UNC’s Roy Williams calls Ashton Hagans’ domination an ‘amazing thing’

Here’s an unlikely trifecta: Ashton Hagans made only two shots, he had a career-high five turnovers and he might have been the star of stars in Kentucky’s 80-72 victory over North Carolina on Saturday.

UNC Coach Roy Williams apparently thought so.

“The amazing thing is I look down (at the stat sheet) and Ashton Hagans is 2-for-6, seven points,” he said of the UK freshman guard’s shooting and scoring. “And I thought in some way he was more dominating in the game than anybody.”

Hagans had eight steals, which tied the UK record shared by Rajon Rondo (against Mississippi State on Feb. 19, 2005) and Wayne Turner (against George Washington on Nov. 24, 1997). Hagans was credited with seven steals in the initial box score but a review led to an updated official box score being released late Saturday night that showed he tied the record with eight.

Whatever the official numbers, fellow freshman Keldon Johnson credited Hagans with setting a tone defensively.

“Just having him out there with energy, doing what he does best,” Johnson said. “Getting us all involved. And definitely his defensive presence is just amazing. And you see it out there.

“He was picking up, locking up, making big plays (and) big stops. You could just see it rubbing off on everybody.”

Bahamas north?

The Nick Richards of the Bahamas reappeared. His five rebounds equaled the most he’d had in a game since getting 19 against Southern Illinois on Nov. 9. He also blocked a shot in his nine-plus minutes in the game.

“He’s definitely a spark plug,” Johnson said. “And that’s just the Nick we need every day.”

Tyler Herro agreed. “The same way Ashton can change the game the way he did today, Nick can do the same thing defensively by blocking shots and rebounding,” he said.

Series

Kentucky reduced North Carolina’s lead in the series to 24-16. Of the 27 teams or entities (looking at you New Albany YMCA and Phillips Oilers) that lead a series against Kentucky, North Carolina is the only one with 10 or more victories.

Of those 27 teams, 25 either last played UK prior to the end of World War II and/or the series consisted of five or fewer games.

One such team is Seton Hall, which took a 2-1 lead in the “series” by defeating Kentucky two weeks ago.

Other notable teams that have won more games against UK than they’ve lost include Memphis (Calipari coached the Tigers to a victory in the 2007 Maui Invitational in the only meeting), Texas Western (only meeting is the famous 1966 championship game victory over Rupp’s Runts), Middle Tennessee (only meeting came in the 1982 NCAA Tournament and prevented a highly anticipated UK-Louisville game in the second round) and Georgetown (UK’s 3-for-33 shooting in the second half of the 1984 Final Four semifinal gave the Hoyas a 2-0 series lead).

1,000 points

By scoring 20 points against Gonzaga last weekend, Luke Maye became the 77th North Carolina player to score 1,000 points in his career. No other program has as many 1,000-point career scorers.

Louisville is second with 68 players who have scored 1,000 points, according to the notes UNC provided the media.

Kentucky has had 60 players score 1,000 points. With UK careers frequently consisting of one or two seasons, a large increase in that number seems unlikely.

Blue bloods

Kentucky and North Carolina rank first and third in all-time victories. Defeating UNC gave UK its 2,272nd victory. North Carolina remained third at 2,240.

Kansas is second with 2,259 victories.

SEC

Kentucky’s victory over No. 9 North Carolina improved the SEC’s modest record against ranked teams. The SEC improved to 5-13 against teams in The Associated Press Top 25. It was only the SEC’s second victory in nine games against a top-10 team.

Tennessee gave the SEC a marquee victory by beating then-No. 1 Gonzaga 76-73 on Dec. 9. The league’s other such victories before Saturday came against then No. 18 Arizona State (by Vanderbilt), then No. 24 Furman (by LSU) and then No. 25 Washington (by Auburn).

Going into this weekend, SEC teams had lost 15 games to unranked teams from non-Power Five conferences. And the league had a 16-21 record against Power Five teams.

‘Tough situation’

Williams said UNC had three main goals going into the game: outrebound Kentucky, limit turnovers, play defense.

None were achieved. UNC came into the game leading the nation in rebound margin (plus 14.1), but UK outrebounded the Tar Heels 44-33.

UNC had 18 turnovers. UNC also had 19 fouls.

“Tough situation,” Williams said.

Bon appétit

While in Chicago, UK took a small group of donors to dinner at Eleven Eleven. One of the owners is former UK player Nazr Mohammed.

This story was originally published December 22, 2018 at 10:19 PM.