John Calipari expects Georgia crowd to be tough on Ashton Hagans, claims he didn't flip Hagans from Bulldogs
PG Ashton Hagans was a 5-star player in the class of 2018, ranking as the No. 12 player overall and the No. 1 point guard in the 247Sports composite.
The Georgia native was committed to the Bulldogs for a long time, but when coach Mark Fox was fired at the end of the 2017-18 season, Hagans had second thoughts and eventually ended up at Kentucky.
As Kentucky prepares to travel to Georgia on Tuesday night, coach John Calipari is defending his recruiting practices, saying he didn’t flip Hagans. Rather, he said Hagans wanted to switch when Fox got fired. He also said he thinks the Georgia crowd will be rough on the freshman point guard:
Calipari making it a point for the second time today to say he didn’t “flip” Ashton Hagans. Fox got fired at UGA and then “the family called us.” Says he expects UGA crowd to light up Hagans and nobody knows how he’ll respond.
— Kyle Tucker (@KyleTucker_ATH) January 14, 2019
Hagans is averaging 6.6 points, 3.4 assists, 1.7 rebounds and 2.1 steals per game. He’s come into his own a bit of late, but much like the rest of this Kentucky team, he still has some room for improvement.
He should be motivated to play his home-state team on Tuesday night, though, so that will be a good game for Kentucky fans to watch.