Heeeeere's Johnny!

After falling into depression hiatus following the 2011 team's tragic encounter with Final Four sight lines and Kimba "2 fouls/game" Walker, I thought long and hard about what I wanted to make next. For a while(read: a week or so) it seemed I was stumped, cursed with cartoonist's block. Then, miraculously, I found my unlikely muse: the McDonald's All-American Game.

Very little can pick a fan up after a devastating loss, especially when the championship game afterward stinks to high heaven. Still, as Kentucky fans we are lucky in a unique regard - we always have next season to look forward to, so long as Cal is coach. This was never more apparent than during the whirling Rolodex of All-Star High School Games that dribble drove by in a flurry of dunks, Austin Rivers (over)hype and godawful defense. At one point I was having trouble following what Gilchrist was doing, because Davis and Teague were making spectacular plays and drawing the camera and the conversations of the sportscasters.

What does that mean? That we're in very, very good hands. Now that we see the first, anomalous class pass on, and are sitting pretty following that second class that's pretty good although they don't have John Wall they might make the Sweet Sixteen(remember all that talk?), we should come to realize that if(edit: WHEN) any of our freshmen come back to play as sophomores, we're bound to win a Title or two. Each class is that dominant.

And so it was that I embarked on a cartoon that could hopefully stir to life a fanbase deflated after successive seasons of having the best team in the tournament at the time of their unlikely defeats. To capture what Cal has done - his nearly perfect recruiting resume; the brilliance he displays in picking players' brains and then figuring out how to fine tune them; that uncanny ability to draw out and push a team overlooked by most - I decided to collage it all together, and hoped the message would get through.

The message? That while it's true we don't have #8 yet, we are very, very lucky to have the coach we have. He's outstanding in every way, and if the trend of his teams improving annually continues, we're going to be hella hard to stop. Hella. Hard. (PS Jared Sullinger and Harrison Barnes - you dweebs are on notice, TJ is BACK)