Basketball and home didn’t mix for most of Anthony Dell’Orso’s life, but they do all the time now.
All it takes is for the Australian wing to check his phone for the latest from Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd.
“Every day, he’ll send me a photo — like … it’ll be a meat pie and a sausage roll on a plate,” Dell’Orso said earlier this fall of his homeland’s culinary favorites. “No text. Just the photo. I’ll (reply) `Breakfast of champions’ — and he’ll love it.”
It’s a fit. The coach who spent a year playing semi-pro basketball and working odd jobs in Australia with the third-year Aussie wing who brought Lloyd’s team some much-needed shooting off the bench as a transfer from Campbell.
Arizona guard Anthony Dell’Orso (3) tries to muscle his way to baseline against Old Dominion guard Jaden Johnson (10) in the first half of their game at McKale Center on Nov. 9, 2024.
Dell’Orso has always been about fit. He experimented constantly on different sports as a youth until settling on the right one.
Basketball wasn’t the first choice. Or the second. Or the third. But it was eventually the right one.
“I played almost every sport growing up — cricket, (Australian) football, tennis, cross country, everything possible,” Dell’Orso said. “Basketball was actually a late pick for me. I wasn’t interested at all.”
Aussie rules football, or footy as it is also known locally, caught most of his attention. Even when Dell’Orso started playing team basketball at age 14 or 15, he said he still preferred the physical outdoor game that combines elements of soccer and rugby.
That was the fit at the time. Until he hit age 16, still at only about 5-foot-5, that is.
“My teammates and my friends playing footy were lifting and they were getting taller, and they just got too big for me,” Dell’Orso said. “I was like `I’m gonna get hurt if I keep playing this.’ That’s when I chose basketball.”
Before long, it wasn’t just that Dell’Orso had found a sport that fit. It was that he was fitting into basketball.
During the COVID-restricted years of 2020 and 2021, Dell’Orso said he grew all the way to 6-5, while playing club ball when he could. He said he realized basketball could be a future.
He just had to find somebody else who thought so. Not only were COVID restrictions keeping Dell’Orso from getting exposure but, just when the opportunity arose in the spring of 2022 to play club ball on a trip to the United States, he had to undergo minor knee surgery.
Dell’Orso missed the whole trip. No coaches would see him play live.
“Basically, I had no offers, no nothing,” he said.
‘I just went on a hunch’
Arizona guard Anthony Dell’Orso dribbles the ball during the first half of against Wisconsin on Nov. 15, 2024, at the Kohl Center in Madison, Wis.
He did get one in June 2022 to Division II Regis University of Denver. Over Zoom, he initially lunged at it.
“I verbally committed there thinking that was my only place,” Dell’Orso said. “I sat on it and after two weeks, I was like, `I can’t do this. I really don’t want to go. I’d rather sit out a year and reclass to the next year.’
“My intention was `I’m going to reclass, sit out a year, get a job at the supermarket and make some money in the meantime.’ ”
There was no meantime. About three days later, a random U.S. phone number popped up on his phone. Dell’Orso picked it up and began talking to newly hired Campbell assistant coach Monty Sanders.
“He introduces himself, tells me where he’s from, tells me that he’s seeing my YouTube clips and loves my game and all this stuff, and tries to build the connection,” Dell’Orso said. “He called me at 8 a.m. for the next five days straight, every morning, and says basically, just, `What are you up to? Are you working out today? You lifting? What’s your plans? How you feeling?’ Just showing interest, really.
“It gets to the fifth day, and he goes,`What do we need to get you to commit?’ Do you need a visit?’
“I didn’t know anything about college. I didn’t know what a visit was. So I said, `Sure, I’ll take a visit.’”
Campbell flew Dell’Orso and his parents to Los Angeles, and then on to North Carolina, where they visited the school’s campus, located about 30 miles south of Raleigh. It was June so there were no practices, no potential teammates, no nothing, really, but Dell’Orso signed with the low-major Division I school anyway.
“I just went on a hunch,” he said.
It wound up a fit. On the court, that much was clear almost right away.
Dell’Orso shook off the knee injury and jumped into the Camels’ starting lineup after seven games in 2022-23. He averaged 12.5 points and 5.8 rebounds while shooting 35.5% from 3 that season and became the Big South’s Freshman of the Year.
Then he went home over the U.S. summer, played against his old friends, and the reality of his progress began to really sink in.
Basketball was the fit. It was happening.
