DeMarcus Cousins doesn’t have to live with the "thug" label. He can change his image and the perceptions of him by those who don’t know him. One split-second reaction doesn’t have to define him as a person or a player.

And University of Kentucky teammate Patrick Patterson can tell him how.

Patterson’s an accomplished student, an elite player and befriends kids with cystic fibrosis off the court. He’s such a gentleman and classy player that Louisville fans had to resort to criticizing the junior forward for missing a dunk in the second half of Saturday’s tilt between the rivals. If that’s the most embarrassing moment of his career, then there isn’t a UofL fan or player that can touch his integrity.

If you were out of the Commonwealth – or the country, for that matter – this weekend, you might have missed the fact that Cousins gave University of Louisville forward Jared Swopshire a forearm to the head during a scrum for a loose ball less than a minute into UK’s 71-62 victory.

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