STORRS – Caught up with Jeff Adrien, who was at Gampel Pavilion on Tuesday working out with the young Huskies.
“I push them the way I was pushed when I was here,” Adrien said. “The older guys pushed me when they came back, Donny Marshall, Kevin Freeman. And my freshman year, Hilton Armstrong, Josh Boone, Ed Nelson definitely pushed me. This is a young team, they don’t have many older guys on t his team. They’ve got to learn from someone and start somewhere.”
Adrien, 27, who captained the Huskies in 2008-09, played in Spain before working his way back for a shot in the NBA. He’s establishing himself now. This past season, he played in 52 games with Charlotte, starting five, averaging four points and 3.8 rebounds in 13.7 minutes.
“It was a good year,” Adrien said. “I learned a lot, I played more than in past years. Right now [my career] is on the right track, and hopefully it will continue to be on that right track. Now, I’ve got to get ready for this season, so these guys are helping me, too.”
Adrien, 6-7 and over 240 pounds, gave UConn’s young and wiry bigs, Phil Nolan, Amida Brimah and Kentan Facey, a workout, an example of the burlier front court players they will be facing.
“Just fundamentals,” Adrien said, “trying to get them thinking the game, it’s so much more mental than physical. There’s a lot of physical, too, but you have to get your mind right.”
After the workout, Adrien headed to Glastonbury, where he is running a summer basketball camp for boys and girls 8 to 16, which ends on Friday.
“Whenever one of our former players come back, I always want them to interject and say something,” associate head coach Glen Miller said. “That’s what this program is all about, relationships, family.”
Did a one-on-one interview with freshman Amida Brimah for the the Wednesday print edition; that story is up on our site now.
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It is all but certain that Enosch Wolf will not come to back to UConn to try to play as a walk on. The 7-foot-1 center, who was taken off scholarship following the legal and campus review process stemming from his arrest last February, tweeted this week “excited to begin a new chapter.”
It would have cost Wolf more than $45,000 in tuition to return to UConn as a foreign student.
In brief communication, Wolf told me he cannot say what that ‘new chapter’ is just yet, but will elaborate soon. Speculation: He will sign a pro contract in Germany. If he were to transfer to another school, he’d almost certainly have to sit out a year.
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UConn released its women’s basketball non-conference schedule on Monday. The men’s schedule is coming soon, but the program is waiting on American Athletic Conference approval. … Coaches will be hitting the road to watch recruits in various tournaments in Philly, Indianapolis and the Peach Jam in Atlanta. … Just a random observation: DeAndre Daniels, just back from the Kevin Durant Skills Academy in D.C., seems to carry himself with more confidence every time I see him. … On the injury front, Omar Calhoun, who had surgery on both hips, recovering on schedule, but needs four more weeks of rehab. He will not be playing in the Greater Hartford Pro Am. The staff is taking is extra cautiously with Tyler Olander, recovering from the broken foot. So he is unlikely to play in the GHPA. … Jim Calhoun is also on the mend, having had knee replacement surgery.
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