The Daily Campus

Issue date: 3/21/08 Section: March Madness

Media Credit: Erik Kong The Huskies may be one of the most athletically gifted teams in the NCAA Tournament field, but only Jeff Adrien and Craig Austrie (above) have played in the Big Dance before today.

There are many people who think the men's basketball team has a chance to make a run in the NCAA Tournament.

They like how the team is put together with a shot-blocking machine controlling the middle.

They like the scoring ability of A.J. Price and they like the late-game poise shown by Craig Austrie throughout the season. They also know that when Stanley Robinson has a big game, this team is tough to beat.

While there are a lot of things to like about the 2008 Huskies, there is one potential flaw that could come back to haunt them - and that's lack of experience. In fact, this team has so little postseason experience, it's easier to list the players who have been under the bright lights of March Madness:

Austrie and Jeff Adrien.

Other than freshman Donnell Beverly, everyone on this roster was on last year's team, which of course failed to make a postseason tournament and because of that, they missed out on a chance to get their feet wet in a tournament atmosphere.

Every team has their share of players who have never played in the NCAA's, but UConn's nine players in this situation is rare for any team - much less for a team with a No.4 seed. That would seem to put a lot of pressure on Austrie and Adrien to teach the young guys the ropes.

"[I'll] just tell them, 'Go out there and play hard,'" Adrien said. "'Go out there and get comfortable - not comfortable to a point where you're just waiting for everything to happen, just go out there and make the first hit.'"

Adrien, as well as Austrie, was a freshman back in 2006 when the Huskies last played in the NCAA Tournament. But that team's nucleus couldn't have been any different than this team's and Adrien and Austrie were just role players.

The 2006 Huskies had five holdovers from the 2004 National Championship team in Rashad Anderson, Hilton Armstrong, Josh Boone, Denham Brown and Marcus Williams. And Rudy Gay, a sophomore on that team, played in the NCAA Tournament in his freshman season - so the six main contributors to that team were all well aware of what to expect.

Continued...

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