Who needs sleep? Not Michael Gilchrist

Being young is awesome. When you're in high school, you can stay up all night playing video games and drinking carbonated beverages and eating fast food and still make it up in time for your 7:45 a.m. bell without feeling like someone hit you over the head. This ability fades quickly. If I don't get enough sleep on Sunday night, I still feel it on Tuesday morning. (Or is it Wednesday? General awareness fades, too.)

Still, despite his youth, what Michael Gilchrist did is impressive. After winning a gold medal in Germany this weekend, the No. 1-ranked player in the class of 2011 had to fly back Monday and play a game on Sunday. Mike DeCourcy details Gilchrist's sleepless excellence:

Fresh from winning a gold medal with the United States junior national team in Germany, Gilchrist landed in Columbia, S.C., at 10:40 p.m. Monday. He caught a ride south, made it to bed at 5 a.m., woke up a couple hours later and -- in a game that began 9 a.m. Tuesday at the Nike Peach Jam tournament -- scored 26 points on 7-of-12 shooting in Team Final's 60-54 victory over Mean Streets. [...] Gilchrist's play was even more remarkable because he spent a lot of time being defended by Mean Streets' extraordinary Anthony Davis, a 6-10 tarantula who was credited with 15 deflections by one courtside statistician.
The fact that Gilchrist even made it to the game is impressive. I would have missed my alarm.

In fact, maybe that's the most impressive thing -- not just that Gilchrist played well, but that he didn't deflect the responsibility of playing a 9 a.m. game after an intercontinental flight and (maybe) three hours of early-morning rest. It's not like Gilchrist needs the publicity; he's already committed to Kentucky. Sitting out would have been respectable. Sleeping in would have been more than understandable.

Instead, he played. If that's the kind of hustle Gilchrist devotes to a somewhat meaningless summer circuit tournament, Kentucky fans should be even more excited about the forward's arrival in 2011. Imagine how hard he'll play when he gets to school.