SEATTLE – Adrian Oliver said it was difficult to play during his senior season at Modesto Christian High School in California. He wasn’t hurt, wasn’t struggling with grades, didn’t have any other issues.
He was simply eager to join the University of Washington basketball team.
“I’ve been waiting for this for a year and a half,” Oliver said. “It was hard for me to play my senior year knowing that I’d be coming here. Now that the time is here, it’s a time I always dreamed of as a child, playing college basketball.”
It doesn’t seem like Oliver was bothered too much in his final prep season, though. He averaged 26.1 points, 11.4 rebounds and 4.2 assists and finished the year as the No. 20 rated high school point guard in the country.
And the adjustment to playing for one of the nation’s top programs hasn’t hampered the 6-foot-3, 180-pounder much either. He’s competing with Ryan Appleby and Harvey Perry for the starting shooting guard spot for the Huskies, and may even be considered the favorite to start alongside Justin Dentmon in the Washington backcourt.
“Him and Justin and Ryan have been butting heads and (Oliver) hasn’t been the smaller man at all,” UW captain Jon Brockman said. “He has days where he takes over open gym with his scoring and with his defense.”
Oliver has not backed away from challenges since getting to Washington. During the summer and early fall, he has gone head-to-head with former Huskies stars Nate Robinson and Will Conroy as well as NBA player Jamal Crawford during open gyms at Hec Edmundson Pavilion. So it’s no wonder that Oliver says he won’t be intimidated by any guard he’ll play during the Pac-10 season.
“I won’t play against any guys better than Jamal,” Oliver said. “Jamal is one of the craftiest guys I’ve played against. I told him over and over, ‘Don’t go easy on me, go hard at me, I want to get better.’ He told me he liked my attitude and he went hard at me. Some days he’d but my butt, he’d kill me.”
And Oliver said if there’s one thing he doesn’t like, it’s to get beat. He said that’s one of the reasons he picked the Huskies, who he chose over Kentucky.
“I hate to lose,” Oliver said. “I’ve been on high school teams that haven’t lost that much and when they do lose, I don’t take it that well.”
From a skills standpoint, Oliver is able to handle the ball well enough to take pressure off Dentmon at the point but is also a scorer, able to go to the basket strong and shoot the ball from the outside. He’ll have pressure to help pick up the backcourt scoring that was lost with the graduation of Pac-10 Player of the Year Brandon Roy. And his coach thinks Oliver is up to the challenge.
“He’s a guy who not everyone talked about when we signed him,” Lorenzo Romar said. “But they are going to be talking about him by the time he’s done. He can handle the ball, he can score, he’s athletic. It’s an adjustment coming to the college game but he’s the type of guy who I think is going to pick things up quickly and be ready to go. He’s one guy I’m not worried about.”
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
