Anthony Davis came to town on Monday.
The unibrow came, too.
Even though the Kentucky big man burst onto the college basketball scene and won every award this season — he was in Oklahoma City to receive the Wayman Tisdale Award as the nation's top freshman — he became as well known for his forehead mustache as his dominating game.
The unibrow inspired websites and T-shirts and signs and cookies and costumes and all out craziness. Not since then-Gonzaga star Adam Morrison grew that porn-star mustache has a sprouting of facial hair caused such a stir in college basketball.
Davis calls it the “unibrow situation.” And he means that in the best way possible.
He digs his look.
“I like the way I am,” he said before the Tisdale banquet at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum. “God made me this way, and that's the way I'm going to keep it.”
At a time when kids are getting bullied for all sorts of superficial things, Davis is the patron saint for those youngsters. He doesn't care that he doesn't look like everyone else. He doesn't mind that people still tell him all the time that he needs to get rid of his unibrow.
He is comfortable in his own hair-covered skin.
You might think that is a lot easier for a guy who stands 6-foot-10. Who affects games without even shooting the ball, ala Bill Russell. Who is likely to be the No. 1 pick in this summer's NBA Draft should he announce Tuesday back at Kentucky that he's leaving school early.
“This kid has a chance to define the game in a way it hasn't been defined in a long, long time,” said Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, who received the Wayman Tisdale Humanitarian Award on Monday.
But here's the thing — the unibrow came long before Davis became a basketball phenom. He had it before he hit an eight-inch growth spurt before his senior year. He had it before he became a transcendent big man.
Even if he hadn't, though, words can still cut deep. He never let any cracks or barbs or jokes get to him.
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