Basketball Player Anthony Davis
A 6’10” freshman power forward/center for the University of Kentucky Wildcats men’s basketball team, Anthony Davis has set both Kentucky and Southeast Conference single-season blocked shots records while helping the Wildcats to a 29-1 record and #1 national ranking (as of March 3). Despite being almost completely unknown prior to late in his junior year of high school, he has gone on to win many accolades at both the high school and college levels. Davis’ outstanding play has helped make Kentucky one of the favorites in the upcoming NCAA tournament, and he is also currently a highly-rated prospect for the 2012 NBA Draft.
Anthony Davis was born on March, 11, 1993, and grew up on Chicago’s South Side. Although the area had many high schools with famous, powerful basketball programs, Davis instead attended Perspectives Charter School starting in sixth grade and continuing until high school graduation. Contrary to the power forward he would develop into, he first played guard and often shot three-pointers from the corner. However, Davis would grow eight inches between his freshman and junior years in high school, and by April 2010 he began to draw notice from colleges, despite playing in an obscure high school program. In the spring and summer of 2010 he excelled on the Amateur Athletic Union traveling circuit against other top players from around the country, and became one of the most highly-touted prospects in America.
Anthony Davis received scholarship offers from many of the top basketball programs in the country, as he was named the top-ranked player in the national high school class of 2011 in August of 2010. That same month, Davis committed to playing basketball at Kentucky, spurning offers from hometown DePaul and other schools. Controversy followed as a Chicago Sun-Times newspaper article accused Davis’ father of soliciting money from Kentucky in exchange for his son’s commitment, but the allegations were never proven and ultimately withdrawn.
His senior season of high school basketball followed at Perspectives Charter school. Despite the great individual performance by Davis all season long, earning accolades including spots on USA Today and ESPN’s national high school all-star teams while averaging 32 points per game, Perspectives could do no better than 6-19 for the season. The team did win one playoff game before being eliminated in the Illinois Class 3A regional semifinals. Davis followed this season with outstanding performances in the McDonald’s All-American Game, the Nike Hoops Summit and the Jordan Brand Classic game where he shared the MVP award.
In the fall of 2011 Anthony Davis began his college basketball career under coach John Calipari at Kentucky amid tremendous media hype, with many predicting Davis would be the #1 pick in the 2012 NBA Draft and ESPN naming him a preseason All-American. In the spotlight, Davis proceeded to not only meet, but exceed the media hype. Over the course of the season, Davis would average 14.1 points and 9.8 rebounds a game for the Wildcats, as Kentucky enjoyed a dominant regular season, finishing first in the SEC. He was named SEC Freshman Of The Week three times and SEC Player Of The Week twice. In addition, he blocked 140 shots in his first 30 games, smashing previous Kentucky and SEC records. The most significant of these many blocked shots was one with four seconds remaining against powerful North Carolina on December 3 to preserve a one-point Kentucky victory.
Concluding an excellent regular season, Kentucky heads into the postseason with the #1 AP ranking, and Anthony Davis is a front-runner for both the Wayman Tisdale Award as the nation’s top freshman and the National Player of the Year award. Expectations are high for Calipari to finally coach Kentucky to a NCAA title, which would be his first as a coach and the school’s first since 1998. Regardless of how Kentucky fares in the postseason, Anthony Davis continues to be mentioned as a possible number one overall pick in the 2012 NBA draft, and many predict he will go on to have an outstanding NBA career.
