OLD FACE, NEW PLACE

Greivis Vasquez's shoulders did not shake once all night.

Suiting up for the first time in his adopted hometown since becoming a first-round NBA Draft pick in June, the former Terrapin men's basketball team's star ran up and down the court for his new team, the Memphis Grizzlies, as they took on the Washington Wizards on Friday night.

But in front of a Verizon Center crowd peppered with Terp fans, Vasquez didn't provide one single shimmy, not even after hitting a pair of jumpers at the end of the first half.

The celebratory gyration had become a signature move of the Venezuelan in his senior season in College Park, where the flamboyant point guard led the Terps to a share of the ACC regular-season championship and garnered national accolades.

The shimmy might make a return one day. But for now, Vasquez is just a rookie hoping to find his place.

"I'm still trying to figure out the NBA game," Vasquez said. "I've just played in four games, so I'm still going through the process of adjusting myself."

Some of the changes have been easy, if still disconcerting. He's begrudgingly adapted to the Memphis color scheme, which features a North Carolina-like powder blue as one of its main shades.

"It's weird," Vasquez said with a shudder. "I never thought I was going to wear baby blue at all."

But he has faced more difficult roadblocks. After being drafted with the 28th pick this summer, Vasquez struggled with erratic play in the NBA Summer League thanks to an aching right ankle. He had surgery to remove bone spurs from the ankle in July, forcing him to sit out training camp.

Since his return, he's worked hard to cover missed ground, which has proved a formidable impediment given the grueling nature of an NBA schedule.

"So many games, so much traveling, so you've got to be very professional," Vasquez said. "You have to change to keep up. It's quick, and it's on a different level."

After playing briefly in three of the team's first nine games, he finally saw a breakthrough nearly two weeks ago.

Trailing Boston, 70-66, on Nov. 13, Memphis inserted Vasquez with 3:27 remaining in the third quarter. Within minutes, he had stepped up to sink a 3-pointer, waving his arms frantically at his newfound Grizzly supporters, imploring them to get louder with a passion now conspicuously absent from Comcast Center.

"I've coached very few players like him in terms of his ability to really be comfortable around all people," said coach Gary Williams, who speaks with Vasquez often. "Sometimes players, when you get some attention, sometimes they don't like the attention on campus. But Greivis could walk across campus, and he'd be disappointed if everybody that he walked by didn't come up and talk to him."

Vasquez added seven points, two rebounds and two assists to the flair he contributed in his 12 minutes on the floor against the Celtics. By the time he left the game, the Celtics' lead was down to one with just minutes left. The Grizzlies later tied the game before falling in overtime, 116-110.

Since then, his time on the court has increased. Recently, he moved ahead of fourth-year player Acie Law as the backup to starting point guard Mike Conley.

Still, he has been more measured on the court, rarely displaying the emotional highs and lows he did against the Celtics or in many of his games with the Terps.

"A lot of people didn't understand that a part of him, what he showed early, in his freshman and sophomore years, that little bit of insecurity," Williams said. "But as he got secure in his ability and his position on the team, he became a really great leader and great player for us."

Against the Wizards last weekend, though, Vasquez might as well have been back in Comcast Center. Even in enemy colors, he received a chorus of cheers every time he touched the ball. His three scores elicited some of the loudest cheers of the game, which was dubbed "University of Maryland Night" at the Verizon Center.

The most enthusiastic cheers came in the second quarter, when he drove into the lane and sunk a jumper before doing the same just two minutes later, rattling in another running jumper to move the Grizzlies ahead, 45-43, heading into halftime. He ended with five points in more than 11 minutes on the court in an eventual 89-86 Wizards victory.

"I thought he played with a lot of energy, and he played with a lot of confidence," coach Lionel Hollins said. "He was comfortable playing in here."

"I love my Maryland fans," Vasquez said afterward as he glanced at a tunnel leading onto the court, where a group of fans waited patiently for his autograph. "I'm always going to come back here because I feel like this is home for me. It was a moment that I can't really describe because they always supported me through my college career, and now they're supporting me through my NBA career."

kyanchulis@umdbk.com