Brayden Burries, Rob Gronkowski highlight Wildcats' showy evening at McKale Center

Rob Gronkowski wound up the basketball like any football he ever held after a touchdown with the Arizona Wildcats or New England Patriots, spiking it down characteristically hard on the new McKale Center floor before it bounced somewhere up in the air near the arena's video board.

That earned his alter ego of "Rocky Gronkstone" an ejection from Arizona's celebrity tinged Red-Blue Scrimmage, thus ending an evening when he partly stole the show in a host of roles — as a dunk-contest judge, a dunk stunt prop, dunk-contest "winner" ... and an actual player in the game.

But his departure from the spotlight allowed freshman Brayden Burries to shine brighter the rest of the evening. Scoring 17 of his game-high 22 points in the second half, Burries led the Red team to a 45-44 win over the Blue with 22 points on 7-for-11 shooting.

The Wildcats also mixed in the UA women's team to its pregame activities, including a 3-point shooting contest, and did one-by-one introductions of its high-profile dunk-contest judges: Former NBA star Shaquille O'Neal, DJs Myles O'Neal and Mix Master Mike, Gronkowski and his supermodel girlfriend, Camille Kostek, along with Love Island contestant Hannah Fields.

After a normal first half in the Red-Blue scrimmage, Gronkowski generated some initially confused and ultimately appreciated sentiment from the crowd when he appeared briefly in the second half upon being introduced as a new "commitment just released from Buffalo state penetentiary." 

Gronk wore a mustache, long-haired wig and headband for the role. While he generally kept up the pace with the rest of the Wildcats, Gronk missed all three shots he took, failed to close out in time on Burries' corner 3, and ultimately left in a somewhat Gronk-y fashion.

After being called for a foul when he bumped freshman Mabil Mawut in the chest, "Gronkstone" spiked the ball and was then tossed from the game.

"Actually," the announcer told McKale fans, "he has not been released from Buffalo state penitentiary."

Dipping into the McKale Center media room for a few words before he took on DJ duties at the team's afterparty, UA coach Tommy Lloyd did some deep analysis.

"That new kid, Gronkstone, Rocky, he's got great energy," Lloyd said. "We've got to work on his temper a little bit but he's got a great personality.

"I'll tell you what: That guy will try to sell anything. I mean, he'll do advertisements for anything. Like, this guy's gonna crush it in NIL."

Once Gronk was out of the game, Burries all but took over, scoring 17 points in the second half and driving inside for a game winning layup with 10 seconds left.

"It felt like pretty good to finally play in front of the fans," Burries said. "I've never played in front of that many people before, and they just gave me energy I needed. My teammates had my back, and the coaches drew up plays for us to be successful. It was just fun out there."

While Burries led both teams in scoring, forward Dwayne Aristode made up for a frustrating dunk contest finish by posting an efficient 12 points in his McKale debut: The freshman from the Netherlands was 4 of 5 from the field, hit his one 3-point attempt and all three free throws he took.

Veteran guard Jaden Bradley led the Blue team with 12 points while hitting 5 of 7 field goals and dishing four assists to one turnover — though that turnover near the 3-point line cost the Blue a chance to win the game in the final seconds after Burries' layup.

Anthony Dell'Orso added 10 points on 4-for-5 shooting for the Blue while hitting both 3-pointers he took, continuing his momentum from long range after he edged UA women's player Mickayla Perdue 19-18 in the pregame 3-point shooting contest.

In the first half, Bradley led the Blue team to a 25-15 lead with nine points and two rebounds, while center Motiejus Krivas added five points, three rebounds and an assist on a dunk by freshman Koa Peat.

Aristode had eight points before halftime on 2-for-2 shooting while hitting all three free throws he took, warming up quickly after missing several times in the finals of the dunk contest.

"First few minutes, I was kind of nervous, I'm not gonna lie," Aristode said. "But as the game went on, I got into shape, got a little sweat out of me. Nerves went out. So it was a great opportunity for us to play in front of a great group of fans with my brothers over here."

