Inside WSU guard Adria Rodriguez’s transition from Spain to America

PULLMAN – Sometimes, Adria Rodriguez will make a strategic move at the dining center. He’ll be eating dinner at the Gray W, the room in the Cougar Football Complex where Washington State athletes eat meals, and he’ll pack another meal. He knows he’ll be hungry late at night.

“I think the culture shock is almost more than the basketball shock,” WSU basketball coach David Riley said.

Rodriguez isn’t just new to WSU’s basketball team, averaging 3 points and 3 rebounds per game as he tries to find his niche with the Cougars, who are 8-10 on the season. He’s new to the United States altogether. He’s a native of Sant Just Desvern, a town right outside Barcelona, Spain, where he lived the first 21 years of his life.

As he navigates year 22, Rodriguez is adjusting to life in the U.S., where most everyone eats dinner around 5 or 6 p.m. Where he’s from, Rodriguez eats around 9 or 10 p.m. So when he hits the dining center for dinner, he has to think ahead, knowing that even as he logs his sixth month living stateside, his brain is still adjusting to the difference in meal times.

It may not be a huge struggle, but it does provide a window into ways Rodriguez is learning to live a different way, and play a different style of basketball for the Cougars. So much is different about his life in January than it was in June: He speaks a different language and lives some 4,500 miles from his parents, who recently visited Pullman. He also has different friends, and roommates.

Rodriguez, a 6-foot-4 point guard in his final year of eligibility is averaging about 19 minutes per game, and has yet to score in double figures. He’s shooting just 37% from the field, including the same mark at the free throw line, an area that has flummoxed him in spots this season.

Still, he gives the Cougs a lot on the court. Rodriguez is one of the team’s best defenders, especially on the ball, where he uses his long wingspan to rip away steals and bat away what feels like a thousand deflections a game. He’s a pristine organizer, and gets his teammates in the right spots directing passes their way, though his 2.4 assists per game may not exemplify it. For the most part, Rodriguez has been a reliable ball handler.

But it’s clear that scoring has not come as naturally to Rodriguez. That’s where he likes to point to the difference in playstyles. In Spain, he says, things are more spread out and the ball is flying around. In America, those opportunities are in shorter supply.

“I would say that the big difference is maybe there’s more people in the paint, so it’s more hard to score,” Rodriguez said of the American game. “One of my big talents that I have is trying to touch the paint, creating for others, finishing, doing layups, whatever. So I would say the big difference is there’s more physical bodies inside the paint.”

It’s taken a toll on Rodriguez, who has had to work to stay true to himself, and keep the parts of his game that caught the attention of Riley when the head coach recruited him in Spain.

The forward has also struggled at the free throw line, missing a pair of foul shots in WSU’s road loss to Saint Mary’s on Saturday, which followed a more promising 3-for-3 effort against Oregon State in Spokane .

During practices in the fall, as the Cougs were preparing for the season, Rodriguez appeared comfortable, playing like he had nothing to lose. He was nutmegging teammates with regularity, Riley said, completing behind-the-back passes to set teammates up with easy layups. But as WSU got off to a rotten start to the season, opening 3-8, Riley could see things start to wear on Rodriguez.

“I think because of all the stuff we put on them schematically, defensively and offensively,” Riley said, “learning the plays and learning the system, it’s hard to see the creativity when you’re just trying to survive. There wasn’t a set of games that that happened. You saw him get seven rebounds the other day. You hadn’t seen that all year. The other aspects of his game are starting to show through because he’s actually able to play like himself and not think out there as much.”

“I think when I’m playing like that, I’m more creative,” Rodriguez added. “I’m trying to make good passes, finding my teammates in open spots, yeah. Sometimes I’m trying to do random passes or passes that not everybody can do.”

Is the message getting through to Rodriguez? In the Cougars’ win over the Beavers last week in Spokane, he lost a turnover trying to throw a behind-the-back pass – but Riley didn’t mind because it meant his point guard was taking chances trying to be himself. In the same game, Rodriguez broke free in transition and tried to jam a dunk over an OSU defender. He was fouled and went to the stripe, where he knocked down two free throws.

Can the Cougars continue to turn things around with Rodriguez playing like that? It sure wouldn’t hurt. WSU’s next game is a home showdown on Thursday with No. 9 Gonzaga. In that one and the contests to come, Riley said, Rodriguez doesn’t need to score 20 points per game. He just needs to attack closeouts, get to the basket, apply rim pressure, move the ball, and play the kind of sturdy defense that ignited the Cougars’ turnaround on that end of the floor recently.

Rodriguez is still getting better at speaking English, his second language. He’s improving at speaking Riley’s language on the court also .

“When my family was here, we went to Walmart, and we were trying to find some Spanish food,” Rodriguez said. “We were trying to do the holidays with some special Spanish food.”

And did it come close?

Rodriguez smiled wide and laughed: “No.”