Rex and Adonis or Felix and Oscar? : Kansas Teammates Walters and Jordan Are an Odd, but Extremely Talented, Couple of Guards

Kansas guards Adonis Jordan and Rex Walters always liked each other fine.

Nice guy but a little quiet, Jordan thought of Walters.

Yeah, good guy, Walters thought of Jordan. But when does he sleep?

Jordan and Walters became teammates two years ago, the season Jordan was the point guard for the Jayhawk team that reached the 1991 NCAA championship game against Duke. Walters was a redshirt player who had to watch the Final Four from the bench after transferring from Northwestern.

They pretty much knew they would be paired as the starting guards the next season. What they didn’t know was what else Coach Roy Williams had in mind for them--Room 602-C in Jayhawker Towers dormitory on James Naismith Drive.

Jordan and Walters, both Californians, looked at each other. Roommates? Us?

The two are as different as Southern California and Northern California. Jordan, a Reseda Cleveland High graduate, spent his childhood in Brooklyn. Walters grew up in Northern California, and played at Piedmont Hills High in San Jose.

“Last year, we were assigned to room together, and I was like, ‘Oh no, I don’t know if that will work,’ cause we’re just two different kind of people,” said Jordan, who teams with Walters and versatile sixth man Steve Woodberry to give second-ranked Kansas one of the top backcourts in the nation.

“I consider myself one to go out a lot. He’d rather stay home. He’s one who’s more quiet, keeps to himself. I’m more outspoken than he is. I don’t want to come across like I’m a party animal. It’s just that, between us, comparing, I party a little bit more than him.”

It was a match that had its beginnings in Williams’ boyhood, when he and Walt Stroup, now a North Carolina banker, were the starting guards for Roberson High in Skyland, N.C., not far from Asheville.

“He was my best friend from high school, the best man in my wedding,” Williams said. “There might have been a lot of guys better, but there was nobody who knew each other better than we did.

“The whole point was to put Adonis and Rex together off the court. They’re both basketball nuts who love the game and talk about it all the time. I thought it would be good, even though they’re different. Adonis is so flamboyant; Rex is a little quieter.

“It helps so much when they understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses. The more you know about each other, the better.”

It wasn’t long before the things Williams envisioned started happening.

Jordan would come home to find Walters in front of the TV, and before long they were watching a game together, talking about the plays and the players.

When Walters went out for one of his marathon shooting sessions, Jordan might go along. And whenever they were together, they were only two guys away from a two-on-two pickup game.

“I learned a lot about what he’s looking for and where he wants the ball in what situation,” Walters said.

The friendship--a different kind of courtship, if you will--grew stronger.

“We got along great,” Jordan said. “We had our ups and downs, on whose turn it is to wash the dishes, stuff like that, whose turn it is to take out the garbage. But other than that, we’d have a great time. We’d come home after games, talk about the games, watch games on TV. Really, we’d just talk about basketball and we’d talk to each other about when I’m coming down on the break, where he likes to get the ball, and vice versa.

“It worked for us because last year I felt real comfortable playing with him even though we hadn’t had a lot of time to play together,” Jordan said. “I knew where he was at, and he knew I knew where he was at. I guess it did help out, seeing each other every morning and night.”

They came to know each other in a way not all starting backcourts do. A dish wasn’t just a nice pass, it was something Jordan could stand to wash occasionally. And if Jordan sometimes got on Walters for talking too much trash on the court, he also wanted him to keep taking it out at home.

This year, both players are seniors, and the household has been dissolved. Jordan is living off campus.

“I had to go my separate way this year,” Jordan said. “But we’re still close, still close, probably the same.”

Said Walters, “If we would have lived together again, it probably would have gotten to the point where we got on each other’s nerves. We’re very different.”

On the court, you’d never know it. Between Jordan and Walters, improvisation can look like a set play. There’s no hesitation on a two-on-one break, and no question that if Walters is open for a baseline three-pointer that Jordan will get him the ball. And if either drives and penetrates, the other is spotting up outside, ready for the shot.

They might not be the two best guards in the country--not with Bobby Hurley playing the point at Duke and shooting guard Allan Houston in the running at Tennessee--but Williams is completely satisfied with what he has.

“For what we want to do, I wouldn’t trade them for anybody in the country,” he said.

By that, he means they play Kansas’ disciplined, controlled game well, and they play defense.

Jordan runs the team with a heady presence, and is hard for anybody to drive around. Walters, a left-hander, is a shooter who passes well, too. He trailed Jordan by only 18 assists last season, and had four seven-assist games.

They both score in the teens most nights, fitting into Kansas’ balanced attack. But either can break through for totals in the 20s.

