TURKEY TIME: UK balances the holiday with basketball

While their fellow students travel across the country to go home, or possibly just across the street, UK's basketball team will stay on campus.

The No. 1 Kentucky team will have time to celebrate Thanksgiving, but with a game on Friday and traveling out of the country on Saturday, basketball will still be an emphasis on Thursday.

But basketball will be put on hold until the evening. In the early afternoon UK will give back to the community before celebrating a Thanksgiving dinner with the team and families that came to town at John Calipari's house.

"We're going to do, Jerry Lundergan and his family for 30 years has been, the Salvation Army, and feeding the less fortunate and so we're going to go down and help serve food in the afternoon," Calipari said.

The Cats take on Tennessee-Martin Friday evening at 7 p.m. and will hit the road to the Bahamas on Saturday morning.

"Then we're going to meet at my house, our team and any of their families that are in," Calipari said. "So we're all going to have one big thing at like 3 o'clock. And then we'll probably walk through, 7 o'clock we'll walk through Tennessee-Martin. I think I'm going to give them tomorrow off, which I usually wouldn't do before a game, but this is going to be a tough run. And then Saturday morning, we play Friday, Saturday morning we're (in the Bahamas) for three days before we come back and then it's on again."

Tennessee-Martin is 4-1 on the season with the lone loss coming in its season opener at Ole Miss.

"Tennessee-Martin had Mississippi beat, lost by three," Calipari said. "They won every other game. They’ve beaten all the teams here. They press, they trap, they drive the ball at every chance, and so we have that game. Then you go to the following week and you think about who we're about to face, bam, bam, bam. And it's going to be a tough road."

The Cats will take on Arizona State in the Bahamas, but before they worry about that game on Monday Calipari is focused on UT-Martin.

Although the rest of players didn't know what to expect shortly after beating Cleveland State 101-70 on Wednesday.

"I don't know anything," Fox said. "Whatever the scouting report says, the film. You don't really know too much about the team that you're playing right now. We just watch film, get the scouting report, go over the game plan and get out and play."

But before worrying about the Skyhawks and a flight to the Bahamas, the Cats will spend Thursday giving back, spending time with loved ones and feasting.

And these Cats have plenty to be thankful for on Thursday.

"(I'm thankful) for my teammates," Fox said. "I'm thankful for God for the situation he's put me in. I'm at Kentucky, I'm playing on the biggest stage in college basketball. And of course my friends and family."