NAMPA, Idaho – Watch Adonis Arms play a basketball game and you'll see high flying dunks, crossover dribbles, fancy finishes at the rim, steals and blocked shots.

You'll also see him talking to the opposing team, his team, his coaches, fans, himself and the referees.

And while that talking has helped earn him five technical fouls this season, it is really just the result of an extreme passion for the game he loves.

"The passion always comes out when I'm playing because I don't want to lose. Because I'm a winner," Arms said. "When that adrenaline kicks in, we got to go. Sometimes it goes too far. I don't think that is bad, it is just part of the game."

Arms has always been loud on the court. Watch a video of him playing when he is 10 years old in his hometown of Milwaukee, Wisc., and you'll see him calling for an and-1 after making a layup.

That competitive fire has been around since he first picked up a basketball at age 4. Off the court, though, Arms is easy going.

"His intensity on the court would lead you to believe he is that way off the court," NNU assistant coach Rodrick Rhodes said. "But anyone who knows him would tell you he is easy to be around. A light presence. He's a pretty funny kid.

"He's a kid that most people, if not all people, enjoy being around, but when you see him on the court he changes and has a different intensity."

That intensity has helped him dominate the Great Northwest Athletic Conference this season. He leads the GNAC in scoring (21.1 per game) and steals (2.1), is sixth in field goal percentage (59.4 percent), seventh in blocks (1.0), 12th in assists (3.0) and 15th in rebounding (5.4).

And all of that has helped the NNU men's basketball team have its best season since going to NCAA Division II in 2001.

"He is definitely the complete package in the way he can shoot the ball, attack the rim and create his own shot off the dribble," NNU assistant coach Jon Hawkins said. "He is a kid that we don't have to run a lot of action to. He creates separation to be able to score the ball."



YOUNG LIFE

Arms started playing the game at a young age.

He remembers watching NBA games as a youngster and watching the dynamic guard Steve Francis play.

Despite being from a family of football players, it was basketball that drew the young Arms in.

"I played football, but I didn't like the contact," he said. "I love basketball way more. You still have contact, but not all that tackling and getting hit hard. I'm cool with the crossover stepback."

Arms eventually started playing in youth leagues and then his mom's cousin put him on one of his traveling teams at the age of 9.

"I told Adonis I'm not about to waste my money or time, so I asked him if he wanted to play or not," Shayba Canady said. "He said yes and he's been playing ever since then. They used to call him Baby Jordan when he was a little kid.

"He always had a knack for it. When he was playing with other boys he had a higher natural skill level. You didn't have to teach him, he could just do it."

MOVING TO ARIZONA

When Adonis was 11, his mom decided to move the family to Arizona. There were many reasons for the move, one was to escape the cold weather, and another was to escape the bad neighborhoods of Milwaukee. But ultimately, Canady believed there were better opportunities for Adonis and his little sister Averie in Arizona.

"Milwaukee is really dangerous and she didn't want me growing up in the area we were living at the time," Arms said. "She wanted me to see a better life and experience how kids are supposed to grow up. She knew I would never forget where I came from and that would be a good thing because I'd always be hungry."

They left behind Adonis' dad, also named Adonis Arms, grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles. All to move to a place none of them had ever been.

Canady didn't have a job for the first six months they lived in Scottsdale, eventually getting a job working nights at a resort.

"I was a project manager before I came out here, and now I'm serving drinks from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. every night," Canady said. "Every night when I leave, I'm praying to God to keep my kids safe. I'm in a new state where I don't know anybody and I have to go serve drinks to feed my kids. But we made it through."

At times, Canady worked three jobs at once to keep her children fed and a roof over their heads. It's something that Adonis doesn't take for granted.

"I call her a superhero," he said. "I don't think I could've done that. I love her to death."

GROWTH SPURT

It's hard to imagine when you see him now, but Arms stood just 5-foot-9 as a senior in high school.

His diminutive size cost him minutes his junior and senior years at Desert Vista High School.

He eventually started growing, though, zooming up to 6-3 as a freshman in college and 6-6 here in Nampa.

After graduating high school, he landed at Mesa Community College in Mesa, Ariz., where he teamed up with fellow Nighthawks star Obi Megwa for a year.

Megwa played with Arms at a tryout for the team and when the coaches were deciding who they should keep and who they should cut, Megwa had an opinion that he related to the staff.

"I told them he is definitely a player that you guys should keep just for the long term and his potential," Megwa said. "He wasn't as big as he is now or as athletic, but I could see glimpses of what he could be."

COMING TO NAMPA

NNU assistant coach Jon Hawkins first saw Arms at a jamboree in Arizona. Hawkins grew up in Arizona and with no Division II schools in the state, he makes it a point to recruit in the desert.

He came back to Idaho and told head coach Paul Rush that this is a guy we need to go after.

"I knew coming in we needed an impact player and (Adonis) was one of those," Hawkins said. "You watch him and you think he has a chance to have a Division I opportunity."

At that point, Arms was talking to Division I schools New Mexico, Brigham Young and Idaho State, but the only Division II school he was talking to was NNU.

Part of that was the presence of Megwa and part of that was the relationships that Hawkins, Rhodes and Rush established with Arms and his family.

"I think we shared some things in common," Rhodes said. "I was an inner-city kid and he is an inner-city kid. I thought I could share some of the anxiety he could be feeling about coming to NNU and I was able to put him and his mom at ease. That he was coming to a safe environment."

And while the state of Idaho is predominantly white, Arms and his family weren't worried about him fitting in here.

"His personality is so outgoing that I never have a problem of him being acclimated to any environment," Canady said. "My main concern was how cold it was going to be up there. I sent him some heavy coats."

While Hawkins discovered Arms, it was Rhodes who did most of the recruiting. He went to Arizona twice to watch him play and practice.

Head coach Paul Rush had actually never seen Arms play in person until he had already enrolled at NNU.

Rush made a trip to Arizona for a home visit and Arms verbally committed after that.

"I just trusted Jon and Rod in their evaluation," Rush said. "They were both very adamant about him being great."

And that is exactly what he has been.

He turned heads on the court right away. From the double-overtime exhibition loss at College of Idaho to the victory against the University of Idaho to every conference game.

"I felt like he was the best player on the court in the Idaho game, offensively and defensively," Rush said. "I thought he could be a really good defender, but didn't know how well he could score it.

"Obviously, he scores really well."

Arms' all-around play has the Nighthawks on the brink of their first postseason berth since the 2010-11 season as well as their first national tournament berth as a Division II school.

"Last summer we were in a gym sitting and talking and I remember telling him the impact he was going to have," Megwa said. "I hadn't seen him for a while and I saw how much bigger he got and more athletic he got. I knew right away he was going to have a big impact in the conference."

Arms has certainly made that impact on the conference and hopes to continue it into the playoffs. His mom, who now works for Chase, and sister are traveling to Bellingham, Wash., to watch Arms play in the GNAC tournament. It will be the first time they've seen him play in person this season.

"If my mom gets to see me play college ball at a higher level and see the growth in my game and how much I love her and want to give her a better life, that would be better than any Christmas present or birthday gift or anything," Adonis said. "I'll be doing a lot of dancing that game for sure."

And that kind of emotion is more than welcome on the court.