He Stays on Move for Kansas : Southeast Regional: After relocating from New York, Reseda’s Adonis Jordan stars for Jayhawks.

Adonis Jordan begged his mother, Josephine, to let him get a gold cap on one of his front teeth, as had several of his friends.

“I wanted to put an ‘A’ on my tooth, for Adonis, but my mother told me to get a star because I might be a star someday,” he said.

So he got the star. And he is well on his way to becoming one, too.

Jordan plays for the Kansas basketball team that ousted No. 3 Indiana from the NCAA tournament Thursday night, 83-65. The Jayhawks (25-7) will play No. 2 Arkansas (34-3) in the Southeast final today at 1:40 p.m. (PST) at the Charlotte Coliseum.

A 5-foot 11-inch, 190-pound sophomore from Cleveland High in Reseda, Jordan averaged 12.3 points and three rebounds in his first season as the Jayhawks’ starting point guard. He leads the team in assists with a 4.5 average and in free-throw shooting at 80.4%.

And although Jordan has yet to make an All-American team, he is probably the captain of college basketball’s all-name team.

“My mom said she got my name out of a book,” Jordan said. “She liked it and she just stuck it on me. Honest.

“My two older brothers have normal names (Anthony and Patrick). But since I was the youngest one, she wanted to give me something crazy.

“I didn’t like my name when I was small. People couldn’t pronounce it. Kids used to call me ‘A Doughnut’ to tease me. I’d call someone on the phone and say ‘This is Adonis,’ and it would be ‘Who?’

“But once I got older and realized what it meant--the Greek god of love--I started to like it because it’s a unique name. I tell all the girls that I’m named after the Greek god of love.”

Actually, Adonis was not a god, but a handsome young mortal who was loved by Aphrodite, the goddess of love. And Adonis has become something of a discriptive term for a muscular male physique, language not lost on Jordan.

“I like watching the strong guards like (former Michigan star) Rumeal Robinson,” Jordan said. “I worked real hard this summer trying to get (muscles) toned because I know I’ll have to get stronger each year to be a better player and be able to play in the pros.”

Born in New York, Jordan became a playground star on the parks in Brooklyn.

“My neighborhood was really rough, and it’s even worse now,” Jordan said. “It’s gotten real crazy with all the drugs.”

Seeking a better life for her son, Jordan’s mother moved to Reseda in the summer of 1987 before his junior year of high school.

“My mom went out to California for a vacation and said we were moving,” Jordan said. “I thought she was just joking until she started wrapping up the dishes in newspaper.”

But Jordan resisted the move because he feared that he wouldn’t be successful in Southern California high school basketball.

“I was the only sophomore on the All-City team in New York, and I felt that if I moved to L.A., I’d have to start all over again,” he said. “But my mother told me if I was good in one place I should be good in a new place.”

Jordan averaged 24.3 points and 13.4 assists as a senior at Cleveland High in 1989 while leading the Cavaliers to a 23-3 record and the quarterfinals of the City Section tournament.

Heavily recruited, Jordan chose Kansas, even though the school was on NCAA probation at the time.

Harold Miner of Inglewood High also was considering Kansas but signed with USC.

“I was really high on Kansas,” Miner said. “But then they went on probation, and I decided that I’d rather stay at home and go to USC.”

Guard Thomas Hill, a high school All-American from San Antonio, also changed his mind about going to Kansas and chose Duke.

Because Jordan stuck by his original plan to become a Jayhawk, Kansas Coach Roy Williams said Jordan will always have a special place in his heart.

“If he never makes another basket or if he scores 5,000, he’ll still be extremely special,” Williams said.