Based on the immediate response to the events of this week — culminating with Friday’s announcement that Chris Douglas-Roberts put his name in the NBA Draft — it is time for a Memphis fan reality check.

First of all, Chris Douglas-Roberts is not coming back. He’s gone. It’s final. Don’t let yourself believe he’s just “testing the waters.” Has he hired an agent and made it official? I poked around for awhile this afternoon, and I couldn’t get a straight answer. (The reason for that, I believe, is the nefarious nature of the Derrick Rose agent situation earlier this week. If you’re not going to address the agent situation or have a press conference for Rose, then you can’t for Douglas-Roberts. It wouldn’t look good.) But I did speak with CDR’s mother, and I asked her straight out whether this was a testing of the NBA waters or a final good-bye. She was very clear that this decision to enter the NBA Draft is final.

I hate to debunk the theories of the sentimentalists out there, but this wasn’t a difficult decision for Chris. He has wanted to do this for a long time. I accepted that way back in January when I heard a story about Chris getting into a heated argument on a road trip with a staff member because he wanted to drop a class. I won’t reveal which class, but let’s just say it sounded like the kind of class that would give anybody a good opportunity to help their GPA. I’m not criticizing Chris for that, by the way. I’m just telling you, he had mentally prepared for this to be his last year for quite awhile. And I don’t blame him. Talk to his mother some time. Find out about the circumstances he came from. His mother only came to Memphis a few times to watch him play because she simply couldn’t afford to come more often. When she told me that she was getting ready to retire — a fact I reported right after the season — it doesn’t take much to put two and two together.

Would CDR make more money potentially by staying and entering a weaker draft in 2009? Probably. But nothing’s guaranteed — except for the fact that CDR will be a millionaire if he gets picked in the first round, which is pretty darn likely. So don’t be selfish. Just be happy a very likeable person who represented Memphis well will get an opportunity to change his family’s fortunes forever.

Meanwhile, a couple people will immediately benefit from this decision: Robert Dozier and Antonio Anderson. There’s no question those two kind of got lost this year with all the talk about CDR, Derrick Rose and Joey Dorsey. You take those two and put them on other teams, they are all-conference players. I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that Dozier could be the Tigers’ leading scorer next season — even with Tyreke Evans coming on board. Anderson, meanwhile, will get an opportunity to play point guard, which is the position NBA people project for him. Next year, those two should get a lot more shots and both be double-digit scorers. If they perform, they’ll have the opportunity to make themselves a lot of money.

Every year, I try to go hunting at least once or twice with Bill Cooksey of Avery Outdoors. He’s known more as a waterfowl hunter, but he’s also great with a turkey call.

This year, crappie fishing sort of delayed my turkey hunting. So we didn’t get to hunt together until Thursday, April 17.

But it was worth the wait.

We heard a few gobbles just before daylight. But for the first four hours of our hunt, we didn’t have much luck.

Then as we were walking back to the truck at the end of our hunt, we noticed two big gobblers standing in the middle of the road about 100 yards in front of us. This was at 10:30 a.m.

We froze and watched as the birds entered the woods to our left.

When they were finally out of sight, we ducked into the woods, too. Bill began soft calling with a glass call, and for 10 minutes we never heard a peep out of the birds.

Then when one of them finally gobbled, they were right on top of us.

They had circled around through the woods, and we could hear them crashing through briars, bushes and tree limbs to get to us.

When they finally came into the clearing, Bill made a perfect shot at about 25 yards. It was the only shot we had because I was facing the opposite direction.

The bird weighed 17 pounds with a thick 10-inch beard.

I’ve often heard turkey hunting described as “hours of boredome, interrupted occasionally by a few moments of absolute terror.”

I think that’s a little harsh, but I understand the statement.

When you’re turkey hunting, one minute you’re walking a down dirt road thinking about what you want for lunch. Then the next minute you’re sitting against a tree with your heart pounding so loud you’re afraid the approaching bird will hear it.

It’s quite a rush - even when you’re not the one who pulls the trigger.