Adrian a key for Mountaineers

Let us first take a look at those moments.

The first came extremely early in the semifinal game of the Puerto Rico Tipoff Classic against Boston College, the Mountaineers just trying to stay in touch with a team that seemed intent on breaking the game open early.

BC led, 9-6, when Adrian threw up a shot that clanked off the rim back to him near the free-throw line. Grabbing the offensive rebound, Adrian made a spectacular look and tricky pass inside to Devin Williams to make it a one-point game.

BC widened its lead, stretching it to 12 points and as WVU began to chip away again, Eagles’ point guard Olivier Hanlan broke loose for what seemed like an easy layup, only to have Adrian come screaming from behind to bat the ball somewhere close to the Caribbean waters.

Moments later, it was more Adrian, taking a charge, and helping to keep WVU in a game that seemed on the verge of slipping away.

There would be more of the same in the midst of the second half, this time helping WVU come back to win.

Playing hard defense and beginning to hit shots, WVU narrowed the margin to a point when Juwan Staten slipped the ball to Adrian with the shot clicking off its final seconds. Calmly, the 6-9 forward dropped home his only basket of the game, a 3, to put the Mountaineers into the lead.

Adrian had one more key play left, the situation dire as Staten had just fouled out and WVU had to cling to a three-point lead over the final 4 minutes. That was when Adrian reached around on defense and knocked the basketball loose to Gary Browne, who snatched it up to gain credit for the steal, then made a pass to Jevon Carter to give WVU just enough breathing room to hang on at the end.

Adrian is a difference maker on this team, a different kind of player than the others.

“Nate is very smart,” said Staten, the team leader and himself a player who lives off his basketball intelligence. “It doesn’t take him long to pick up on things and make adjustments and that’s what’s helping him right now.”

It is crucial to Adrian’s success. Unlike Staten, he can’t get by on his God-given gifts.

“You look at him and he’s not the most athletic player. He’s not the quickest or the fastest, but the fact that he can elevate his game with this team we have now says a lot about him. He knows how to keep his job,” Staten said.

Adrian acknowledges the situation he is in and what he has to do to make up for his athletic deficiencies.

“There’s always ways to get around that,” he said. “You just have to play smarter. You just have to play harder.

“It’s a lot about being in the right position at the right time. You need to understand where you need to be to get the rebound or where you need to be to make the play. If you get in those spots athleticism doesn’t mean as much,” Adrian concluded.

That, of course, comes with experience, valuable experience he gained last season when he came out of Morgantown High and got to play as a freshman. Adrian averaged 19 minutes a game last season, scoring 5.4 points a game and grabbing 2.9 rebounds a game.

“This being the second year makes a big difference,” Adrian said. “You understand what coach Huggins expects of you and you understand what you need to do every day. You come in with a better attitude.”

Adrian said the realization started kicking in after the team came back from Cancun, Mexico, last year, beating Old Dominion but losing to Wisconsin.

“I think I finally started realizing the effort that needed to be put in to get through a college season and be successful,” Adrian said.

And now there is a big group of newcomers whom he is trying to pass the same knowledge onto in a similar setting — an early-season tournament about to play a top team.

In fact, WVU faces No. 17 UConn, the defending national champion, at 6:30 p.m. today on ESPN2 in a game that has the feel of importance to it.

“We’re 4-0 and we wanted to leave this tournament 5-0,” Huggins said. “We wanted to come down here and play a ranked team, and we wanted to come out of this tournament ranked. So we’ve got a chance to do that.”