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3. Connecticut. Let me start with a preemptive strike. By picking UConn third in the Big East, I'm not implying that the Huskies are a top-10 team or even a likely Sweet 16 team. As the Big East stands right now, there are two elite teams (Georgetown and Louisville) and perhaps eight teams that could finish anywhere from a four or five seed to out of the NCAA Tournament. Of that second-tier group of teams, Connecticut appears to have the best collection of talent and the greatest potential. This could be a huge whiff by me, but I'll take my chances with Jim Calhoun and the talent he's recruited.

While a lack of experience and an utter inability to make shots — and some admitted mistakes from the coach himself — betrayed Calhoun's Huskies last year, they were still an elite defensive team. Calhoun's style builds his defense around athletic frontcourt rim-defenders, and, despite giving the entirety of forward and center minutes to four freshmen and a sophomore, the defense did nothing but impress for most of the season. Connecticut led the nation in effective field-goal percentage defense and blocked shots. The Huskies don't force a ton of turnovers, but they force enough when you consider their ability to prevent points in basically every other fashion. With everyone returning for another year in Calhoun's defensive system, there's little reason to believe that UConn won't be among the nation's best defensive teams again.

That brings us to the offense, which was abysmal last year. The Huskies couldn't hit threes (32.1 percent) and thankfully didn't take very many, but their shooting from inside was no better. The offense failed to get easy baskets with the trademark fast break running like molasses. The difference between Connecticut being a Big East also-ran and returning to the top quarter of the conference lies in whether or not the team can make shots this season.

The offense's success begins and ends where it fell apart last year — point guard. Jerome Dyson, A.J. Price, Craig Austrie and Doug Wiggins saw the most time at the point last season, and none covered himself with glory. Expect Price and Dyson to start the season beside each other this year, but Calhoun had very little patience for the poor guard play he witnessed for most of last season. Austrie showed the best ability to take care of the ball, but Price was best at running the offense, though neither did much to help UConn's woeful assist-to-field-goal ratio. Wiggins is lightning quick and has impressed in preseason workouts and freshman Donnell Beverly may be the truest point guard of the bunch. Price, Wiggins and Austrie were all inexperienced and underwent a bitter Big East baptism last winter, and it's likely that at least one of these talented youngsters plays well enough to take hold of the point guard reigns this year.

On a team that struggled to find people to make shots, the freshman Dyson was more than willing to try. He was the only guard to play at least three-quarters of the team's minutes and he did average 13.8 points per game, but on most nights he needed too many shots to get those points. His 42.1 percent effective field-goal percentage makes Dominic James look like a marksman, but he continued to hoist shots unabashedly. The Rockville, Md., native has star talent, and Huskies fans hope he develops into a primary scorer, but Dyson needs to make shots at a much higher rate to be a scoring asset in his sophomore year. Calhoun has considered starting Dyson at the point, where he showed he could take care of the ball last year, but the coach is probably better off making Dyson play off the ball, forcing him to work to get it rather than handing his trigger-happy guard the rock at the start of every set. In fairness, Dyson should have more support from his teammates this season and less need to take as many questionable shots as he did last winter.

Marcus Johnson had a disappointing sophomore year. After taking the starting job on the wing to start the year, he grew increasingly out of favor as the season progressed and played 20 minutes in a game just twice after the Jan. 6 loss to LSU. He showed a broad skill set on the defensive end but was largely inconspicuous on offense, often unwilling to take shots despite making a high percentage of the ones he took (at least the ones he took from inside the arc). Johnson will compete with Stanley Robinson, a terrific rebounder and shot-blocker who took many of Johnson's minutes in the middle of Robinson's freshman year. Robinson, though, struggled with shot selection, making an appalling 37.1 percent of his 2-pointers. The 6-foot-9, 200-pounder did hit 38 percent of his 42 attempts from deep to lead the team in percentage. Thanks to inconsistency, Robinson, like Johnson, found his opportunities decreased by season's end, scoring just 15 point in the last seven games.

The Huskies' best player last year was undersized power forward Jeff Adrien. Despite standing just 6-6, he was the team's top rebounder and hit 49.8 percent of his shot attempts. He will be one of the Big East's best scoring and rebounding forwards this winter, but Adrien was symptomatic of one of UConn's biggest issues, an inability to move the ball from the post. Adrien, like center Hasheem Thabeet, became a black hole on the block, stagnating the Huskies offense. Adrien does get to the line a bunch but, like the team as a whole, failed to take advantage of those attempts, hitting on just 58.6 percent.

Along with the development of a dependable point guard, Thabeet's continued progress will be a determining factor in Connecticut's success this season. With his natural gifts and just a bit of tutelage from Calhoun and his staff, Thabeet has already become one of the elite defensive centers in the nation, finishing sixth in blocked-shot rate as a freshman. But the 7-3 Tanzanian was still a liability offensively. He shot for a good enough percentage from the floor, but he turned the ball over with alarming frequency and was a liability at the line (51.5 percent), as opponents employed a Hack-a-Hash strategy. When you realize that Thabeet got to the line at the fourth-highest rate in the country (per shot attempt), his blanks from 15 feet become a bigger problem, especially as Thabeet gets more touches.

Forwards Curtis Kelly and Gavin Edwards and center Jonathan Mandeldove will all see floor time this winter, but the key actors in Calhoun's drama this winter are detailed above.

Calhoun, now entering his third decade in Storrs, wants to re-emphasize the trademark Connecticut fast break, and he has the athletes and bodies to do so. But will a team that showed such a limited offensive learning curve as freshmen and sophomores show such improvement as sophomores and juniors? I'm betting yes, but there are a lot of people within and the Big East and Northeast basketball that would hardly shed a tear if the unpopular Calhoun suffered another trying season. People have to remember that this was a team of eight freshmen and five sophomores last year, a critical mass of inexperience that would hamstring any program. But a year later, with a deep team playing in its second season together, UConn should be a top-four Big East team and No. 6 seed in the NCAA Tournament. High expectations? Yes, but Calhoun hasn't gone consecutive seasons without at least 20 wins since arriving at Connecticut, and the smart money says that streak will stay in tact this winter.