Seen and heard at McKale Center

There’s going to be a new sound in Arizona basketball games at McKale Center this season.

Lots of bass drops.

It’s because Arizona hired a DJ, pseudonym DJ Ajaxx, to drop the beats at McKale for every one of this season’s home games.

Welcome to the 21st century, eh?

Ajaxx is Jack Strandberg, a business management senior at the UA. Last season, for the last 10 home games of the year, Strandberg created hype mix songs special to each one.

Arizona liked what it heard, and hired Strandberg on in an official capacity this season, and now he sits courtside, just two seats down from the PA announcer.

For most of the pregame, Strandberg has a playlist of songs requested by the players.

“There’s a lot of Drake,” Strandberg said.

Outside of that, Strandberg will have a hype mix again for each game, and will DJ throughout timeouts, halftime and some of the pregame when the doors open for fans, and whenever else the music is needed when there isn’t basketball being played to hype up the crowd, especially the Zona Zoo.

“We hired Jack essentially because we want music for the crowd,” said Dan Heck, an associate director of marketing. “It’s more fan-friendly.”

The name Ajaxx came after Strandberg’s co-workers at Apple — he still works there — called him “Apple Jack.” Eventually, that distorted to Ajaxx.

Two x’s because there was an Ajax in Australia, with only one x, so Strandberg added the extra. Then, in a sad turn of events, the Australian Ajax passed away in 2013.

Strandberg got his DJing start back in high school, at Horizon in Scottsdale. School administrators, he said, played music at lunch to “deter violence.” Strandberg figured out how to work the soundboard, enjoyed it, moved to Tucson for college, and became a DJ.

“Now I’m at McKale,” Strandberg said, laughing. “Slowly climbing the ranks.”

Big number

5:09 Minutes and seconds it took Brandon Ashley to score his first points against Mount St. Mary’s. It was Ashley’s first points since injuring his foot against California back in February. He received a standing ovation and the crowd chanted his name when he checked out late in the second half with a career-high 21 points. “I didn’t think about how I played,” Ashley said, “just how it felt to get back out there on the court.”

Rondae Dunkis-Jefferson

Pregame, there were some reports that Rondae Hollis-Jefferson was dealing with a hurt shoulder, which is why he came off the bench instead of starting at small forward.

It didn’t seem to bother him.

Seven minutes in, Hollis-Jefferson had his first thunderous dunk.

Then, toward the end of the half, on a breakaway off a steal, Hollis-Jefferson jumped from the stratosphere, fully extending his 7-foot-1-inch wingspan, and slammed home a “Dunk of the year” candidate.

Twenty seconds later, another breakaway.

Then, in the second half, he added an alley-oop off an inbounds pass for good measure, and another from near-half-court.

Dunk City, Arizona.

Tweet of the night

@Original_Duenas: “RONDAE SEE BALL. RONDAE GET BALL. RONDAE SMASH BALL.” — A fan, after Hollis-Jefferson’s first dunk.

A (big)head start

The Zona Zoo added a few new big-heads to its collection on Friday. They include: a sonoran hot dog, Ron Swanson from “Parks and Recreation,” Nigel Thornberry from “The Wild Thornberrys,” and the sassy, hand-extended emoji girl from the iPhone.

In the house

Kenny Lofton took in McKale on Friday night. Lofton, a six-time MLB all-star outfielder, played point guard for the Wildcats 1988 Final Four team. Lofton has been retired from baseball since 2007.

I moustache you a question

It’s no-shave-November.

Or Moustache Movember. Or whatever.

Anyway, Zona Zoo handed out fake moustaches to students, many wore them, and most looked funny.

Shorty

The Mountaineers have a fairly tall roster, with eight players 6-6 or taller.

Lamont Robinson — nickname “Junior” — hurts their team average, though.

Robinson is 5-5, and the shortest player in Division I basketball.

Philly connections

Perhaps Mount St. Mary’s most proud basketball alum: Fred Carter.

Carter was the school’s first African-American student, and played eight seasons in the NBA in the 1970s, five with the Philadelphia 76ers.

In two of those seasons — 1974-75 and 1975-76 — Coniel Norman was one of Carter’s teammates.

Norman is perhaps one of the best basketball players ever to play at the UA — he’s Arizona’s all-time points-per-game leader (23.9), and once scored 37 points in a game.

Zack Rosenblatt