“I did pretty well — four A’s and a B,” said Moody, Kansas University’s freshman walk-on forward from Asheville, N.C. He will study pre-med at KU in hopes of following in the footsteps of his doctor father, Mark.

The 6-foot-7, 205-pounder has already conquered classes like biology and calculus, picking up where he left off at Asheville’s T.C. Roberson High, where he had a 4.65 weighted GPA and SAT score of 1,390.

As far as basketball, Moody has played mop-up minutes entering tonight’s 7 p.m. home game against his hometown school — UNC Asheville — but has been soaking up valuable information in Roy Williams’ basketball classroom.

“I spend most of the time guarding Nick Collison,” Moody said. “I’ve heard people say he has every post move in the book. I’m sitting here trying to guard him. Whatever I can learn from him I’m trying to take in. I work pretty hard against him to try to make him better.”

“Much better” is how Moody describes college talent compared to high school players in the mountains of North Carolina.

“They have great players out here,” Moody said. “They are all great athletes. They all do everything really well. They are very good shooters, very good drivers. They are really quick on the defensive end.

“This is a dream, but it’s also tough. Practices are tough. I knew they (practices) would be tough, the type of program this is. I’m just trying to work hard every day to help out the team any way I can. The basketball is the best here. It’s a lot more than I ever dreamed of.”

Moody averaged 13.1 points and 9.3 rebounds per game as a senior at Roberson High, which happens to be the alma mater of KU coach Williams. He received recruiting interest from “a lot of Division Two and Three schools, a couple small Division Ones,” he said.

“I was thinking of going Ivy League starting out. But when this opportunity came up (he couldn’t turn it down).”

Moody arrived at KU as a preferred walk-on after Roberson coach Rich Sizemore — good friends with Williams’ former high school coach, Buddy Baldwin — sent KU some film. Moody, who wasn’t recruited heavily by UNC Asheville, visited Mount Oread and decided to walk-on.

Asheville, 3-6, is coming off an 100-64 loss to Oklahoma on Monday in Norman, Okla. The Bulldogs have lost at Michigan State (66-52), Minnesota (87-81) and UConn, (117-67), beating only Montreat College, Western and Campbell.

“It will be a huge deal for them because they love playing big-time programs,” Moody said. “If you look at their schedule they play a lot of (good teams). They’ll be really pumped up.

“I think, for them, playing in Allen Fieldhouse would be the biggest game of the year. I think it means a lot to the coaches playing against coach Williams’ old town and school.”

Asheville is led by senior guard Andre Smith, who averages 19.0 points a game, and center Ben McGonagil, a 6-11, 260-pounder who tallies 11.1 points and 6.3 boards.

Williams is fond of the Asheville program.

“They are coached by Eddie Biedenbach, who was a a great player at North Carolina State. He was ACC player of the year one year,” Williams said. “He was a great defender. Needless to say, UNC Asheville is in my hometown.

“They played very well early this year, played all those tough people eight to 12 points, then went to Connecticut and Connecticut just killed ’em up there — which they will do to a lot of people. They try to play games like this to get enough money to run their program and run it the way they’d like to have it.”

Both Williams and Moody are big fans of scenic Asheville, N.C.

“It’s a beautiful place. There’s a lot of great people. I like the mountains a lot,” said Moody, who moved to Asheville from Phoenix when he was 8.

This begins a busy slate for KU. The Jayhawks will play UMKC at 2 p.m. Saturday at Kemper Arena in Kansas City, Mo., and meet Iowa State at 8 p.m. Monday in Ames, Iowa.