AAC Basketball: 25 best players from last decade (2013-23)

19. Jalen Adams

While UConn has been one of the best programs in college basketball since the turn of the century, Adams had the misfortunate of playing for the Huskies during one of their weaker runs in recent memory. A 6’3 guard who could play both backcourt positions, he made his way from Roxbury, Massachusetts as a perennial top 25 recruit and showed that potential for the Huskies, spending his first three seasons under Kevin Ollie before Dan Hurley took over for his senior year.

Adams had a respectable freshman season, though the most notable moment was his nearly full-court buzzer-beater to force quadruple overtime against Cincinnati in the AAC Tournament. His sophomore season saw him earn a full-time starting role and also saw a career-high 34-point outburst against Oklahoma State early in the year. Between his final two seasons, he averaged 17.5 points, 4.1 rebounds, and 4.1 assists per game, emerging as a real force for a Huskies team that was under .500 in both years.

Perhaps due to Connecticut’s lack of on-court success, Adams didn’t exactly leave school with a bevy of awards, settling for Third Team All-AAC as a senior. Still, he led the league in assists as a sophomore, 2-point field goals as a junior, and left campus as one of the AAC’s most prolific scorers in the conference’s brief history. He was unfortunately sandwiched between two very successful eras for the Huskies, but Adams’ contributions still matter for this program and for this conference.