You can’t stop him. You can only hope to contain him. Surely that is becoming the defensive philosophy of opposing coaches on just how to defend UConn’s Kemba Walker, who has undoubtedly been the NCAA’s best player through the early season so far.
Just when everyone thought he couldn’t play any more spectacular, the pint sized offensive dynamo took his game to another level by notching his very first career triple-double – 23 points, 13 rebounds, and 10 assists – against an over-matched UMBC squad. The milestone was only the eighth in school history and the first since current Memphis Grizzly Hasheem Thabeet did it back in January of 2009.
Walker’s outstanding all around play was key in the Huskies 94-61 rout of the America East Conference school. Oddly, UMBC is already the 4th school from the conference to come out on the losing end against Connecticut this season joining Stonybrook, Vermont, and New Hampshire. While on the surface that doesn’t appear like too tough of an early schedule, the Huskies rank 3rd in the nation in RPI behind only UNLV and Georgetown and are in a similar spot when it comes to Strength of Schedule. After another 3 lightweight opponents coming up against Farleigh Dickinson, Coppin State, and Harvard, we should get a better measure of just how good the Huskies are once Big East Conference play begins December 27th against the #3 ranked Pitt Panthers. Then things really get tough come January as they play an additional 4 teams currently ranked in the Top 25.
Not to be missed in all of the hoopla surrounding Walker’s climb up the December NCAA POY Rankings and UConn’s unblemished start(7-0) was coach Jim Calhoun notching his 830th career coaching victory, moving him into a tie with Jim Phelan, formerly of Mount St. Mary’s, for 6th place all-time. Ahead of him on the all-time list is Syracuse coach JimBoeheim, and Duke’s Mike Kryzewski who recently caught the legendary Adolph Rupp for 3rd in Division I history.
By scoring only 24 points, Kemba still holds a commanding lead over Anatoly Bose of Nichols State for the nation’s coring lead 29.1 ppg to 27.4 ppg. In addition by having another great shooting game, making 9 of 13 field goal attempts, Walker increased his FG% to a career high .533%, making him one of the few high profile guards to be shooting over 50% on the season. Kemba’s two free throws made in the game’s early moments made him just the 45th player in school history to score 1,000 points, joining such legendary UConn players like Ray Allen, Richard Hamilton, and Jerome Dyson. The junior reached the milestone in only his 77th career game.
We should have seen this coming from Kemba as he was once a prized recruit from Rice HS in New York. Can he make it as an NBA player? Surely his diminutive size is an issue, but he has shown that he has all the intangibles to be a play-making floor general at the next level. Just remember, he once dunked all over current 76ers point guard Jrue Holiday in the ‘08 McDonald’s All American Game.
Allen Moll has been a lifelong NBA and NCAA College Basketball fan who watches and studies games religiously, and coaches youth basketball in his native Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania. Allen also provides content to Bleacherreport.com, Upperdeckblog.com, in addition to being a tenured NBA and NCAA columnist for TheHoopDoctors.com.
