NEW YORK — Jeremy Lamb isn’t Kemba Walker.
He’s not the same kind of player. He doesn’t have Kemba’s megawatt smile. And he doesn’t carry himself with the same swagger and confidence as the kid from The Bronx who starred at Rice High School.
“I’m not trying to be Kemba,” the unassuming Lamb said after scoring a game-high 25 points on 10-for-18 shooting as No. 9 UConn beat No. 16 DePaul, 81-67, in the first round of the Big East Tournament at Madison Square Garden.
“Of course, everybody wants to lead their team to championships. I’m just trying to do what’s best for this team.”
With freshmen Ryan Boatright (19 points) and Andre Drummond (12) added to the veteran mix, this team has more talent (even Kemba agrees on that point) but nowhere near the leadership.
A year ago, Lamb played Robin to Walker’s Batman as the Huskies — also a No. 9 seed in the Big East — won five games in five days to capture the championship and then rattled off six more wins to take the NCAA championship.
UConn coach Jim Calhoun joked before this tournament that he’d like to have Walker here again for another magical run. Probably as much for his leadership as his game-winning shots.
Walker’s mother, Andrea, sat courtside along with Tanesha Boatright, Boatright’s mom.
But Kemba himself is stuck with the horrible Charlotte Bobcats — who have fewer wins this season (4) than UConn won here in New York last year.
That leaves Lamb as the go-to guy for this talented, yet under-achieving, UConn team.
A smooth-as-silk wing player who is projected as an NBA lottery pick after his sophomore season, Lamb was named to the All-Big East First Team after averaging 17.6 points and 4.8 rebounds.
But now that the regular season is over, now that it’s March Madness, Lamb could take his game to a whole other level.
“When we needed our First-Team All-Big East player to show up, he got us started,” Calhoun said.
Without Kemba, UConn extended its postseason winning streak to 12 games, six in a row here at the Garden.
“When we go into the tournaments, I always say it’s a new season,” Lamb said.
“This year playing without Kemba we’ve been finding ourselves and everybody on the team has been stepping up,” he said. “We’ve been preparing all year for this time. Now that it’s here we want to give it all we’ve got and don’t look back.”
And perhaps it’s just a delicious coincidence that for the second year in a row No. 9 UConn beat No. 16 DePaul in the opening round.
“It’s a coincidence but this is a whole new year so we didn’t go into it like, ‘Oh, here we go again,'” Lamb said.
No Kemba. Just Lamb and his teammates.
And hope for another magical March ride.
