Alex Poythress, one of the heralded Kentucky freshman, threw down four impressive, powerful dunks in a loss to Duke Tuesday. He finished with 20 points and eight rebounds, a much strong performance than he offered up in the season-opener against Maryland.

And now, here’s the portion of the post where I address the emails/tweets/comments I got about Duke:

It was a nice win for the Blue Devils, who looked better than I thought they would. They played extremely well when Mason Plumlee (18 points) went to the bench in the 2nd half. The seniors carried them in the first half, and they just enough from exciting freshman Rasheed Sulaimon (10 points, six rebounds, five assists, 3-for-14 shooting) and Quinn Cook (seven points) off the bench to defeat the defending champs.

Seth Curry (23 points) surprised me most. Almost exclusively a three-point shooter last year, he attacked the basket frequently against UK. He got into the lane with ease. Since Nerlens Noel tried to block every shot that was taken, any misses were easily put back by the Blue Devils (nine offensive rebounds).

The Wildcats are young. As Dick Vitale noted 17 times last night, you want to beat Kentucky now because come March, all the freshman will be much-improved.

I’m not ready to make any bold proclamations about anyone after a game or two or five.

[Video compilation via Michael Shamburger]