Larry Brown Sports

For those of you who haven’t been following, the UConn Huskies have a legitimate shot at contending for a national championship once again this season. Kemba Walker left early for the NBA after a legendary season, but Jim Calhoun has once again put together one of the top freshmen classes in the country. Not only that, but UConn is returning Jeremy Lamb, a sophomore forward who many are picking as preseason Player of the Year.

UConn’s incoming class was on display in a big way at Friday Night’s midnight madness in Storrs. Check out this video that the Hartford Courant put together of Andre Drummond and Ryan Boatright tearing up the dunk contest.  The real action starts around the 50-second mark.

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Northern Arizona coach Mike Adras was the only voter in the ESPN/USA Today poll not to vote tournament champion UConn the number one team in the final poll of the season. Instead, Adras voted Ohio State number one and Kansas second in his ballot, followed by UConn.

Explaining his decision, Adras said “I voted for who I thought was the best team in the country based on the entire body of work during the season. I believe it is Ohio State. I want to congratulate Connecticut for winning the NCAA tournament. They deserved it.”

The 30 other voters in the coaches’ poll put UConn first followed by Butler, and Kentucky. The other Final Four participant, VCU, ended up sixth in the final poll, with Ohio State and Kansas ahead of them.

Adras must be reading LBS because we wrote the exact same thing a week ago saying none of the Final Four teams deserved to be the national champion. Was UConn the best team in the country? I still say no. Was Butler the second best team? Far from it. And was Kentucky the third best? Were all these teams better than Ohio State or Kansas? Not in my eyes, and I’m glad at least one person was thinking outside the box and voted accordingly.

If the 2011 NCAA Tournament consisted of a stronger field of teams, UConn probably would not have cut the nets down on Monday night.  Teams like Ohio State, Duke, and North Carolina losing made the Huskies’ path to the Final Four a bit friendlier than it may have otherwise been.  Still, it was not easy.  After winning five games in five days at Madison Square Garden, no one believed Connecticut would have the energy needed to get through the grueling Dance.  They powered their way through March, proving all the doubters wrong.  Above all else, the run proved Jim Calhoun wants you to hate him.

Make no mistake about it: Calhoun has few fans outside the state of Connecticut.  Even in Connecticut, the 68-year-old Boston Irishman has had disagreements with the governor, his athletic director, and the the coaches of other UConn programs (cough, Geno Auriemma, cough).  The more people who want Calhoun to lose, the more motivated he becomes to win.

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The UConn Huskies won their third national championship in school history Monday night, defeating the Butler Bulldogs 53-41. UConn started off the game slowly and was actually trailing 22-19 at the half, but a superb second half effort gave them the win. Butler disappointed with one of the poorest performances we’ve ever seen in a title game, and a lot of it can be attributed to UConn’s defense.

Muscle Milk, which is sponsoring this story, reminds us that anyone can excel on any given day and that Muscle Milk can help you become the best YOU can be. UConn coach Jim Calhoun must have either given his players some Muscle Milk shakes at halftime or lifted their spirits with an inspirational speech, because their defense was impenetrable in the second half.

Check out some of these mind-boggling statistics that tell the story of the game better than any words can:

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In less than six hours, UConn and Kentucky will tip off the second of two Final Four match-ups in Houston.  Jim Calhoun and John Calipari, two coaches who have hated each other for more than 20 years, will lead their squads in an effort to play for the National Championship Monday night.  Unsurprisingly, talk about the actual game has quickly been overrun by news about recruiting violations — excuse me, more recruiting violations.

Calipari and Calhoun run programs that drive college athletics purists insane.  Both coaches are no strangers to being accused of cheating, so they are certainly adept to handling any distractions that the latest news may cause leading up to Saturday night’s game.  In any event, we’re not here to go into the details of the latest accusations.  FOX Sports has an exclusive report about Kentucky that claims a former staffer made illegal contact with several recruits.  The New York Times spoke with former UConn recruit Nate Miles, and Miles is claiming Calhoun lied to NCAA investigators and actually knew illegal benefits were being provided.  The issue to me isn’t about the potential violations, but the timing of the release of the reports.

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This moment of madness brought to you by Muscle Milk®. It’s powerful protein. Drink. Evolve™

Jeremy Lamb may not be the most media savvy player in college hoops, but the young freshman might just be the difference between UConn winning its third national championship and going home as just a Final Four participant.

The Huskies have won nine straight postseason games and will face Kentucky in the Final Four Saturday for a shot at the championship game. One of their most valuable players this tournament has been Jeremy Lamb, who’s supplemented the stellar play of Kemba Walker. But before we go further talking about Jeremy Lamb, we must flashback to 1984 to understand how this story has evolved.

Lamb is the son of Rolando Lamb, a former VCU guard from the 80s who hit a game-winning shot in the tournament to defeat Jim Calhoun’s Northeastern squad in 1984. When Calhoun, the UConn coach since 1986, first called Lamb as a recruit, he had no idea that his father was Rolando. Upon finding it out, he told the elder Lamb that he owed him something — his son as payback for the shot in ’84. Rolando delivered, and Jeremy attended UConn and has become more meaningful for the Huskies than anyone could have imagined.

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UConn has advanced to the semi-finals of the Big East Tournament after beating DePaul, Georgetown, and Pittsburgh in a three-day span.  The story of the afternoon on Thursday was once again Kemba Walker — the nation’s best point guard in my opinion — who scored 24 points.  None were bigger than the two that came with 0.00 seconds remaining in the game.  Check out the Kemba Walker game-winner against Pitt, courtesy of Mocksession:

The shot was incredible, but Gary McGhee should have switched back and let Brad Wanamaker cover Walker.  He had to have known he was going to either drive or take a step-back jumper.  McGhee allowed him to get more space than he needed to hit the shot, which is Walker’s bread and butter to begin with. In any event, UConn stays alive and moves on to face the winner of St. Johns and Syracuse on Friday night.  The Huskies have given themselves a huge boost in NCAA tournament seeding.