Adlan Elamin is a Cincinnati Bearcat

Former Utah State F Adlan Elamin is following Jerrod Calhoun and his coaching staff to the University of Cincinnati. According to a source, Adlan Elamin has just signed with the Bearcats.

It was only ever going to be Cincinnati for Elamin due to his loyalty to the new Cincinnati Bearcats staff and his belief in their plan for his development.

Elamin, a 6’9 190lb wing, showed real promise in his true freshman season — 7ppg/3rpg on 44%/30%/83% shooting splits in a tough Mountain West Conference. He started the season on the bench, as you would expect most freshman to do, but by early December he had already taken junior PF Tucker Anderson’s job.

Elamin didn’t look back from there. He’d go on to start the remaining 28 games on the Aggies schedule. Those games included playing high leverage minutes in the MWC Conference Tournament and the NCAA Tournament vs. Villanova and Arizona. Mason Falslev was the last Aggie to start games as a true freshman on a Utah State tournament team back when they were an 8 seed three seasons ago. This isn’t something Cincinnati fans should shrug off — starting double digit games on a tournament team is uncommon for true freshmen at any level.

🏆 MWC regular season championship, MWC tournament championship ➕ a NCAA Tournament win as a starter in a true freshman season is a hell of a start to a career, but there is more.

Elamin’s play also caught the attention of NBA Draft expert Ersin Demir who thinks he could be a lottery pick in the 2027 NBA Draft.

Here is Ersin Demir’s extensive scouting report on Adlan Elamin.

#35 is on his jersey for a reason — his 6’9 height, 7’1 wingspan, and ability to shoot the rock is why you can see that Adlan Elamin looks up to future NBA Hall of Famer Kevin Durant, which he mentioned in an 11 minute interview with Pro Insight on YouTube ⬇

Elamin’s instinct and length led to an impressive 26 steals & 16 blocks in his rookie campaign. Coach Calhoun is likely going to run a matchup zone similar to the one we saw under Mick Cronin a decade ago, so Bearcats fans all know how important it is to have multiple players who have a balance of size, length, athleticism and quickness. Production ➕ impact as a freshman is almost always a good sign, especially when it’s in far and away the best mid major conference in CBB.

Adlan Elamin, then a scrawny 6’8 180lb wing, was under-recruited out of high school. Why? Mostly because he was on a stacked team full of stars — Paul VI out of Chantilly, Virginia. He also dealt with a hip injury as an upperclassman.

Paul VI has been the #1 team in the country 2 out of the last 3 seasons and had an outrageous amount of D1 prospects, all of who are playing meaningful minutes at the D1 level. The Panthers have also won 4 straight Virginia State Championships.

The list of now college players that were on Paul VI?

Patrick Ngongba II (5 ⭐ Duke), Darren Harris (4 ⭐ Duke, in portal) , Isaiah Abraham (4 ⭐ UConn, now GTown), Ben Hammond (3 ⭐ VT), Jordan Smith (#3 overall 2026, 5 ⭐ Arkansas), Garrett Sundra (3 ⭐ Notre Dame) and Adlan Elamin (3 ⭐ Utah State, now Cincinnati). All on a single high school team.

247’s Adam Finklestein had this to say about Elamin out of HS:

It’s easy to see how a super talented wing like Adlan Elamin could sneak through the cracks and end up in Logan, Utah with a chip on his shoulder. The decision to move across the country was a calculated gamble as Elamin turned down VCU and Iowa in the process.

VCU was in Elamin’s backyard, yet he chose to go to the VCU of the west in Utah State because of his relationship with the coaching staff, more specifically assistant coach Max Bent. Coach Calhoun hired Coach Bent as the team’s director of video and analytics for the 2025 season and promoted him as a bench assistant for the 2026 season. Coach Bent, who has followed Coach Calhoun to Cincinnati, had a prior relationship with Elamin’s family that was established at the DII level where Bent coached Elamin’s older brother at the University of Charleston (WV) in 2022.

That trust Elamin had in this staff to move to Utah from Virginia is even stronger now as he moves back across country for a leap up into Big 12 basketball in Cincinnati.

Elamin shot 60% from 2pt range which is pretty impressive for a wing/forward that spends a lot of time on the perimeter. His shot profile is exactly what Coach Calhoun wants to see out of players in his system. Rim attempts + 3 point attempts, with very little mid range looks unless wide open. Something Cincinnati Bearcats fans did not see much of during Wes Miller’s tenure, where Cincy became very content settling for mid range shots. There are rooms for improvement for the two-way player, but the shot selection is just the first step and he has that. ⬇

When talking about his game and Coach Calhoun’s preferences in a wing Adlan Elamin had this to say ⬇

Adlan Elamin burst onto the scene with an impressive true freshman campaign in Utah, but now looks to elevate his game to the Big 12 level as a Cincinnati Bearcats player. Short term Elamin is looked at as a 3 who can play the 4, but with long term skill development he could be a 2 at the next level. He played a lot of 4 for Utah State, but it was likely due to necessity as MJ Collins and Mason Falslev were locked in at the 2 and 3 spots respectively.

If Adlan ever gets a hold of his idol Kevin Durant you best believe KD will tell him to pop on some tape of his idol — former Cincinnati Bearcats star F DerMarr Johnson who was the first of his kind. While it is absurd and possibly offensive to compare young players like Adlan Elamin to legends like KD and DJ, it’s hard to not see the impact they have made on him as a tall, lanky, athletic wing who has the potential to shoot at a high level.

⬇ SUBSCRIBE TO CHATTERBOX BEARCATS ON YOUTUBE ⬇

Thanks for making it this far and hope you tune in for more year round Cincinnati Bearcats insights and opinions. Share and subscribe! E-mail me at [email protected] or DM me on Twitter @BearcatBunch.