Big East Tournament - Huskies Begin Title Defense With Sluggish Win - NYTimes.com Hoping to reprise last season's March magic, the University of Connecticut opening this year's Big East men's basketball tournament with an 81-67 victory over DePaul on Tuesday afternoon at Madison Square Garden. But it was not an entirely convincing performance for the Huskies. UConn looked heavy-legged in the first half, and in the second half it allowed DePaul to shave a 20-plus point lead to 9 with a little more than seven minutes to play. Nevertheless, ninth-seeded UConn will move on to face eighth-seeded West Virginia on Wednesday. It was perhaps not the start the Huskies wanted in their attempt to chart a course for a repeat of the five-wins-in-five-days run it made in last season's conference tournament, a streak that sparked their Kemba Walker-led ride to the national championship. Jeremy Lamb did his best to channel Walker with a team-leading 25 points. Despite Lamb's solid performance, UConn (19-12) does not have a transcendent star of Walker's caliber. Yet on Tuesday the Huskies looked disinterested as they have at times this season, playing with a me-first style that did not always lead to a crisply run offense or lock-down defense. The best player on the court all afternoon, Lamb showcased his ability to produce in a variety of manners: knocking down 3-pointers, kissing a layup off the glass after a drive to the rim, dishing to teammates after running the floor on a fast break. Lamb led the Huskies down the stretch to ensure their victory. UConn Coach Jim Calhoun was back on the bench for his second straight game after missing eight since Feb. 3 because of back issues. For UConn, there was an eerie symmetry to their arrival at the Big East tournament. Not only have the Huskies struggled in recent weeks, they were seeded ninth and pitted against DePaul in the opening game of the tournament, a noon tipoff Tuesday. That was the exact same set of circumstances facing the Huskies this time last season. Last year, UConn lost seven of its final 11 regular-season games and tumbled in the Big East standings. Then came the league tournament, and it all changed. Walker burnished his status as a breakthrough star, toppling top-seeded Pittsburgh with a buzzer-beating jumper, scoring 33 points against Syracuse and running past Louisville for the title. Walker is no longer with UConn, having left for the N.B.A., but these Huskies are still among the most talented teams in the country, to say nothing of the conference. Yet talent alone has not stopped UConn from losing 9 of its final 13 regular-season games. It never looked like DePaul (12-19) might put the Huskies away Tuesday, but it was not pretty. UConn still hopes that the victory, unimpressive as it was, leads it to another wild run.