Area high school basketball fans who watched the State Farm College Slam Dunk Championship live on ESPN might have been caught by surprise.
There was Rodney Pryor, who played at Notre Dame for the 2009-10 and 2010-11 seasons, inspiring the hashtag #RodneyFlyer with his acrobatic dunks and winning the event on Thursday in Phoenix.
Pryor, a sixth-year graduate-student transfer at Georgetown, was a 3-point shooter and talented scorer for the Dons.
“In high school, I was not that athletic, I was a more of a shooter,” Pryor said. “But to get better at the game of basketball, I knew I needed to reach a certain level of athleticism. So, during the summers and (seasons) I had different coaching staffs pushing me (to improve in that area).”
In his one season with the Hoyas, Pryor averaged 18.0 points per game, which ranked fourth in the Big East. He earned All-Big East honorable mention honors.
The slam dunk contest was part of the Final Four festivities and held in front of a raucous, capacity crowd at Grand Canyon University Arena.
“Being a part of that, the atmosphere and the fan base, it was crazy,” said the 6-foot-5 Pryor, who earlier in the event teamed with Michigan senior Derrick Walton Jr. and Kansas State women’s basketball player Kindred Wesemann to win the Skills Challenge. “I think I was more nervous in that setting than in an actual game. Being able to come out and compete and win it, it was a blessing to do that.”
The dunk contest began with eight participants, and eventually reached a final stage in which Pryor and Eastern Tennessee State senior guard A.J. Merriweather squared off in a one-dunk-apiece showdown.
Pryor’s last dunk involved him catching the ball off a bounce from Walton, elevating, putting the ball through his legs and throwing it down. The dunk put the pressure on Merriweather, who was not able to successfully execute his final dunk in the allotted time.
The win earned Pryor a boxing-style championship belt, which he paraded around at the event’s after party and said was destined for his mom’s house in Evanston.
Pryor’s participation in this year’s event can be traced back to Notre Dame assistant coach Kevin Clancy, who just finished his 11th season on the Dons bench. Clancy said he recommended Pryor to his longtime friend Joe Salituro, who runs the slam dunk event for Intersport.
“We’d never had a (former) player who was a candidate to participate (until Pryor),” said Clancy, a 1998 Notre Dame graduate. “Rodney has gotten so much attention this year, and they were looking for players (with a national profile), and with him being at Georgetown, it was a great fit.”
Salituro, a 1998 Loyola Academy graduate, said Pryor’s name was on his early lists for both the 3-point and dunk competitions. Pryor made 84 3-pointers this season and shot 41.2 percent from behind the arc.
“But it’s more difficult to find those athletic freaks (for the dunk contest), so when you get somebody with the potential to be in both, you lean more toward the dunk than the 3-point,” Salituro said.
For Pryor, the dunk contest victory is the latest chapter in a story of perseverance. He spent three seasons in junior college — two of which were lost entirely to injury — before emerging as a star at Robert Morris, a low-major Division I program. Then this winter he starred for the Hoyas.
In the coming weeks and months, Pryor said he will hire an agent, work with trainers and compete at the Portsmouth (Va.) Invitational Tournament from April 12-15 with the hopes of earning an invite to the NBA Draft Combine in May in Chicago.
Howard Megdal, an NBA Draft analyst for CBSSports.com, rated Pryor as the 16th-best shooting guard eligible for the draft in February.
Though disappointed by Georgetown’s 14-18 season, Pryor said he was glad to have had the chance to prove himself on a big stage like the Big East, where he regularly appeared on national television. He hoped the dunk contest would be another way to raise his profile ahead of the draft.
“To have this event, it’s just more TV time on ESPN, and if that helps moving forward, and more people are familiar with me, it’s great,” Pryor said.
Dan Shalin is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
Twitter @Pioneer_Press
