Arizona's Anthony Dell'Orso Looking to Build on Last season

It was a learning experience for Anthony Dell’Orso last season in his first season at Arizona after playing at Campbell for two years to begin his collegiate career. He has used this offseason to take what he learned from his experience last season and take it into this year as he looks to take his game to another level. 

“You play games and you play certain types of matchup, and some guys are quicker, some guys are bigger and some guys are taller,” De’llOrso said.

“You just kind of adapt and I don’t think that I was too far behind and that was kind of encouraging in a way because you know you’re right there. With the thought of I’ve got an offseason coming up, I got all this time to get ready and now that the results are showing, instead of just surviving now, I can really dominate this thing.”

In his first season in Tucson and facing better competition, it was an up-and-down season for the junior from Australia. He started 28 of the 37 games he appeared in, averaging just over seven points per game on 45 percent shooting from the field and 41 percent from deep. He was able to show flashes, especially in spurts at certain points throughout the year.

Now with an offseason to take what he learned last year and apply it to improving his body, that has been the primary focus from the start for De’llOrso as soon as the season ended last year. 

“I’ve gained I want to say 25 pounds at least,” he said. “... I’m still trying to lift weights. I’m still getting bigger. It’s always a work in progress like I said before, but that has been a focus. Me and coach (Christopher) Rounds have been in the weight room a bunch.”

Despite this day in age of college basketball revolving around the transfer portal and NIL, Dell’Orso confirmed that he never considered leaving Arizona after last season. 

“I was pretty heavily wanting to come back pretty quickly,” Dell’Orso said. “I just thought that with what I experienced last year, the way Tommy (Lloyd) recruited me and the way we had talked about the process and what you want to achieve later in your career, he could really help me with those things. With certain guys leaving and new guys coming in, I can see the foundation was already there, especially the guys like (Jaden Bradley) coming back, Tobe (Awaka) and (Motiejus) Krivas, it kind of set that tone for me to step back in to something I already know with coaches I already trust and I can build on what I did.”

It looks to be another tough schedule that should test Dell’Orso and the entire team right from the start and through conference play in the Big 12. The Wildcats look to bring another strong team into this upcoming season with a mixture of returners and newcomers as they look to build off what they learned in their first season in the Big 12 last year and take it into this year with big goals in mind.