From turmoil to stability, Amanda Adamson's odd 10-point, 20-rebound performance on Saturday against Texas Tech is emblematic of what she's experienced in the past.
In one word, her basketball career has been peculiar.
Keith Cieplicki, who recruited Adamson to play for Syracuse, resigned in June 2006 after a short and tumultuous tenure with the Orange. Under him, five players, two assistant coaches and the director of basketball operations left the program.
Adamson was one of those players.
"Personally, for me, I'm a really organized person - I like to know what's coming," Adamson said. "Every game it was something different; every practice, something different."
Adamson, who averaged 3.5 points and made 15 starts in two years with the Orange, said it wasn't a matter of playing time.
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"I went from playing one game - 40 minutes - to zero the next game," she said. "I can deal with not playing when I'm on a great team with great players. But it wasn't that."
The lack of structure and allegedly insensitive environment at Syracuse - Cieplicki was accused of threatening scholarships and disrespecting players - was a precursor to what was to come.
In the 2006 season, Adamson transferred to UNM. She sat out that first year due to NCAA regulations but in 2007 appeared in 32 games - only 20 fewer than she did in two years at Syracuse.
Adamson said it was a simple choice - she just wanted to go somewhere where structure was a part of the equation.
"I wanted a coach with experience, with a credible record," she said.
Her choice: a coach who was entering his 12th year of coaching at the University - Don Flanagan.
Flanagan introduced a sense of constancy - basketball-wise - into Adamson's life.
"Here, we have an offense; we practice it every day," she said. "And we don't change it."
But Adamson can't seem to escape the oddities that have plagued her in past years. In her first career double-double, Adamson set a career-high and had twice as many rebounds - 20 - as points.
"Wow," Flanagan said in astonishment. "She's my idol. I didn't realize she got that many and then she helped bring the ball up. I thought it was her best game. I thought in the first half, they couldn't guard her. She had a special night."
Adamson said she had a nose for the ball.
"I was where the ball was going," Adamson said. "It happened to be my game for rebounding. I think we were just boxing out really well."
Flanagan said Adamson's size, coupled with the fact that she is shooting 40 percent from the field, makes her a strange matchup for opponents.
"She kept driving them," he said. "If she would've finished a few more of those drives, she would've had a big night offensively. She's difficult (to guard)."
Adamson is definitely OK with that, as long as she doesn't have to experience anything else out of the ordinary.
"Uncertainty," she said, "I don't really like that."
