The Lamb of Storrs
We, the collective college basketball viewing public, are used to a blueprint for UConn basketball under Jim Calhoun. First and foremost, his Huskies teams are anchored by a formidable front court. They, more often than not, lead the country in blocked shots. There have been the Emeka Okafors, Hasheem Thabeets and Josh Boones of the world to mount this attack.
Otherwise, Connecticut teams are led by a floor-controlling point guard. Taliek Brown, Khalid El-Amin, A.J. Price and Kemba Walker are some of the more prominent examples of ball-bouncing, offense-generating guards in Calhoun’s system.
The 2011-2012 reincarnation of UConn basketball may be the first time in a decade, the first time since Rip Hamilton or Ray Allen posed the Husky blue and white, that the team will instead be led by a jump shooting scorer. And don’t kid yourself. Even with the returning talent at other positions and the influx of great freshmen, this team will be run through and will rely upon a jump shooter.
People not familiar with the program may be inclined to call this Andre Drummond’s team heading into the season. After all, he is a hugely talented big man with NBA draft lottery potential. People may even go as far as to think this may be Shabazz Napier’s team since he fits the point guard mold so well. His speed and skill with the ball would allow him to be the floor general, if UConn were going that route.
Clearly though, after spurts of dominance last year and the length, range and touch that would make Jay Bilas blush, this Connecticut Huskies basketball team belongs to Jeremy Lamb.
He was hidden behind Kemba Walker a season ago, but even so, his talent shown through. There were spurts of brilliance early on, such as a four game stretch in December where Lamb shot a combined 21/39 from the floor and scored in double digits in each of the four contests. Then there was the stretch of games to start the new year where Jeremy scored in double figures in eight straight games, including three consecutive 20 point performances, all coming against ranked conference opponents. He finished strong as well, posting double digits in the final five games of the season, the final four of which, famously enough at this point, were all as road dogs against ranked Big East teams running through the gauntlet of the Big East Tournament; (their only “home” game being the opening round tilt against DePaul).
On the season, playing second fiddle to Kemba Walker, Jeremy Lamb shot over 48 percent from the floor. He did not have consistent, deep range last season but his repertoire of jump shots, inside floaters and his ability to get to the rim were something special. Lamb has a chance to vie for conference Player of the Year this season and this team has a very good shot at repeating as conference champions running behind him.
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