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Jalen Adams Emerging as Huskies Prepare for Cincinnati | 4pm, ESPN2

HARTFORD, Conn. – The sizzle in his step on the way to the basket for a basket left the capacity crowd at the XL Center in awe Thursday night.

The UConn basketball program has already had one guard from Roxbury, Mass. leading them to a national championship. Could freshman Jalen Adams be already ready to follow in Shabazz Napier’s footsteps?

That might be getting ahead of ourselves a little bit, but clearly Adams has emerged as a major player for the Huskies (19-7, 9-4 league), who head into Cincinnati (19-8, 9-5) for another huge American Athletic Conference late-season battle on Saturday. A half-game separates the two former Big East schools in the standings, with first-place Temple (16-9, 10-3) not out of the reach of either in the final two weeks of the regular season.

The Bearcats won the first meeting in Hartford, 58-57 on Jan. 29.

“Winning at home and then going onto the road – we just have to build on it,” Adams said. “We just keep rolling.”

Adams scored nine points in UConn’s 68-62 win over No. 21 SMU in the Huskies’ final regular-season gameThursdayat the XL Center. Four teammates reached double-digits in scoring, but a couple of Adams’ buckets – on a variety of drives to the hoop - were key down the stretch in finishing off the Mustangs.

“That little freshman point guard made some huge plays at the basket,” said SMU coach Larry Brown, who has had a few of his own gifted backcourt generals in his Hall of Fame career. “It might have been the difference. You would expect (Rodney) Purvis or (Sterling) Gibbs or (Omar) Calhoun, but we did a good job on those guys,”

Being the right-hand man of Kevin Ollie on the floor is not something every point guard is cut out for, but Adams continues to bounce back from growing pains to be a valuable asset for the former NBA floor general.

Adams has landed in Ollie’s doghouse on several occasions, though. The head coach put Calhoun in the starting lineup over Adams, for disciplinary reasons, against Georgetown and also benched the freshman for more than 18 minutes in the second half at Temple.

But, clearly when Adams is on the floor he brings something the rest of the Husky backcourt can’t – a true point guard who is not afraid to drive to the basket and can finish at the rim. Twice in the final 8:25 against SMU, Adams took it to the hoop strong and put a little mustard on his layups to keep UConn in front.

“He’s definitely harder on me,” Adams said. “Me and Sterling, both the point guards, because we are the extension of him on the court, so we just have to lead by example and take the criticism because he’s not doing anything to harm us. He just wants us to be better,”

In order for Adams to achieve his best on the court, he doesn’t feel he needs to be in the starting lineup – somewhere he’s fluctuated in and out of this season – to do it.

“Coming off the bench, starting, it doesn’t matter to me,” he said. “I just be on the court and play. As long as I am out there I’m having fun. Even when I’m not out there when I’m the bench I’m cheering my teammates on.“As long as we’re winning, it’s all good.”

It was all good for Ollie watching his prized pupil knock off his former NBA coach and the Mustangs.

“Jalen was, whoo, he was exciting out there,” Ollie said. “Just giving us that person who can get by somebody, make something happen. He made some moves out there that were fantastic.

“You can’t coach that.”

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