As if UConn didn’t already have a big enough front line with 7-foot-3 Hasheem Thabeet, 7-1 Charles Okwandu and 6-7 Jeff Adrien, now the Huskies are adding another huge, athletic body up front.
Stanley Robinson, a 6-foot-9 junior forward from Birmingham, Ala., will debut tonight when No. 2 UConn (8-0) hosts Stony Brook (5-4) tonight on SNY (7 p.m.).
Robinson made his first appearance at practice Sunday and threw down a two-handed dunk off a miss by Okwandu.
“He’s a great athlete,” UConn coach Jim Calhoun told reporters Sunday. “He jumps. He dunks. He’s not going to make every shot yet. Some of the stuff we’ve added he doesn’t know yet, but he does know how to run. He does know how to block shots. He does know how to rebound and he knows how to defend.”
Robinson missed the first semester while working at a sheet metal factory in nearby Willimantic, Conn, and will spend this semester as a non-scholarship student.
“I know what we were doing, but for a minute some of those plays slipped my mind after working with that copper and iron for five months,” Robinson said of his first practice after working at Prime Materials Recovery in Willimantic, according to the Hartford Courant. “I’m in long distance shape, I’m not in sprint shape. Give me like two weeks. I’m exhausted right now, tired. … I’m just going to do whatever Coach Calhoun asks.”
Calhoun also said there could be some changes to the starting lineup, with former Rice star Kemba Walker replaced A.J. Price at the point.
“Right now, we’ll probably have the same lineup,” Calhoun told the New Haven Register.
There is no update on Ater Majok, the 6-foot-10 Sudanese big man who has committed to UConn and is awaiting word from the NCAA Clearinghouse.