Jordan was a highly recruited player at Cleveland High and earned a spot in Williams’ heart when he stuck with Kansas as Williams’ first recruit, even though the Jayhawks were going on NCAA probation. Former USC star Harold Miner and Duke’s Thomas Hill were among those who decided to go elsewhere.

Walters took a more circuitous route to Lawrence. He picked Northwestern over Pepperdine, Santa Clara and Stanford.

“Kansas University has always been a school I watched on TV,” Walters said. “My dream coming out of high school was to go to UCLA. They never recruited me. When I went to Northwestern, we really struggled the first two years I was there. I decided I wanted to play basketball somewhere else.

“There were two schools I wanted to go to, No. 1 was Kansas, and Arizona. Arizona, they never really had any interest. Basically, they played games with me. UCLA showed interest. Coach (Jim) Harrick had recruited me at Pepperdine. But I decided if I liked my visit at Kansas, I would go. I had a visit set up at UCLA but I told Harrick no thanks. They were just loaded with guards.”

He arrived at Kansas in time to sit out the Jayhawks’ 27-8 season.

“I didn’t hear about him at Northwestern,” Jordan said. “I got his stat sheet and it said he averaged 17 points as a sophomore in the Big Ten, so I was like, ‘Uh, he must be doing something right.’

“It was hard coming into our system. It is a system where five guys have to touch the ball and work together. At Northwestern, he was kind of more the man who could come down and shoot any time. Here, he has to adjust to there being four other players just as good or even better than him. At first it was hard for him to change his style of play. After he learned the concept, and he saw us winning--we went to the Final Four the year he sat out--he’s adapted real good.”

One of the adjustments has been toning down a court demeanor that many consider cocky. It seems a contradiction to Walters’ quiet off-court style, but he theorizes that it has to do with all the years he has spent proving himself. One former coach told other players that Walters wouldn’t make the freshman-sophomore team in high school. Another told him he hoped he would make it to a nice junior college. Walters has never quit trying to put it back in their faces.

“Just that in itself motivated me to prove myself,” he said. “Coach Williams says he likes the fact that I’m very confident, almost to the extent of being cocky. But cockiness has negative connotations. I am extremely confident. If I wasn’t, or any player wasn’t, they wouldn’t play well. A player, to play well, has to have confidence.”

Jordan just wonders if confidence has to include chattering at the player trying to guard Walters.

“It comes out probably one in every five games, that he comes out and says something to another player,” Jordan said. “He’s getting better at it. Any time I see him talking I say, ‘Just play your game. Let your game do your talking. You don’t have to say anything.’ He was real bad about it, I guess, at Northwestern. He’s getting better about it now.”

Walters, though, is concerned about the way he is perceived.

“If cockiness has a bad connotation, it frustrates me, it always has,” he said. “I don’t like that I get this bad reputation. I’m very confident. Sometimes it comes out. I never said anything about anybody’s family, race or religion. I don’t think that’s right. I’ll say something like, ‘I’m going to score this time down,’ or ‘Better not let me get the ball.’ I don’t see that as bad. But I’m trying to let my playing do the talking.”

All of the Jayhawks are, really. They were one of four No.-1 seeded teams in the NCAA tournament last season, and their upset by Texas El Paso in the second round still rankles.

“I didn’t get over it until probably three weeks after,” Jordan said. “I couldn’t watch the rest of the tournament, ‘cause we should have been there. Coming into this season, our frame of mind is that no matter who you play, Georgia, Emporia State, anybody, you’ve got to be ready to play 40 minutes. That’s going to help us this year.”

This talk about the best backcourts in the country--Duke? Michigan? Seton Hall? Indiana?--isn’t anything Jordan and Walters will dwell on.

“We take pride in it, but as far as right now, we try not to think about it,” Jordan said. “We feel the more games we win, the more people will say we have one of the better backcourts. If our record is 4-20, its not going to be Adonis Jordan and Rex Walters.”

Walters agrees.

“All the awards always go to the teams that win championships,” Walters said. “You talk about the best backcourts. If a team wins it all, they’ll be recognized. Adonis and I are not trying to be the best backcourt in the country. We’re trying to be two players who are part of a very good team. If we do that, we’ll be very happy at the end of the season.”

They would like their reputation to live on, not as odd-couple roommates, but as a pair of guards able to take Kansas back to the Final Four for the fourth time in seven years.

“Basketball in Kansas is so important, and there’s a historical tradition that sets a standard for others,” Williams said. “I hope 10 years from now, people will be talking about, ‘Boy, these two might be as good as Adonis and Rex were together.’ ”