Can UConn Repeat?

Jim Calhoun was indecisive.

A month after his UConn men’s basketball team finished the season 11-0 in the span of 28 days to win the Big East and National championships, many people wanted to know whether the Hall-of-Fame coach would call it a career.

Well, Calhoun is back and he returns to the sidelines at the helm of a 2011-12 Connecticut squad that many, including himself, believe is more talented than the one that surprised many by its historic run through consecutive tournaments last season to cut down the nets.

“We’re more talented right now,” Calhoun told media during the team’s ring ceremony earlier this month. “It doesn’t mean we’re going to win any games. It doesn’t mean we’re going to win a national championship. I think we can.”

The Huskies return four starters from its national championship squad (Jeremy Lamb, Roscoe Smith, Tyler Olander and Alex Oriakhi) while supplementing them with a highly touted recruiting class that includes the No. 1 center in the class of 2011 in Andre Drummond. Also coming to Storrs is a 6-foot, 8-inch sharp-shooting forward DeAndre Daniels and Ryan Boatright, a 6-foot, supremely quick and athletic point guard.

The additions help mask the loss of four players including its MVP from a year ago, Kemba Walker, who was drafted by the Charlotte Bobcats in the lottery of June’s NBA draft. The other three players lost to graduation or transfer were role players: C Charles Okwandu, G Donnell Beverly and F Jamal Coombs-McDaniel.

Walker averaged 23.5 ppg last year for the Huskies, nearly a third of the team’s per game average of 73.4. Replacing that production, as well as his leadership, is the key for the Huskies as they attempt to defend their national championship in 2011-12.

The team will turn to sophomore guard Jeremy Lamb to take up that mantle. Lamb was inconsistent the majority of last season, that is until March. After averaging 10.3 points per game through February, Lamb averaged 16.2 ppg in tournament play. And it wasn’t just his offense, providing a critical second option to Walker, but his superb man-to-man defense and rebounding that led to UConn cutting down the nets.

None of that was lost on the UConn coaching staff who see Lamb taking over as their leader.

“I think you will see him with the ball a little bit more, probably,” assistant coach George Blaney told USA Today’s Ken Davis. “I think you’ll see him rebound more. His defense in the Butler game was spectacular. He’s got all-around skills and he can score so many different ways.”

After his emergence in March, Lamb spent the summer as the leader of USA’s U-19 basketball team that went 7-2 playing against the top team’s of the World. Lamb averaged 16.2 ppg and 4.3 rpg, almost identical to the numbers he put up in the NCAA tournament.

Make no mistake about it, the leader of this year’s team is Lamb. He is ready to become the star.

Surrounding Lamb in the Huskies’ starting lineup will likely be Napier at point guard, Smith and Oriakhi at forward and the 6-foot, 10-inch Drummond at center. The front court in particular, will be a dominant second option for the Huskies offense and help take the pressure off of Lamb.

This team has a number of strengths, but its defense and depth set it apart from other elite teams like North Carolina, Kentucky, Syracuse and Baylor.

The team will go 11 deep with players like fellow sophomores Niels Giffey and Olander, redshirt freshman Michael Bradley (out until December with an ankle injury) and Daniels coming off the bench who could all probably start for 99 percent of the teams in the country. The Huskies’ length and size up front may be unrivaled. They go four deep at the center position with players 6-foot, 9-inch or taller in Oriakhi, Drummond, Olander and Enosch Wolf. Throw in Daniels and Smith at 6-feet, 8-inches and you have an imposing front line.

This team will run, it will defend and it will rebound at levels that no other team in the country can match up with. But perhaps the biggest factor in why you should pick UConn to repeat as national champions is the experience the majority of this squad brings to the table after its national championship run last year.

“Last year’s team, we worked our butts off every day in practice,” Oriakhi told reporters earlier this month. “So if this team can do that and more then I definitely (think we can repeat). But, talent doesn’t mean anything without work, so I feel that as long as we’re willing to put in the work, everything will take care of itself.”

If hard work is the only concern for this Huskies team, then Calhoun and the Huskies should become the first team to repeat since Florida in 2007.


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