The University of Arizona men’s basketball team hosted its annual Red-Blue showcase on Friday, Oct. 3, in McKale Center. The Wildcats showed out to a packed house with many returning and new players via the transfer portal, high school and overseas on the floor.
Shooting the lights out
In the 3-point shootout, graduate transfer guard Mickayla Perdue of the women’s basketball team faced off against senior guard Anthony Dell’Orso of the men’s team in the finals. The shootout came down to the wire with Dell’Orso edging out a 19-18 victory.
In the scrimmage the blue team shot 51% from the field and 5-of-10 from beyond the arc. The red team followed closely by putting up 44% overall, 43% from deep and 9-for-10 from the free-throw line.
Addison Arnold has hops
The redshirt sophomore guard went all the way to the slam dunk competition finale against 6-foot-8 freshman Dwayne Aristode. Arnold’s first dunk was a windmill from the side of the big 12 logo and scored a 36.
The 6-foot-3 guard brought out former Arizona Wildcat and NFL tight end Rob Gronkowski as a prop for his second dunk. Arnold, received the snap from Gronk under center at the free throw line with a football, dropped back then took off and dunked over Gronk to score a perfect 50 from all the judges which included Gronkowski.
Slam jam
Both Aristode and Arnold failed to complete their dunk attempts in the final round, so head coach Tommy Lloyd called for backup.
Lloyd turned to the judges table and subbed in Gronk to dunk over a remote controlled Land Rover to end the dunk contest in style. Gronkowski completed multiple dunks and was crowned the champion.
Scrimmage notes
Freshman guard Brayden Burries lived up to the hype and led the red team to a 45-44 victory. Burries, a top 10 national recruit, finished with 22 points on 7-of-11 shooting from the floor and 4-of-7 from long range along with five rebounds and a steal in 20 minutes.
Senior guard Jaden Bradley led the blue team with 12 points shooting 5-of-7 on the night and a game-high three steals and four assists. Two of those assists resulted in alley-oops to freshman, and the number one recruit in the state of Arizona, Koa Peat.
Rocky Gronkstone
In the second-half of the scrimmage, the blue team made a substitution and acquired a unique player from the ‘transfer portal’wearing two numbers on one jersey.
Rocky Gronkstone played two minutes, went 0–for-3 from the court and committed one foul. Gronkstone lost his temper once he was called for the foul and argued with the official, resulting in a technical foul. Gronkstone then grabbed the ball and spiked it sky-high, leading to his ejection in the game.
“Rocky, you know, he’s got a great energy. We got to work on his temper a little bit, but he’s got a great personality and a lot of potential. I’ll tell you what, that guy will try to sell anything. I mean he’ll do advertisements for anything. Like this guy is gonna crush it in NIL,” Lloyd said.
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