SPOKANE — Sometimes the clamorous moments of college basketball aren't forged among students bobbing up and down in the stands or players pounding fists on chests or coaches ranting on sidelines.

One of Adam Morrison's seminal moments came on a quiet Sunday night, Jan. 23, at Gonzaga's new McCarthey Athletic Center. There was just him and his dad, and his pride, and his jump shot.

More than brooding, Morrison was burning, trying to figure a way out of a growing funk. First he'd been sick, then he'd been inattentive to his coaches' entreaties to be a more complete player.

And then, in a head-turner the day before, he'd been benched. The Sports Illustrated feature subject of last year as a freshman, everybody's favorite comparison to Larry Bird, was now relegated to being a reserve.

"I said, 'Let's go shoot,' " said John Morrison, who was a coach at the junior-college level. "He was shooting threes like they were free throws."

Oh yeah, Adam said, digging into his locker, take this home to Mom: It was a plaque commemorating his selection to the all-stars at the doubleheader in Oklahoma City late in December, when Morrison scored 19 in a victory over Oklahoma State. He hadn't even mentioned it to his parents.

None of it mattered, only the refinement of his game to the level he had established last season as a fearless freshman on a senior-dominated team.

Whether it was the benching, or that Sunday night or the hard work that followed, Morrison has blown up, as they say. Shaggy, dark hair flying — reminiscent of another Morrison, Jim — he's attacking the game again as Gonzaga begins another March campaign, against Winthrop.

Morrison had a career-high 30 points when the Zags took down Saint Mary's in the WCC tournament final, the night after he went for 25 against San Diego. That came two games after he drained a tough perimeter jumper at the buzzer to thwart San Francisco.

In his last four WCC games, he has averaged 26 points, with 16 assists and three turnovers.

"He was phenomenal," said coach Mark Few, describing Morrison's two games in the league tournament. "This team's taken on his personality. He's kind of an attacking player, and our team is maybe a little more like that."

In January, Zags coaches were alarmed about Morrison's defense, which has never been confused with shrink-wrap. They thought he might be defining his game by what he did offensively, forgetting things like rebounding.

As well, Few says, they wanted to get him to move away from the ball, to utilize screens, rather than indulge the natural inclination to come to the ball.

Now, they like what they see.

So do a lot of other people.

In attendance at the WCC tournament were about 20 pro scouts, among them Danny Ainge, Rudy Tomjanovich and Rex Chapman, no doubt there partly to see Gonzaga big man Ronny Turiaf. They couldn't have been disappointed with Morrison, who has some things appealing to the NBA: He has mannerisms similar to Bird, he's a scoring machine and in his ongoing battle with Type 1 diabetes, he has a story.

"You wish and dream this happens before his career ends, but I really didn't think it was going to happen this soon," says Morrison's father. "Personally, I think he needs to get stronger and a better handle and maturity and what-not, but it's nice to know he's on the radar screen."

Few takes a generally jaded view of NBA talk, saying scouts have seemed historically to focus more on Gonzaga's sophomores than its seniors.

"They just get fixated on young guys," said Few.

Morrison is the son of plain, down-to-earth people from the farm country of northeastern Montana. John and Wanda Morrison met, she remembers whimsically, at a "little bar hangout" called the Ponderosa in Scobey, Mont. He was playing professional basketball in Europe. She was just out of high school.

They have two grown daughters and Adam, who literally was shooting hoops on a plastic/cardboard basket before he could talk, getting upset at himself when they didn't go down. Even then, he had a little bit of Larry Bird's release.

"One thing he's always done is 'finish' high," said his father.

Via his father, he was always around basketball. John Morrison coached at Casper (Wyo.) College, and little Adam rode the bus with him, still in diapers.

"The men's and women's teams traveled together," the senior Morrison said. "A lot of times, I had ready-made baby-sitters."

Morrison grew up liking contact sports — wrestling, football, ice hockey — but an eighth grade in football convinced him he didn't have the body type. He concentrated on basketball, growing to about 6 feet 4 by his junior year at Mead High School. There, he shattered the year-old Greater Spokane League career scoring record of future Gonzaga teammate Sean Mallon.

"I give him a hard time," Mallon says, "about how much I shot compared to how much he shot."

PAUL SAKUMA / AP Gonzaga's Adam Morrison scored 25 in this win over San Diego in the WCC tournament. He had 30 in the tournament title game.

Well before he blossomed at Mead, Morrison learned the sobering limitations of his body. Sapped of energy at a basketball camp in eighth grade, Morrison was discovered to be diabetic, a disease on both parents' sides.

Folklore around Morrison's coping has become legendary: How he had a blood-sugar reading of 54 (milligrams of glucose per deciliter of blood, where 70 to 120 is considered ideal) when he scored 37 in the state 4A title game against Franklin in 2003; how he pricks a finger on the bench during timeouts to monitor the count; how his mother can sense during games when his sugar count might be out of whack.

The truth is, the monitoring is trying and tedious, and the condition never relents.

"These are the cards I got dealt, I guess," Morrison says, "so what can you do?"

In the diabetic community, word circulates. Morrison hears from other athletes, especially young ones, with the condition. He is happy to dispense his own story, with a caveat.

"You've got to listen to your doctor," he says. "I've had a lot of people ask me what I do. Consult your doctor before you consult me, know what I mean? It took my whole sophomore year in high school to figure it out."

Mallon rooms with Morrison on the road and sees the regimen: His early rising, the meals eaten at a precise time, separate from teammates.

"It's a disease that's 24/7," says Chris Dudley, a 16-year NBA veteran who lives in Portland and runs a foundation and camp around diabetics. "You don't get any time off. It's something you're constantly dealing with. On game days, I tested my blood maybe 13 times.

"I tell the kids at my camp it's not an exact science. A cold can throw it off. Adrenaline can throw it off. It's a hard deal."

Says Wanda Morrison, "I've taken a tremendous amount of pride in how well he's dealt with it. It's part of who he is right now, and he'll do whatever it takes to battle through it."

Morrison committed to Gonzaga near the end of his junior year, and then both caught a break.

Morrison grew to 6-7 as a senior, then to 6-8, and suddenly, he wasn't just a perimeter scorer, he was big and versatile enough to do damage around the rim.

Now he has the look of a player who someday, maybe soon, will hear his name called in the first round of the NBA draft, a major star who likely won't forget he's from basic stock.

"I'll be proud as punch if he does," says Wanda Morrison, smiling. "But when Adam comes home, he still has to take out the garbage and do the dishes."

Bud Withers: 206-464-8281 or bwithers@seattletimes.com