More John Wall Reactions from around the web

Gary Parrish of CBSSports: "In fairness, Wall was not brilliant from start to finish. He missed the final seven minutes of the first half with two fouls, turned the ball over seven times. ("That's his average," Calipari joked.) Oftentimes, Wall got going so fast he lost control and fumbled the ball away, and there were some stupid moments mixed in, too. So, yes, there is still work to be done. But despite all that -- and this is the part to remember -- I can't imagine there was a basketball mind in the world who wasn't blown away by Wall's performance here at MSG, if only because of the explosiveness he showed early and the poise he showed late."


Jeff Goodman of FOXSports.com: "Instead, the talk centered on the legend of John Wall, which continued to grow.

It began with a game-winning jumper with 0.5 seconds left in his first college game to rescue the Wildcats against Miami (Ohio). He also made two huge free throws with 2.4 seconds left to force overtime against Stanford as the Wildcats avoided the upset.

Wall then sealed a win against North Carolina this past weekend with a pair of free throws with 4.3 seconds left and followed with the game-winner Wednesday night.

The guy has played eight games and basically dealt the opposition the knockout blow in four of them."


Luke Winn of SI.com: "Just how valuable is Wall to Kentucky? In a game won by three, the 'Cats were plus-10 when he was on the floor, and minus-7 when he was off it. He spent more than 10 minutes off it, too, most of it because he picked up his second foul -- on a charging call that had UK fans apoplectic at the refs -- with 7:56 left in the first half. "That was the toughest part of the game," Wall said of having to sit until halftime. It was one of his teammates' toughest stretches, too; UK had started the game on a 12-0 run, then let UConn pull even. During the nearly eight minutes Wall was out, the 'Cats managed to score just five points."


Dana O'Neil of ESPN.com: "Labeled the basketball messiah upon his arrival, the freshman is now a full-blown Elvis in high tops, swarmed by fans when he tried to sit in the Madison Square Garden seats to catch a few minutes of the game before his own on Wednesday night.

He has been written about and talked about more than any player this side of Tyler Hansbrough, and has turned cynical sportswriters into middle-school girls penning puppy-love letters while dashing to the thesaurus to find the ideal synonym for awesome."


Mike DeCourcy of the Sporting News: The next logical step is to wonder if Wall compares to the best of freshmen: Kevin Durant at Texas, Chris Jackson at LSU, Phil Ford at North Carolina, Kenny Anderson at Georgia Tech, Mark Aguirre at DePaul.

With the limited information eight games provides, Wall would be the choice over any of them.:


RTSMF of Rush the Court: "Ladies and gentlemen, if there was any doubt whatsoever about who the face of college basketball was, is, or will be this season, consider it no more. The buzz was already there. There have been sketchy highlights of Johnathan Hildred Wall from Raleigh, NC, dressed in a Kentucky uniform and easily floating game-winners over Miami and Stanford; there have been a couple of filthy dunks and drives against North Carolina that had you out of your seat shaking your head when you saw them on SportsCenter; but there wasn’t this. No, not this. This being a nationally-televised game with no other competition on the tube where the too-young-to-know-how-good-he-is Mr. Wall emphatically and with reckless abandon introduced himself to the sports world beyond the hoops diehards, shouting from the top of New York’s Empire State Building to the rest of the world… “I am College Basketball.” Dramatic? Possibly. Truthful? Absolutely."