While the Blue team's experience may have helped it take the early lead, the teams' talent appeared to be divided equally for the scrimmage. Aristode, Ivan Kharchenkov, Burries, grad transfer Evan Nelson and Tobe Awaka started for the red team, while Bradley, Dell'Orso, Bryce James, Peat and Krivas started for the blue team.

Mawut and Sidi Gueye started the game on the Red team bench. Gueye logged four minutes toward the end of the first half while Mawut played six minutes after halftime, during which Arizona Athletic Director Desireé Reed-Francois honored benefactor R. Ken Coit for his recent $5 million commitment to UA athletics.

Dunk contest surprises

Back to homepage

Subscriber Login

Keep reading with a digital access subscription.

Subscribe now

The pregame dunk contest surprised for two different reasons: First, that walk-on Addison Arnold reached the finals by dunking a football over Gronkowski — and then because, after neither Arnold nor fellow finalist Aristode could make a dunk in the finals, Gronk came off the judges’ row to throw down a few and “win” the contest.

Arnold’s second-round dunk, however, was the real winner. Not only did Arnold deserve courage points for entering the contest as a 6-3 walkon but also credit for creativity: He asked Gronk to hike a football to him near the free-throw line, then walked back as if to throw a pass and instead bolted toward the basket, elevated over Gronkowski and threw it in.

Arnold then beat his chest, Gronk-style, and went over to get mobbed by teammates.

Asked if any of them knew Arnold would try such a thing, Aristode, Dell'Orso and Burries all shook their heads. 

"Hell no," Aristode said. "It was out of the blue. It was impressive."

The dunk earned 10s from all judges, a score of 50 that put him in the finals opposite Aristode, who had picked up a collective 41 points from the five judges with a windmill dunk.

The judges in the dunk contest were introduced in the same glitzy manner as the players beforehand. Then Shaq, who was scheduled publicly only to DJ at the afterparty, was introduced as an extra judge. He and Gronkowski received cheers comparable to the ones Lloyd and Bradley received during UA player introductions.

3-point skills

In the 3-point contest, Dell'Orso edged women’s basketball player Mickayla Perdue 19-18 after Perdue missed her final attempt from the left corner on McKale’s north end.

Dell’Orso, who shot 42.1% from 3-point range last season to lead the Wildcats among those who took at least one long-range shot per game, had beaten Nelson to win become the men’s finalist. In the finals, Dell'Orso and Perdue shot on opposite ends of the court.

"It was a different experience," Dell'Orso said. "It was fun. I didn't, honestly, really know who I was going against. You can't really see out there. It's kind of confusing. But she did great. She almost beat me, but I still got the crown."

Perdue was the Horizon League’s Player of the Year last season at Cleveland State, averaging 20.0 points a game while hitting 83 3-pointers to lead the conference.

Fan favorites

While Lloyd predictably drew the loudest applause during introductions that began the official event, Bradley, Nelson and James were right behind, according to decibel readings taken near the UA student section.

Bradley is the expected heart of this season’s Wildcats and is entering his third season with UA, while Nelson is a Tucson resident who transferred from Harvard and James is the son of NBA superstar LeBron James.

Returnees Krivas, Dell’Orso and Awaka also received loud ovations, along with Peat.

After the introduction, Lloyd took the microphone to ask “Tucson, what’s good?”

“We love being your team,” Lloyd added. “This is a team you’re going to fall in love with.”

Championship pre-show

While the player introductions officially started the event, the fans who filed into McKale Center at 5 p.m. were able to watch the Wildcats’ national championship team.

That is, the UA’s adaptive athletics basketball team that is coming off the championship of the National Intercollegiate Wheelchair Basketball Tournament last season in Illinois. They are scheduled to receive their rings at the UA-Oklahoma State football game Saturday at Arizona Stadium.

The annual scrimmage for the adaptive athletics team Friday was a preview of the national championship tournament it will host from March 30 to April 4 inside McKale.

Photos: Arizona's Red-Blue Game