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As a senior basketball player at Montrose Christian, former All-Gazette performer Adrian Bowie was rated among the nation's top 30 shooting guards by both Scout.com and Rivals.com.

That was high praise indeed for the slashing Bowie. But his current mentor, University of Maryland head coach Gary Williams, believes the speedy left-handed sophomore will be more successful collegiately at a different position: point guard.

"He talked to me and he told me what I needed to work on to get better," Bowie said. "He said to get better at my ball-handling, because at my size [6-foot-2] I'm not going to be a three [small forward] or a two [shooting guard]. … It just came about like that."

Bowie put in that extra work, and after lopsided losses to Gonzaga (81-59 score) and Georgetown (75-48) at the Old Spice Classic (Fla.) in late November, Williams altered his lineup and handed Bowie the keys to the offense. The result has been seven straight wins for the Terrapins (11-2), including Saturday's 85-75 victory over Charlotte in College Park.

"It's been a hard transition," said Bowie, who followed current teammate Greivis Vasquez as Montrose's point guard in 2006-07 and led the Mustangs to a 21-3 record. "Sometimes I'm just looking to score instead of running the offense. I have to develop as my time keeps going on. I just came in and worked hard this summer and God blessed me with the opportunity to start. I'm just going to take advantage of it."

Bowie has certainly done that. Although struggling with his perimeter shot in recent games, Bowie finished the Charlotte win averaging 9.5 points, 2.7 assists and 2.8 rebounds in 24.2 minutes per game. The points and minutes played rank fourth on the team.

Besides the raw numbers, Bowie's emergence has freed up junior guards Eric Hayes (10.3 points per game) and Vasquez (18 ppg) to be more offensive with fewer ball-handling responsibilities slowing them down.

"He's a real quick guy who can get to the basket and penetrate, and distribute the ball as well this year, so we have another dribbler on the floor to give us opportunities and give us good looks," Hayes said. "He's also another guy on defense who can hawk on the ball. He's very athletic. He's good all-around player … and on offense, he gets us an awful lot of shots."

"He adds a lot to the team," added Vasquez, who leads Maryland in points, rebounds (6.2 rpg), assists (4.9 apg) and minutes (33.3 mpg). "Hopefully, he understands he has to be in the gym 24/7 because we need him to play hard. He's a big part of the team. … We played together in high school so we pretty much have good chemistry together. In practice, it's unbelievable. When we're running through the plays and fast breaks, we just kill our teammates because we've been together for so long."

Bowie's emergence and the continued strong play of Vasquez come as no surprise to Montrose coach Stu Vetter, who saw each perform at a high level against some of the best high school competition in the country. The pair of guards helped form one of Vetter's most talented teams in 2005-06, a squad that also featured former College Player of the Year Kevin Durant, averaging 23.5 ppg for the NBA's Oklahoma City Thunder through Saturday.

"It's nice to see," Vetter said. "It's the former Montrose backcourt playing at Maryland, contributing and doing a great job. They play well together and complement each other as well."

Bowie, Vasquez and Maryland will conclude their non-conference schedule Wednesday against Morgan State. The Terrapins then play 16 straight Atlantic Coast Conference games to finish the regular season.

Bowie hopes to be the point man to lead Maryland back to the NCAA Tournament after being left out a year ago.

"Just get back to the NCAAs, that's the main goal," Bowie said. "I want to play well as a point guard and help the team out the best that I can."