Ashton Hagans leaves UK game with injury. Calipari doesn’t expect him to miss much time.
Kentucky defeated Missouri in Saturday’s league opener, but the Wildcats got a major scare late in the victory.
With 90 seconds left in the game, starting point guard Ashton Hagans came out beyond the three-point line to match up defensively with Missouri guard Dru Smith and immediately grabbed at the back of his left foot after taking a step. The Kentucky sophomore did not appear to roll his ankle or make any contact with Smith before reaching for his foot, raising the fear that it could be a serious injury.
Hagans went to the Kentucky bench and was almost immediately taken to the UK locker room with the help of a Wildcats trainer. Kentucky won the game, 71-59.
John Calipari downplayed the severity of Hagans’ injury immediately after the game.
“It’s an ankle. I had one fear … (Achilles). And it’s not his Achilles,” the UK coach said. “He said it’s a low ankle sprain. You know, a high ankle sprain takes like two weeks. A low ankle sprain takes 18 hours. So, he’ll be fine.”
Calipari said he wanted to get off the Rupp Arena court as quickly as possible after Saturday’s game so he could get back to the locker room to check on Hagans. He said he was told then that it was not an Achilles’ injury, which could have ended Hagans’ season.
“When I walked off the court, they had me on the TV, and I was trying to get off the TV because I wanted to go back and make sure (he was OK),” Calipari said. “But when they told me it wasn’t (an Achilles injury), ‘OK, we can deal with whatever else it is.’”
Calipari did raise the possibility that Hagans might miss Tuesday night’s game at Georgia.
“Then you’re all going to see the impact and the importance he has on this team,” he said. “His will drags these guys.”
Kentucky is likely to have a media availability session Monday, and more could be revealed about the extent of Hagans’ injury and his status for the Georgia game then.
Coming into Saturday’s Southeastern Conference opener, Hagans was the Wildcats’ second-leading scorer with 13.4 points per game and led the team with 7.3 assists and 2.1 steals per game. He was also shooting 84.1 percent on free throws and playing a team-high 32.8 minutes per game.
He had seven points (all on free throws), seven assists and five turnovers against Missouri.
Hagans was projected as a second-round NBA Draft pick following his freshman season but returned to Kentucky for a second year to continue to work on his game. ESPN currently projects him as the No. 64 overall prospect for this year’s draft.
Johnny Juzang out
Kentucky freshman Johnny Juzang was not on the bench for Kentucky’s game against Missouri on Saturday afternoon. UK announced a couple of hours before the game that he would be absent with an illness.
John Calipari said after Saturday’s game that Juzang hasn’t been practicing with the team the past few days and has been moved to a room away from the other players in the UK team lodge as he recovers from the illness. Calipari said he did not expect Juzang to make the trip to Georgia for Tuesday’s game.
Juzang had played fewer than 10 minutes in each of Kentucky’s last four games after playing a career-high 23 minutes against Fairleigh-Dickinson on Dec. 7.
This story was originally published January 4, 2020 at 4:43 PM.
