candidates to join the Wildcats' frontcourt, Kansas transfer Bryson Tiller, canceled a scheduled visit to Arizona, then committed to Missouri. While terms were not disclosed, college basketball analyst Evan Miyakawa said Tiller was worth a deal in the $1-$1.5 million range, while the Field of 68 said elite big men in the portal were getting $4 million to $5 million based on its poll of 10-plus high-major coaches.

Lloyd: “That’s the world we live in, so we’ve got to be able to function in (that environment). Until it figures itself out, our program needs to stay in the game. You don't get to pick and choose when you decide to be in the game because consistent success is so important and building a foundation. Obviously the program had a great foundation before I got here, but we feel like the first five years, we’ve kind of built our foundation upon that, and now we want to continue to grow.”

Even if Arizona had bid successfully for Tiller, there’s always the chance that paying him market value would throw off the balance of what other Wildcats will receive next season. UA was estimated to have a total roster budget of about $10 million last season.

Lloyd: “It's a complicated equation, but we feel good. If everyone's gonna get caught up in the day to day emotions of me building a roster, they haven't been paying attention the last four years. We do our homework discrete, we're always thinking holistically, and we usually don't make rash decisions. So I feel good. I love those two guards we got. I think they're really good players.”

Dixon and Mandaquit committed within a week of the transfer portal’s opening, but their decisions were based on long relationships: Dixon drew UA’s recruiting attention out of high school in Washington, D.C., while Mandaquit was evaluated by UA staffers during his career at Utah Prep and then played for Lloyd with USA Basketball in the FIBA U19 World Cup last summer.

Lloyd: “With Derek, just kind of from afar, I was a fan of his game when he was playing at Gonzaga High School. He's a big guard who can play the one or the two. He's a great decision maker with the ball, has great instincts, he can really shoot, and has tremendous upside and size.

“JJ, I had only seen him play a few times before (last summer), but I was just so impressed with his character, but also his tenacity and the effort he played with. Just how he impacted winning. So obviously, when we saw his name on the transfer portal, it piqued my interest right away.

“We looked at him at a high school a little bit, but at the same point we were recruiting Brayden (Burries), and so it’s 'are you gonna get two high-level guards in the same class?' It's tough. And then we were all trying to figure out what NIL and rev-share looked like. You just didn't know. There were so many unknowns that we really didn't recruit him that hard the first time around. He came down on campus once or twice, but it was not a serious recruitment. But this time it was fast and we both knew what we wanted on both sides.”

With Burries expected to leave for the NBA Draft, the arrival of Dixon and Mandaquit ensures the Wildcats have three high-level guards for two backcourt spots.

Five-star incoming freshman Caleb Holt is expected to take Burries’ shooting guard spot, while Dixon is a combo guard who can play both spots, and Mandaquit could start at point guard or play off the bench, shifting Dixon over to shooting guard when he does so. That’s a role Bradley played as a sophomore transfer from Alabama in 2023-24, playing behind point guard Kylan Boswell and shooting guard Caleb Love.

Lloyd: “You know me: I haven't made any thoughts on a starting lineup. I'm just trying to accumulate the right pieces and put them together. But JJ is somebody I could see impact in the game. He could be a guy who’s kind of on the Jaden Bradley plan — he comes and maybe that first year plays a really important role, but it's off the bench. Then his next two years, he starts and hopefully ends up as an all-American. That would be a pathway that I think would be awesome.”

As of Friday, UA was expected to retain center Motiejus Krivas and forward Ivan Kharchenkov if they return to college — both also could test the NBA Draft, as Bradley did last spring despite signing to return to Arizona — the case of forward Koa Peat is different.

Peat has been expected to leave for the NBA, though there has been speculation that if he dropped lower than the 15-20 range in the NBA Draft, he might consider a return. Still, it is not a likely scenario, the way Lloyd described it.

Lloyd: “Koa is gonna explore the draft process for sure, and we're giving him his space. Koa came to Arizona, did everything we set out to do, and he's an awesome guy. I'm gonna let him make his own decision that's best for him. There's going to be no re-recruiting.

“A lot of these (first-round prospects) are making these decisions. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens. … We're never gonna run Koa Peat ahead of our program. If Koa calls me and says, 'Coach, I’m interested in coming back. What does it look like?' We'll have a conversation.”

Lloyd’s track record suggests he will pull in international players to fill any needs as the spring recruiting season continues. Thanks to a new NCAA rule allowing foreign trips every summer, instead of once every four years, the Wildcats are expected to take one this summer — possibly to an area where they have players from or are looking at.

Lloyd: “We don't know for sure, but there's definitely guys out there (internationally) that we're looking at. We're trying to figure out what we're gonna do, and we're looking at all our options.

“Everyone wants instant results. It's just not how it works. Sometimes you’ve just got to hang with the process and let it play out a little bit. Traditionally, we found we've ended up in a pretty good spot.”