Thanksgiving Leftovers

Wow. You go away for a little vacation and holiday time and stuff really starts shaking on the Kentucky athletics front. I hope everyone had a great Turkey Day. I know I enjoyed being with Brother JC, Miss, and the Jettster.... and I certainly ate way too much great food up in Olathe.

Just a few thoughts, since I did catch UK's win over Portland last night, courtesy of "the tres"...

• Anthony Davis double-doubles should become rather commonplace this season. He's bound to get 10 points on putbacks and breakways without having a single play called for him in the DDMO, but Cal seems to run at least one designed backdoor lob for him per half. Result = dunk, 80% of the time. One can only hope that he puts on the "freshman 15" (lbs.) throughout this winter... in the form of muscles. While that's not very likely since these college basketballers get more cardio than Kelly Ripa training for a marathon. But if Mr. Davis continues to strengthen his slender frame, while continuing to develop that little drop-step and spin move on the block, he's going to be a handful for anybody, Tyler Zeller included. (Yeah, I'm looking forward a little bit).
• Michael Kidd-Gilchrist has a nasty side to him, and I mean that as a compliment. I'd like to come up with a better word to describe that dunk that he threw down in the second half, but I think I will just settle for..."vicious".
• How in the world Marquis Teague missed those bunnies, we'll never know. I would agree that the first one had quite a lofty degree of difficulty, but once you go through all those gyrations to get to the rim, you'd think that the lay-up would be the easy part. But hey, 8 assists and 0 turnovers is okay with me anytime.
• Darius Miller coming off the bench is still strange. That may not be set in stone, and I'm sure it seems more bizarre to Mr. Miller than it does to anybody, but as long as the minutes are there and the wins keep coming, then it must be all good. He's going to wind up with a ton of points in his Kentucky career and it just seems more fitting that he would be a senior starter, but team success is the ultimate goal and I'm sure that's all Darius wants.
• It pains me to say it, but I don't think Kyle Macy is much of a color commentator. Great Big Blue player, probably my all-time favorite, in fact. All-around UK legend and nice guy by all accounts. But on these UK IMG television broadcasts, he just doesn't bring enough... well.... color. His voice is okay, and I think he has a sense of humor-- somewhere, buried beneath all of the coach-speak and cliches. But for whatever reason, it seems that he and Buzz Baker don't really click. There's no chemistry, to my ears, and Mace just comes across as far too vanilla. I'm not asking him to invent some ridiculous catchphrase or turn in to a weak Dick Vitale imitator, but I would like to hear a little more passion coming through the speakers. A little more insight. Something. (Still love the guy). Maybe it was those years coaching Morehead...
  
• Getting out-rebounded at any point in the game by a crew like Portland is not a good indicator. UK's next two opponents (St. John's / UNC) will make that hurt for certain. Cats will have to focus on crashing the boards with a renewed frenzy against the more talented competition, and I'd like to see the guards pick up a few more rebounds rather than releasing too early for breaks.