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“Yupppp,� Holt posted to his Instagram story earlier this week, over a picture of new UA commit JJ Mandaquit in an Arizona uniform.

In the space of about an hour Monday afternoon, the Wildcats not only added Mandaquit, the Washington transfer who played with Holt over the past three summers on USA Basketball teams, but also North Carolina starting point guard Derek Dixon.

The two transfers, who both received Arizona recruiting attention out of high school, will fill out a Wildcat backcourt that is losing senior Jaden Bradley and almost certainly freshman Brayden Burries to the NBA Draft.

Along with Holt, the Wildcats now have three starting-level guards to play the point guard and shooting guard spots next season, a dynamic they have featured often in recent seasons. 

is known as a true point guard who is at his best setting up elite talent — one reason he was picked to join Holt, UA forward Koa Peat and BYU forward AJ Dybantsa on USA teams over the previous three summers — while Dixon rose steadily as a freshman at North Carolina under former coach Hubert Davis.

Able to play on or off the ball, began the 2025-26 season with the Tar Heels as a backup under Colorado State transfer Kyan Evans, but took over as a starter in midseason, and was more relied on as the season went on. He averaged 34.3 minutes in UNC’s final four games, including 41 minutes played in the Tar Heels’ season-ending overtime loss to VCU in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

For the season, Dixon averaged 6.5 points and 2.7 assists while shooting 39.7% from 3-point range last season. He wound up starting 16 of 33 games played, averaging 22.3 minutes per game.

“As the season progressed, Dixon started earning himself more minutes, while Evans saw his time dwindle,� Tar Heels Wire’s Aiden Jensen wrote. “The two point guards complemented each other but Dixon proved himself as UNC’s point guard of the future. ... Dixon is a pass-first guard who can score in a pinch, particularly from deep.�

Mandaquit’s freshman season went in a somewhat opposite direction, in part because of a foot injury that shelved him for all of February and March. He started the first five games of Washington’s season and then played off the bench for all but one game before a preseason foot injury flared up again during a Jan. 29 game against Illinois.

Mandaquit tried playing nine minutes two days later at Northwestern but was then shut down, undergoing surgery in New York in February.

When Mandaquit announced his departure from Washington after the season, the Seattle Times’ Percy Allen wrote that news of Mandaquit’s departure was a “stunning blow� to the Huskies, especially because coach Danny Sprinkle had called him the future of the UW program.

“His playmaking and the way he runs a team is as good as I’ve ever seen for a freshman,� Sprinkle said at the Big Ten’s preseason media day, according to the Times. “It’s next level for someone so young. Just his basketball IQ, that’s what’s most impressive. He has an awareness of what needs to happen and who needs the ball.

“He impacts winning and he doesn’t necessarily have to score a lot. … He’s going to be a great Husky.�

Mandaquit arrived at Washington having won three gold medals in FIBA competition, first in the 2023 U16 Americas Championship, then at the 2024 U17 World Cup and finally under UA coach Tommy Lloyd at the U19 World Cup last summer.

For the U19 team last summer, 6.1 points and 5.4 assists while shooting 35.3% from 3-point range and posting a 3.8-1 assist-turnover ratio. In the in Turkey, Mandaquit averaged 6.6 points, 6.1 assists and shot 21.3% from 3, while he averaged 3.7 points and 2.7 assists in the U16 .

A native of Hilo, Hawaii, Mandaquit played his freshman season of high school at Iolani on Oahu, then transferred to Utah Prep, where he spent his senior season of 2024-25 also playing alongside Dybantsa. By joining the Wildcats, he'll receive a return to his home state when UA plays in the 2026 Maui Invitational.

Dixon is a native of Vienna, Va., who played for Gonzaga College High School in Washington, D.C, before joining the Tar Heels as a four-star prospect in the class of 2025.

According to 247’s timeline, Dixon received a scholarship offer from Arizona in July 2024 and visited Tucson two months later, but committed to UNC two weeks after his UA visit.

Also a four-star prospect in the 2025 class, Mandaquit received UA recruiting attention along with scholarship offers from Washington, BYU, Louisville, Tennessee, Utah and San Diego State, among others. He committed to Washington in November 2024.

As of Monday evening, the commitments of Dixon and Mandaquit gave Arizona eight scholarship players on its tentative 2026-27 roster, with most of its remaining needs in the frontcourt. Several of UA’s 2025-26 players are expected to at least test the NBA Draft, even if they resign with the Wildcats.