Patrick Patterson sat up on a training table at Toyota Center, but he was not there for therapy. It was just a good place to catch a soccer game on cable after the day's workouts. He glanced down at his right ankle, rotating it as he has thousands of times. But he was not working through the pain that had troubled him for years, instead enjoying the new sensation of being pain-free. He was a month removed from postseason surgery, not quite back to full strength. But he had more confidence and felt better than he has in years, better than he did last season when he regressed from the promise of his rookie season.
Walter Cornett, of Glendale, Kentucky, is the owner and operator of Walter's Wildcat World. He founded WildcatWorld.com in 1998 making it one of the oldest Kentucky basketball fan sites in operation today.