(AP) - Jeremy Lamb scored 25 points and Ryan Boatrightadded 19 to lead Connecticut to an 81-67 victory over DePaul onTuesday in the opening round of the Big East tournament.

The ninth-seeded Huskies (19-12) will play eighth-seeded WestVirginia in the second round on Wednesday at Madison Square Garden.

Connecticut, the defending Big East tournament and nationalchampion, had coach Jim Calhoun back on the bench for the secondgame. He had back surgery just eight days ago after missing eightgames, of which the Huskies won only three.

Calhoun looked like his old self during the game, getting up anddown from his seat often and making his way on the court at awhistle to make sure Boatright understood what he wanted him to doin running the offense.

Cleveland Melvin and Moses Morgan both had 19 points for the16th-seeded Blue Demons (12-19), who closed the season losing 10 oftheir last 11.

This same matchup started the Huskies' five-games-in-five-daysrun to the conference title that they followed with a six-game runto the national championship.

This team doesn't have Kemba Walker to lead it, but the Huskiesstarted shooting like a team destined to do big things in thepostseason. They made their first seven 3-point attempts and were 7of 9 from beyond the arc in taking a 46-33 lead.

A 15-4 run to start the second half, capped by a 3 by RoscoeSmith, gave Connecticut a 61-37 lead with 14:47 to play.

Unlike last year when the Huskies went on to a 97-71 win, theBlue Demons found a way to make a game of it. An 11-0 run gotDePaul within 63-51 with 11:09 to play and the Blue Demons wereable to get within 70-61 on a 3 by Morgan with 7:15 to play.

Lamb had four points in a 6-0 run that got the Huskiesstraightened out and the Blue Demons were never closer than 12points the rest of the way.

As good as Connecticut was from behind the 3-point line (8 of13) it was terrible from the free throw line, making 11 of 24,including an 0-for-6 effort by freshman center Andre Drummond.

The Huskies, who came in fourth in the country with 6.7 blocksper game, blocked 10 shots against DePaul with Drummond and Oriakhigetting four each. DePaul shot just 32.4 percent from the field (23of 71), the 12th time in the last 21 games an opponent didn't shoot40 percent against the Huskies.

Lamb finished 10 of 18 from the field, including 3 of 6 on 3s,and Boatright was 5 of 9 overall and made his two 3-point attempts.Boatright matched his career high with seven assists.