Adena Andrews.com

LAS VEGAS — Can’t get an athletic scholarship to the Division I school of your choice? Try the next best thing. Try enrolling at a little school called Harvard University.

It’s not the conventional route. But that’s what hoops prodigy Jeremy Lin decided to do.

After four years of matching wits and jump shots in the Ivy League, Lin is now balling under the bright lights of the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas for the Dallas Mavericks .

“It’s great to get out here and play five on five. It’s been a while,” Lin said after a recent game in Vegas. “Obviously there is a lot of high-level athletes. Overall, it’s a fun experience”

Lin, captain of the California Division II state champs at Palo Alto High School, was a shoo-in for the state’s player of the year. He was first-team All-State and Northern California Division II Player of the Year. Yet he received no Division I scholarship offers upon graduation.

So Lin went to his fallback plan and enrolled at Harvard. It wasn’t his crossover that scored him a spot in the Ivy League. It was his IQ. The nation’s oldest university does not offer athletic scholarships.

Lin, who averaged 16 points, 4.4 rebounds and 4.4 assists per game as a senior point guard for the Crimson last season, was voted All-Ivy League First Team twice, was a finalist for the John Wooden and Bob Cousy awards and also received an invite to the Portsmouth Invitational. The most important accolades he left Harvard with were a degree in Economics.

In his what seems like his non-existent spare time, Lin also was editor of the school newspaper and interned for a California senator.

“The disadvantages [to playing at Harvard] — no disrespect to the Ivy League, but it’s not like playing in a bigger conference like the ACC, but the advantage is you play a disciplined game and you can’t be one step late,” he said.

Lin’s already impressed some important people around the league.

“He is deceptively quick, a sharp shooter and he’s got a great basketball IQ,” Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said, “I haven’t administered any test or talked in depth with him to test his other IQ.”

Said Lin: “Being able to see defenses and rotate and see where the holes are, that’s going to take some adjustment. Overall, I try to outthink the other team.”

Lin, whose parents are from Taiwan, also stands to be the only Asian-American player currently in the NBA.

“I’ve been blessed by God to be in this opportunity,” said Lin, signed by the Mavericks after going undrafted in June. “I’m trying not to think about it, to be honest. Because right now I’m in the process of trying to make it. But being able to play in the Summer League, the college situation, everything turned out perfectly. I’m just enjoying the ride.”

Donald Lee, an Asian-American basketball coach near Lin’s hometown in the Bay Area said, “It’s great to have players like Yao and Yi Jianlian, but they are born in China and don’t relate to the issues Asian-Americans face day to day. As someone who is heavily involved in Asian-American basketball communities, I think Jeremy will inspire more players to try to be like him in the future.”

At Harvard, all was not perfect. Lin dealt with racial slurs and plenty of heckling from what is supposed to be the nations brightest in Ivy League gyms. At Summer League he accidentally hit a player and a fan yelled “He went ninja on him.”

Still, Lin hasn’t let the pressures of being undrafted, Asian-American or the resident nerd on the team affect his play at Summer League. The scrappy guard put up 12 points and two assists in his first Summer League game and attacks the basket every chance he gets. Lin thrives on contact and seemed at ease as he called plays with cotton up his nose from a bloody play in the third day in Vegas.

“I’m just trying to play my game, just trying to showcase it,” Lin said. “Trying to be a playmaker, and that’s not always scoring. It’s other little things”

Lins’ goal is to land on someone’s roster, and rumblings around gyms in Vegas say Lin should have no problem finding a spot in the league. But Lin has heard the “you’re a shoo-in kid” speech before. He plays each game as if he doesn’t have a degree from Harvard to fall back on, if needed.

He excelled in the classroom. An NBA court is next.

Adena Andrews is a producer for NBA.com. You can follow her on Twitter.