UW men's basketball adds final piece to 2016-17 roster
Junior-college guard Louis Adams signs out of Odessa College in Texas
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Courtesy MGN
LARAMIE - A big part of recruiting in college athletics is building relationships, and that led Louis Adams to sign with the University of Wyoming men's basketball team.
The 6-foot-4, 185-pound Adams signed with the Cowboys Wednesday, and the school announced his signing Thursday. Adams fills the final scholarship available for UW for the 2016-17 season.
Adams spent last season at Odessa College in Odessa, Texas. The year before that, the Chicago product played at Indian Hills Community College in Ottumwa, Iowa.
Adams will have two years of eligibility with UW.
Adams has known first-year UW assistant coach Jermaine Kimbrough for a long time. The relationship the two built over the years led to Adams' signing with the Cowboys.
"I've known coach Kimbrough for a long time. I trust him and wanted to play for him, and it turns out I followed him here to Wyoming," Adams said.
"I think Wyoming is a good fit for me based on my relationship with coach Kimbrough, and for the style of play (first-year head coach Allen Edwards wants to play in terms of pushing tempo and pressing more on defense."
Adams helped Odessa reach its first NJCAA National Tournament since 2011 last season, and helped it win a NJCAA Region 5 Championship. He averaged 11.9 points and 3.5 rebounds per game. Over the final nine games of the season, Adams averaged 18 points per contest.
He shot 53 percent from the field and 72-percent from the free-throw line.
"First and foremost, Louis Adams brings competitiveness and toughness to go along with a great attitude and athletic ability," Kimbrough said in a news release from UW. "He helps us athletically get to the next phase of this program, and he can be a defensive stopper and a player to get the ball up and down the court."
Adams was in Laramie the last couple of days. He said he received scholarship offers out of Odessa from Memphis and Cleveland State, and also had "high interest" from UNLV and Arizona State.
"To get this quality of a player this late in the recruiting process is a plus for our program here at UW," Edwards said in a statement from UW.
"Louis brings edge, energy and excitement to what we are building here at Wyoming."
Adams played high school basketball for his father, Louis Adams Sr., at Orr Academy High School in Chicago.
Adams looks to solidify UW's backcourt depth, and at 6-4 gives them more size to go along other with the teams' other big guards/wings such as 6-5 senior Jason McManamen, 6-5 junior Alexander Aka Gorski, 6-4 senior Morris Marshall, 6-7 sophomore Justin James and 6-6 true freshman Austin Mueller.
