Kelvin Kim sits patiently inside a stuffy office in the University of California, San Diego’s athletic department. Generously listed at 5 feet, 10 inches in the media guide, his bulky, muscular build seems suited for the mold of a compact Greco-Roman wrestler.

But you won’t find the 20-year-old junior plagued by a nasty case of cauliflower ear after a sweaty session on the mats. Kelvin spends his days on the hardwood of UCSD’s Rimac Arena preparing for his second season as the Tritons’ starting point guard. One year after transferring from the University of California, Los Angeles, Kelvin has found his niche at UCSD after a season where he averaged 8.8 points per game and led the Tritons in assists (3.8) and 3-point percentage (50).

Despite an exceptional high school career where he was named 2004 South Coast League MVP while at El Toro High School, Kelvin has always had his share of doubters. A quick search on the message boards of prep scouting site SoCalHoops.com reveals numerous posts questioning Kelvin’s prospects, prophesizing that “Kim will never play a game at the next level, unless it’s intramurals,” or “He’s good, but he’s like 5’2. Way too small to play at anything but a JC.”

Kelvin insists that the criticism doesn’t bother him. Growing up in Lake Forest, Calif., he grew accustomed to proving himself on the court. He recalls his older brother Ryan roughing him up in competitive one-on-one driveway battles. “He was always bigger and stronger than me,” says Kelvin.

When asked at what age he finally surpassed his brother on the basketball court, Kelvin remains modest, choosing instead to focus on the unique relationship that the two brothers developed on the court.

“He’s actually my biggest fan,” says Kelvin. “We played on the same team his senior year and my sophomore year. It was a weird situation because I got to play a little bit more than him and everyone was always asking me, ‘Oh, is there any jealousy or rivalry going on?’ But there was never any sense of that. He’s always encouraging me.”

Ryan, a junior psychology major at UCLA at the time, played a large part in Kelvin’s decision to join the Bruins in 2004 as a preferred walk-on, despite scholarship offers from East Coast schools such as Boston University and Colgate.

“I didn’t know if I was ready to move that far and I really wanted to focus on academics [and] basketball. I tried to find a school that fit both of those needs.” An added incentive was that Kim’s parents, co-owners of a small construction business in Orange County, could make the short commute to Westwood to see both of their sons.

Kelvin achieved near cult status in Westwood during his one-year stint as a human victory cigar (a player stuck on the bench until the final minutes of a lopsided victory) on UCLA’s 2004-05 Pac-10 Champion and Final Four team. Despite only appearing in seven games, the Pauley Pavilion arena often erupted into chants of “Kel-vin Kim! Kel-vin Kim!” calling for head coach Ben Howland to insert Kelvin into the lineup.