Ladies and Gentlemen, your '09-'10 UConn Huskies

For the first time this season, the college basketball world saw what the UConn Huskies can be this season.

After struggling through three games where they played mediocre basketball, the Huskies exploded tonight, jumping on a depleted LSU team early.

"We've been waiting since the exhibition season for us to have a breakout a little bit," Huskies head coach Jim Calhoun said after the game. "And quite frankly, it was a different kind of breakout.

"The breakout for us was playing with energy [and] getting back to rebounding."

And defending.

The Huskies this season are going to rely on the defensive pressure they can put on the ball. Playing their typical 2-2-1 press, Kemba Walker and Jerome Dyson hounded the Tiger back court, and in the process made getting the ball over the timeline a struggle.

There may not be a better on-the-ball defender in the country than Kemba Walker. He is as quick as a waterbug, hounding opposing ball handlers into taking tough shots off the dribble.

Kemba Walker set the tone for the Huskies defensively tonight.
(photo credit: SI)

See Bo Spencer as a perfect example. Coming into the game, Spencer was averaging over 20 ppg, but the Tiger point guard managed just five points tonight as Walker forced into 2-15 shooting before Spencer came out of the game with an ankle injury.

"He was really good on defense," Calhoun said. "He started putting pressure on [Chris Bass], who was penetrating in the first half, did a great job of adjusting to him."

Walker, who finished the game with 20 points and 3 assists, also was instrumental in leading the UConn break. While he can still stand to improve at running the Huskies half court offense, Walker's end-to-end speed with the ball in his hands and his vision leading the break make him the perfect point guard for Jim Calhoun.

"We love him," Calhoun said, "he has to work on making plays in the half court set. He has to identify open people, but we're not going to trade him."

But it was more than just Walker.

For the first time this season, Calhoun brought Gavin Edwards off the bench, and Edwards responded with 15 points, 7 boards, and 3 blocks, his best game of the season.

Stanley Robinson had a typical Stanley Robinson game, going for 14 points, 11 boards, and two highlight reel blocks. When "Sticks", as he is known to Husky fans, is playing with the kind of energy and aggressiveness he showed tonight, he brings a dimension to this UConn squad that few teams in the country can counter.

The star of this team, however, is Jerome Dyson.

He showed it in the second half.

After a quiet first 20 minutes in which he had just three points and struggled shooting the ball, Dyson took over in the second half, scoring 17 of his 20 points. Most of those points came as he attacked the basket in transition.

Transition basketball has been Jim Calhoun's bread and butter for years. With the athletes he has on this team, especially in the back court, that is where UConn must excel if they want to compete in the Big East.

And it is where they excelled tonight.

Calhoun agrees.

"[Tonight] was the first time that I saw Connecticut play this year."