Seen and heard at Red-Blue Game: On an Ethiopian underdog, star recruits, and Arizona's dunk king

Big-time recruits in McKale Center

The Red-Blue Game is a way for the Arizona Wildcats basketball program to host recruits, and this year’s batch was star-studded. 

Current Arizona commits and five-star guards Nico Mannion and Australian Josh Green were in town for official visits. Those two were joined by 2019 forwards Zeke Nnaji and Jeremiah Robinson-Earl. 

The 6-foot-11 Nnaji is from Hopkins, Minnesota, and is rated as the No. 8 power forward nationally, per 247sports.com. Robinson-Earl is a 6-foot-8 five-star power forward from Bradenton, Florida, and is Green’s current high school teammate at IMG Academy. 

Several national recruiting experts predict Robinson-Earl is leaning towards picking Kansas over UA, North Carolina, Villanova and Notre Dame.

Local standout and Salpointe Catholic small forward Majok Deng was also in attendance. Deng is a part of the 2019 class and is considering Cal, Georgia Tech, UCLA, Ohio State, Stanford, Utah and Vanderbilt.

Wildcat finds basketball after accident

The UA men’s basketball wheelchair squad opened up the Red-Blue Game festivities, which has been an annual tradition. One of the players on the team, freshman Josh Brewer, has a story unlike any other.

Originally written by UA News, Brewer was born in Ethiopia and lived in a single-parent household with his father until he passed away when Brewer was 7 years old. After a year of living with mom, Brewer left his home and hitchhiked to Metehara, a town in Ethiopia. Brewer was homeless and became friends with other kids that grew up around the area. Brewer and his pack of friends constantly searched for food and washed cars for money.

One day, Brewer and his friends took a train from Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, to another city and when the train stopped, the pack went searching for food. After Brewer’s friends found food, they went back to the train, but he remained on the prowl for his next meal. 

By the time Brewer returned to the train, it was already moving. Brewer attempted to make the jump from alongside the train to a space between the cars.

As he jumped, the train accelerated even more and the next recollection of memory Brewer has is when he woke up in the hospital with family surrounding him. According to Brewer, he was in a coma for a week or two. Brewer lost both of his legs when he was hit by the train and his right arm was amputated at the elbow.

After several surgeries and overcoming life-threatening injuries, Brewer was adopted by his current parents, Laura and Matthew, and Josh moved from Ethiopia to Spokane, Washington.

Over years of learning English at public schools, Brewer discovered basketball through a therapist and an executive director for ParaSport in Spokane, an organization for paraplegic athletes. 

After graduating high school in 2015, he also played Rugby and won a silver medal in the 2016 Paralympics, and was invited to the White House to meet then-President Obama.

He continued to play basketball in his time away from Rugby and eventually found the UA through a tournament in Phoenix. As a 19-year-old visiting campus in 2016, he decided to become a Wildcat. Now in his first semester at UA, he hasn’t decided a major, but plans to be Arizona’s leader on the wheelchair basketball team this year.

Randolph repeats as dunk king

With Tucson mayor Jonathan Rothschild, UA women’s golf head coach Laura Ianello and former Arizona basketball standout Jerryd Bayless as judges, sophomore guard Brandon Randolph took home the slam dunk contest for the second consecutive season, which has never been done at Arizona.

Randolph’s first dunk was an assist from guard Brandon Williams off the side of the backboard, finished with a tomahawk slam. Randolph beat out Williams, Ira Lee, Dylan Smith and Devonaire Doutrive in the contest.

Ring of Honor inductees

At halftime, Arizona added two more players to the McKale Center Ring of Honor: Jerryd Bayless and Deandre Ayton.

The qualifications for the Ring of Honor include: 

He said it

Sean Miller on Richard Jefferson retiring from the NBA: pic.twitter.com/65jK224bv7

— Justin Spears (@JustinESports) October 14, 2018

“The fact that he gave back at that time in his life, it says all that you need to know about him, his character and his love for Arizona. He deserves a heartfelt congratulations from all of us. “You play in the NBA for a year, that’s quite the accomplishment.

If you’ve been there for 17 years, that says it all. I’m glad he walked away when he chose to and maybe he will visit us more often.”

— Sean Miller on Richard Jefferson’s $3.5 million donation to the UA basketball program, and retiring from the NBA.