At a school where missing the NCAA tournament is considered unacceptable, last year’s Connecticut team had a tough time swallowing a 17-14 season that did not even muster an NIT invitation. This year, however, is a new year for the Huskies, and although they are not yet at their early-’00s form, Head Coach Jim Calhoun sees his team starting to gel at the midway point of the season. So far, Connecticut is 11-3 overall and 2-1 in the Big East. “We’re playing better now than we did back in December,” Calhoun said in a conference call yesterday, pointing to Connecticut’s wins at Seton Hall a week ago and over St. John’s on Tuesday. Even in UConn’s 73-67 loss to Notre Dame on Saturday, Calhoun said that he was encouraged that the Huskies were able to overcome a 21-point deficit in their comeback bid. An integral part of the Huskies’ newfound confidence can be attributed to junior point guard A.J. Price. In addition to scoring 13.8 points per game, Price has taken the leading role in running the Husky offense and setting up plays. He tops the Big East in both assists (6.21) and assist to turnover ratio (3.11). “He is our leader. He gets our team into everything we need to do,” Calhoun said of Price. “I couldn’t be more pleased with him. There are very few point guards in America that I would trade him for, the way he’s playing right now.” Price was one of the top recruits of his high school class, but it took a while for him to blossom into the player that he is now. In Oct. 2004, his freshman year, Price suffered a brain hemorrhage that put him in critical condition for nearly two weeks. Price was able to go back to class in the semester but redshirted the basketball season. The following summer, his comeback got off to a bad start when he was arrested and suspended for stealing three laptop computers. Price never made it to the basketball court until the 2006-07 season. This year, Price has emerged as the player that Calhoun had been hoping to see when he recruited him four years ago. Just as importantly, Calhoun has seen him mature off the court as well. “He clearly is the kid that everyone on this team respects,” Calhoun said. “A.J.’s the guy they listen to. A.J. has street credibility, as the kids like to say.” Calhoun added, “He also has intellectual credibility because he’s a real bright kid that really, truly understands what we want to do.” Price’s experience has also provided the young Husky team with a needed veteran presence. Besides Price, who is a senior academically but has a year of eligibility left, there are no seniors on the Connecticut team. Sophomore guard Jerome Dyson leads the Huskies in scoring, averaging 15.4 per game. Dyson actually performs better on the road (17.7 points per game) than at home (13.8). In the frontcourt, junior forward Jeff Adrien puts up 14.1 points and 9.2 rebounds per game. Georgetown senior center Roy Hibbert will be in the rare position of matching up with a taller opponent in Connecticut’s 7-foot-3 sophomore Hasheem Thabeet. Thabeet blocked 10 shots against Notre Dame and averages 3.9 rejections per game, the best mark in the conference. In fact, Connecticut as a team blocks 9.4 shots per game, which is the highest rate in the nation. Hibbert is coming off of one of his best games this season. In Georgetown’s 76-60 defeat of DePaul on Tuesday, Hibbert had 17 points, 11 rebounds and five assists. “Hopefully he can duplicate that,” Thompson said yesterday. Both Georgetown and Connecticut feature tough defenses: They are No. 1 and 4 nationally in field-goal percentage defense, respectively. The Hoyas allow their opponents to convert only 34.8 percent of their attempts, while the Huskies’ defense is just behind at 36.3 percent. The real test of Georgetown will come on the boards. As a team, Connecticut collects 46.4 caroms per game, the highest in the country and 10 more than Georgetown’s average. “I think we’re capable of beating them, certainly, but it’s going to be a very difficult game,” Calhoun said. “We’re going to have to have both our speed and tenacity, but we’re also going to have to mix in some poise and patience, because they do that to you. They don’t overwhelm you. What they do is they grind you out and then end up making you look inept on offense at times.” Georgetown and Connecticut face off at Verizon Center at 2 p.m. tomorrow. The game will be televised on ESPN.