Hidden from most radars, Adams relishes the feeling

Justin M. Bowen

UNLV senior guard Wink Adams, right, and teammate Joe Darger take a breather during a post-practice scrimmage earlier this week at the Thomas & Mack Center.

By Ryan Greene (contact)

Friday, Oct. 10, 2008 | 2:10 a.m.

Justin M. Bowen

UNLV senior guard Wink Adams fires a shot during a post-practice scrimmage earlier this week at the Thomas & Mack Center. Adams enters his final season as the Rebels' 13th all-time leading scorer with a realistic chance to climb as high as second once this year is through, but he doesn't mind flying under the radar on the national scene.

By all accounts, Wink Adams is the furthest thing you'll find from a me-first type of player.

But when he checked out a box score following last season's 52-49 UNLV loss at Arizona, the then-junior guard couldn't help but take some satisfaction in looking at the final stats.

Usually, saying that about the lead guard for the losing squad would earn him a selfish tag. This case didn't fit the bill.

The inner warmth came from looking at the stat lines of UA's Jerryd Bayless and Chase Budinger.

"Every main player for somebody's team, if it's a guard, I always want to take on that challenge," said Adams. "When Bayless came in, I had a lot of respect for him, he's a really good player. He was a pro when he came in. They were full of pros when they came in. We had our game face on. We played our hardest game. Unfortunately, we didn't win."

Bayless, a first-round NBA draft pick in June, was held to eight points on 2-of-10 shooting. He averaged 19.7 points per game in his lone collegiate season. Budinger, the sophomore sniper, also failed to hit double digits in the points column, also shooting at a 2-for-10 clip and finishing with six points.

"Chase and Jerryd, they kind of had their lowest games of the season against us, and we kind of felt good about that," Adams continued.

Still what most casual hoops fans would notice first and foremost from that box score would be how poorly Bayless scored as opposed to the lock-down defense Adams & Co. applied to him -- or his 19 points, eight boards and four assists.

Why's that? Bayless carried a household name and he played for a more prominent school.

That's been the case for Adams for a good part of his college career. Even though he's flown under several radars for three years, the Houston native enters his senior season the same way he entered the UNLV program -- not needing the limelight to prove anything to anyone.

"I have people back in Houston everyday, people who say if I had gone to another school I would have had more publicity, probably have my name out there better than I do now," Adams said with a smile. "But this type of school, they never really give us our props for what we do. We play as underdogs. We just like surprising people.

"Honestly, I love it."

But Adams' pals from home may be correct in the sense that if he played at, say, an ACC school which was on ESPN each week, combined with his numbers through three seasons, he may be a preseason first team All-American in some eyes.

Of course, the secret is somewhat out of the bag heading into the 2008-09 campaign, which hits its official starting point next Friday with the Rebels' FirstLook event at the Thomas & Mack Center. On the heels of winning games in back-to-back NCAA Tournaments, Lon Kruger's squad is sneaking into the back end of several publications' preseason Top 25 polls.

And when strangers take a look at what's gotten the UNLV program back on track towards where it once was -- other than Kruger and his staff -- Adams will be the first name many stumble upon. Kruger himself finds it hard to quantify the importance Adams has had since arriving.

"I think I could say about anything I wanted to and I don't think I'd be overstating it," he said. "And primarily because of his work ethic and his competitiveness. Every year his role has jumped significantly. And I think it'll jump that much again this year."

Even if Adams were to stay steady from a year ago and not make a huge leap, he'll leave the program after this season with his name all across the record books. Notably its most star-studded list: career scoring leaders.

After scoring 591 points as a junior (16.9 per game, 42.2 field goal percentage), he's in 13th place on the school's all-time scoring list, just 185 points behind Larry Johnson. An identical 591 points this year would put him at 2,031 career points -- third all-time, and just 50 behind Sidney Green.

But maybe it's the way he's scored those points that has kept him out of the national spotlight, since his numbers last season were on par with higher-profile returning guards such as North Carolina's Wayne Ellington (16.6 ppg, 46.7 field goal percentage), Duke's Gerald Henderson (12.7 ppg, 47.4 field goal percentage) and Budinger (17.1 ppg, 44.6 field goal percentage).

Playing a tough, gritty style mixed with a splash of flair and flash as a junior, Adams put the ball on the floor and muscled his way to the hoop more than ever, drawing 178 free throw attempts in 35 games. When there, he converted 84.8 percent of those attempts, good for 151 of those 591 points.

While he may be playing out of position a bit at the two-guard spot, he's made the most of it in every way possible. He has himself set up for a nice pro career once his days in Las Vegas are spent.

"We take on his persona," said senior teammate René Rougeau. "I go hard off of him knowing that he's into it. He knows that his shine is gonna come. He's already getting a lot of love. He's just a feisty player, and he doesn't read into all that, not being a preseason All-American.

"You've definitely got to be humble, and he's been a humble player since I first met him."

Adams' humility has also contributed to him being on the brink of joining another illustrious club aside from the 2,000-point corps -- he is poised to join a handful of Rebels to have 100 wins under their belts before graduating.

Currently at 74 with a season filled with expectations on the horizon, he's kept the level head.

As was to be expected.

"When I came, I didn't expect to have the type of years I've been having here," Adams said. "I knew it was a program that was rebuilding. I knew we had scorers, I knew we had players who could do certain things. With the coaches we've got, with the teammates that I have, it helped me open my game a little bit. I don't want to stop here. As a team we want to get better, as a player I want to get higher and higher, and when I leave I want my name to be remembered.

"I want to come back and see my jersey up there (in the rafters)."