“I could see the difference between kids that I grew up against,” Dell’Orso said. “It was like, `Wow, it’s not even competition anymore.’ That’s how I knew college was the right thing for me, because player development is really, really focused on.”
Off the court, he also developed by learning a few things. Like, how barbecue — the noun — is defined differently stateside.
In Australia, “you get the barbie and you would cook pork chops, skewers, sausage, all that kind of stuff. That’s a barbecue,” Dell’Orso said. “Here, barbecue is like an actual food. I didn’t know that.”
Barbecue, the food, eventually became one of Dell’Orso’s three favorites in the South, along with two other foreign objects: Sweet tea and Chick-fil-A.
“Once I had those three things, I would say I was happy to live there,” Dell’Orso recalled.
But when Dell’Orso began to outgrow Campbell, he found he didn’t have to give all that up. Plus, he said, the Mexican food is better in Tucson, his newest home.
A connection to home
Arizona guard Anthony Dell’Orso (3) drives the ball to the net against Canisius guard Paul McMillan IV (34) at McKale Center, Nov. 4, 2024.
The move happened after Dell’Orso became a second-team all-Colonial Athletic Association pick as a sophomore last season. He led the Camels in scoring with an average of 19.5 points and also shot 38.0% from 3, ripe for an up-transfer via the portal. On3 even rated him the No. 28 transfer.
Arizona was looking for more perimeter help, and still not sure if Caleb Love would return from the NBA Draft pool.
There was a potential fit, but in the crazed dance that is the spring transfer portal, neither side had much time.
That’s where sausage rolls and meat pies came in handy.
“We bonded over that,” Lloyd said.
There were a few other connections from Australia that helped, Lloyd said, while the basketball part went smoothly.
“He was looking at certain situations, we were looking at certain options, and it just kind of came together really, really quick,” Lloyd said. “I’m not exaggerating — I had a conversation with him one night and the next day, he was committed to us.”
If Love stayed in the draft, Dell’Orso would have a chance to start. If Love returned to school, along with fellow draft-testers Jaden Bradley and KJ Lewis, that didn’t appear nearly as likely.
That’s what happened, but Dell’Orso accepted it. He saw a bigger picture.
“When I was in the portal, I had a lot of places that were like, `Here’s the keys,’ pretty much,” Dell’Orso said. “But my goal is the NBA. That’s what I’ve always dreamed of. I just saw this as a place where I know I can get better, and I have the pieces around me that can help me get better.”
Besides, Dell’Orso said it isn’t true “that starters are everything and benches are nothing,” since basketball is a team game where starters, reserves and even the walk-ons who help sharpen everyone else up in practice are needed.
As it turned out, the Wildcats have so many pieces this season that, so far, they aren’t fitting right. That’s made for a bumpy ride for Dell’Orso and the Wildcats, who are now carrying a losing record (3-4) for the first time in 15 seasons.
In Dell’Orso’s case, he was a significant bench player over Arizona’s first three games but logged just four minutes in UA’s Nov. 14 loss to Duke. Delicately, Lloyd questioned Dell’Orso’s defense and decision-making.
“I think he’s in the position where he’s figuring it out at this level a little bit,” Lloyd said before the Duke game. “When he’s getting out there playing, he’s a very smart player. I think he just needs to get a little more comfortable knowing the absolutes in our system and what works in our system as opposed to maybe ad-libbing some. I think we give our guys a lot of freedom, and I really value him as a player, and I trust his IQ.”
Although Dell’Orso was limited against Duke, he wound up becoming one of the Wildcats’ few bright spots during their 1-2 performance in the Battle 4 Atlantis last week.
Dell’Orso scored 22 points while hitting 5 of 7 3s in the first round against Davidson, then totaled another 14 points over UA’s next two games while playing over 20 minutes in each one.
“I was proud of him,” Love said after the Davidson game. “He was my player of the game. I was so happy to see him break through and make those shots. Because we’re in the gym every day, and I see how hard he works. He continues to push through mistakes and hardships.”
There could be more to come, both good and not so good. But there’s little doubt the communication will continue throughout. And it won’t be just about basketball.
It will also be about home, Dell’Orso’s home and maybe what should be called Lloyd’s second home. About their shared bond. The fit.
“He loves to throw these little snipes out there about his time in Australia and all that,” Dell’Orso said of Lloyd. “I describe him to my parents as he’s an Aussie trapped in an American’s body. That’s how Tommy is. If he wanted to be an Australian, he could be.”
