Jeff Adrien and Craig Austrie have done a few things their UConn teammates have not.

Each has clutched a Big East championship trophy. Each has been a teammate of players now in the NBA. Each has been part of a team ranked No. 1 and each knows what it’s like to win an NCAA Tournament game.

Adrien and Austrie, the only fourth-year seniors on this year’s team, have run the gamut of emotions, experiences and expectations. They started with a team that won 30 games behind Rudy Gay, Josh Boone & Co. They continued as part of the current core, dealing with growing pains in 2006-07 before the resurgence of 2007-08.

“I don’t want them to feel that this is their time, personally, ” UConn coach Jim Calhoun said Wednesday as he waited for players to finish the 3.4-mile Husky Run. “I want them to feel this is their time, teamwise, so then it will become their time, personally. I’ve seen that going back to Tate George in 1990. When we were really good, he became really good. ”

Calhoun and others say UConn will be really good this season, and Austrie and Adrien are eager to finish with success that will define their stay in Storrs.

The season unofficially began Wednesday when players made their trek around campus. Junior forward Gavin Edwards and sophomore walk-on Kyle Bailey sprinted side-by-side down Stadium Road to the finish line, both timed in 21:21.

“I should have dove, ” Edwards said.

One by one, their teammates followed, the team making a final push toward the beginning of what really matters. First Night festivities are Friday at Gampel. Practice opens Saturday.

“This is it, ” Adrien said, “the only time I can win a college national championship. … [The opportunity] definitely is special. We came here and expected we were going to be in the Elite Eight every year, at least. It didn’t go that way. But this is the last year that we can do something to try to get back there, try to get to a Final Four, win a national championship, win another Big East championship. The sky is the limit. ”

In Adrien and Austrie — as well as third-year senior A.J. Price and junior Hasheem Thabeet — UConn has experience and leadership. Fine-tuning this preseason can take place sooner than usual.

The Huskies will play undersized for the first eight games. Calhoun said he is 90 percent sure that 6-foot-9 junior Stanley Robinson will rejoin the team for the second semester, and that he is only slightly less confident that 6-10 freshman Ater Majok will be in Storrs at the same time. But for now, UConn is a team looking to utilize its speed with a three-guard lineup of Price, Austrie and Jerome Dyson.

“All our advantages in the first eight games start at 95 feet to 20, ” Calhoun said. “We have to get the game going, because a quick game should favor us. ”

Calhoun On Miles

Commenting publicly on Nate Miles for the first time since Miles was expelled, Calhoun said, “The young man was the best offensive player in this program. So I’ll just leave it at that. He’s the best offensive player in the program. … He’s a terrific kid and learning. What happened was more than unfortunate. ” … Dan Kim, a senior molecular and cell biology major from Westborough, Mass., won the race in 17:22. About 150 participated.