MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Have you noticed how smoothly things seem to run whenever Nathan Adrian is on the floor for West Virginia University’s 10^th-ranked men’s basketball team?

 

Adrian is not really the best at anything - shooting, dribbling, passing, jumping, rebounding, whatever - but he does have an uncanny ability of doing everything well enough to make everyone around him better.

 

In short, he just looks like a guy who’s played a lot of college basketball games, which he has - 119 and counting following Tuesday night’s 89-68 victory over No. 1-ranked Baylor.

 

And what a terrific game he played!

 

Adrian scored a career-high 22 points, grabbed a team-best six rebounds going up against a couple of seven-footers, made three steals and handed out a couple of assists.

 

He made the close shots - seven of 10 from the floor. He made the long shots - two of four from three including a couple of big ones in the second half. He made free throws - six of nine, which, for this team, is like making 50 in a row - and he made his coach sit down a little bit more comfortably on his stool whenever he was out on the floor.

 

Actually, Adrian has become so vital to the cause that he rarely ever leaves the court now.

 

Here’s a little secret: if you want to understand a player’s true value to a team by looking at a stat sheet, don’t look at points per game, rebounds per game, assists, steals, blocks, etc.

 

Go to the column that reads minutes played. That is the column all basketball-savvy people usually look at first. Why is it so meaningful? Because coaches who make a living by coaching play their best players the most.

 

Adrian is the team leader in that category at 28.2 minutes per game.

 

Now, go look at the minutes played column on page two of the stat sheet that consists of just West Virginia’s three Big 12 games. That’s the super-secret column all basketball-savvy people rely on. Why is this even more meaningful? Because your league games are the most important games of the season.

 

Here that number swells to 35 minutes per game. What that means is Bob Huggins simply cannot afford to have Adrian sitting on the bench for extended periods of time.

 

“(Adrian) means everything,” senior forward Brandon Watkins admitted. “He’s the heart of our team.”

 

“He’s our leader,” junior guard Jevon Carter added. “He can do whatever they ask him to do. He can shoot, pass, rebound and he can make plays for other people. He’s our go-to guy.”

 

What makes Adrian so special is his understanding of the game, which these days, sadly, is so undervalued and underappreciated.

 

The knowledge droppers never seem to make the SportsCenter Top 10 Highlights at midnight.

 

But Adrian understands what it takes to win difficult basketball games - when to shoot it, who to pass it to, who not to pass it to, who to guard, who not to guard, where to go when shots are missed, angles, situations, you name it …

 

“He knows what to look at,” Watkins said. “He knows the different options. He knows when it’s a good pass, a bad pass, when we should take the shot and when we shouldn’t. That’s the senior leadership that Nate provides us.”

 

Huggins was asked following Tuesday night’s big win over Baylor to describe Adrian’s basketball attributes.

 

His response was lengthy and very telling.

 

“He has really good feet,” Huggins began. “His best attribute is his ability to guard in the open court. When you think about who he’s guarding, he’s guarding all of the point guards, really, in our league, and he’s doing a heck of a job staying in front of them. He’s done a heck of a job turning them (over). He’s done a heck of a job leading them into double teams.”

 

Huggins continued.

 

“He hasn’t shot the ball very well as of late, but we know how capable he is of making shots. He never really drove it to the basket until the end of last year and this year - he was really a catch and shoot guy - and I think he has expanded his game,” he said. “He doesn’t do things that he’s not capable of doing very often. I think that’s the battle. Do what you can do. Don’t try to do things you can’t do.”

 

There is something else about Adrian that often goes underappreciated by the casual basketball observer - his toughness.

 

“He’s a tough dude, man,” guard Tarik Phillip explained. “I don’t think people know how tough he is. People look at him and underestimate him, ‘Oh, pretty boy, nice hair’ but to be honest with you, he’s one of the toughest guys on our team.

 

“He bangs with people that are way bigger than him and way more athletic than him - stronger than him,” Phillip added. “I don’t know how he matches up with them sometimes, but he does.”

 

These things are all nice to hear and read, but perhaps more important than his teammates and coaches saying it is Adrian actually starting to believe it.

 

This isn’t drinking poison from the cup of overconfidence, this is simply beginning to believe in yourself.

 

And self-confidence can be a powerful thing.

 

“Confidence means a lot to any college basketball player,” Adrian, a man of very few words but many deeds, admitted. “If you don’t have confidence, you’re not going to be successful. I lacked confidence the last three years and I’m trying to have a little bit in myself this year.”

 

Go ahead, Nate, soak it in.

 

Here is a little more to feed off of from your coach.

 

“He’s a heck of a player. If he’s not one of the best players in this league I want to see the guys better than him,” Huggins said.

 

Indeed, strong stuff coming from a man who knows.

 

So, soak it in, Nate. Soak it in.