Coming into the season, shooting guard was Danny Kaspar’s biggest unknown.
But after the maroon and gold’s 71-66 home win over Louisiana (9-14, 4-8 Sun Belt) on Saturday, the head coach is starting to feel more confident about one of his two-guards.
Texas State lost senior guards Tre Nottingham — the Bobcats’ No. 2 scorer last year — and Isaiah Gurley at the end of last season, leaving Kaspar with a massive gap at the two-guard spot on the depth chart. Kaspar brought in JUCO transfers Caleb Asberry and DeShawn Davidson to help fill the hole, though he didn’t expect either of them replicate Nottingham’s production right away.
Kaspar said at the team’s media day on Oct. 30 he was considering letting redshirt junior point guard Marlin Davis some minutes as the off-guard.
He also said junior guard Shelby Adams wanted a chance to play the position.
Adams had primarily served as the backup small forward during his first two seasons to senior Nijal Pearson. In 61 appearances, he’d started just once, averaging 3.1 points in 10.9 minutes per game.
For the most part, Kaspar’s taken a committee approach this season. Davidson leads the pack with 10 starts, followed by Adams with eight and Asberry with five. None have made a convincing case to take the starting job full-time — though Adams laid the foundation for one after posting double-digit points in consecutive games for the first in his career.
“Just my teammates talking to me, giving me confidence, telling me to stay in attack mode, staying aggressive (has helped),” Adams said. “And that comes with me just believing in myself and it's just been working.”
The Converse Judson graduate scored a season-high 12 points in Thursday’s 71-51 win over Louisiana-Monroe while guarding the Warhawks’ leading scorer, junior guard Michael Ertel. He followed it up Saturday with an 11 points, three rebounds, three assists, three steals and zero turnovers in the Bobcats’ win against the Ragin’ Cajuns.
“I'm just happy for (Adams) and it's good for the team,” Kaspar said. “If he can give me 11 points and three rebounds and not turnovers, I'll take that any day from a shooting guard.”
Pearson said it’s been a long time coming for Adams. The two usually guard each other in practice. Pearson’s seen first-hand how threatening Adams can be when he’s aggressive — knocking down shots from deep and slicing defenses open with cuts to the rim.
Adams has shown his defensive prowess during games. But Pearson’s been waiting for Adams to show his offensive talents.
“I tell him every game ‘Be aggressive, be aggressive, be aggressive.’ And I guess he finally wants to listen to me now, I don't know. Maybe he's tired of me shooting all the shots and he wants to shoot,” Pearson said. “When he's playing well, obviously (the team is) playing well, if you've watched the last two games. So nothing he's doing is surprising me. I'm just, I'm happy for him. I want him to keep going, keep going hard. Because he's got something, as y'all can see.”
Adams has now started in eight of Texas State’s past nine games. He’ll look to keep the hot hand going when the Bobcats (14-9, 7-5) travel to the east coast, taking on Coastal Carolina (12-11, 5-7) on Thursday at 6 p.m. and Appalachian State (12-11, 6-6) on Saturday at noon.
“He's worked very hard. You know, he deserves this with his work that he's put in. And so we're very happy for him,” Kaspar said. “He's a great, great young man and we're glad to get — anytime we can get some young men locally, like he's from San Antonio or Converse, and they're helping us, that's great.”
