Mark Pope clearly doesn’t want to use it as an excuse. Everyone else associated with this Kentucky basketball team is clearly growing tired of discussing it altogether.
Nevertheless, until something changes around the situation, it will continue to be the primary talking point related to these Wildcats, and it’s their most glaring issue on the court.
Lamont Butler and Kerr Kriisa — the team’s two veteran point guards and two of the biggest playmakers in the transfer portal last offseason — remain on the sidelines.
Jaxson Robinson — viewed as Pope’s biggest acquisition for his first season with the Wildcats — is out, too. Andrew Carr, another key player for these Cats, clearly hasn’t been himself.
And Kentucky — even with an emphatic 82-61 win against Vanderbilt on Wednesday night — is a worse basketball team because of it all.
That’s frustrating enough for Pope, his coaching staff and the UK players left to pick up the pieces in their absence. Perhaps even more frustrating? No one could have seen this coming.
Whenever coaches bring new players into a program — and, remember, every single scholarship Wildcat on Pope’s first UK team played elsewhere last season — there’s always a certain amount of the unknown.
But, with this group, there was no reason to think injuries would be an issue.
It would have been one thing if a player like Koby Brea was watching from the sidelines. Brea missed parts of two seasons at Dayton due to injury, endured multiple surgeries, ended up in a wheelchair at one point and even sat out of early offseason activities after arriving at UK as a sort of “load management” measure.
There was some risk — from an injury standpoint — with taking Brea, but he’s been one of only four UK players to appear in every game, and he’s now second on the team in total minutes.
The guys the Cats have been missing had no such history.
▪ Butler sat out five games early in his sophomore season with a wrist injury. Other than that, he appeared in all 131 games possible with San Diego State and had played in 104 consecutive games before suffering a sprained ankle in UK’s loss at Clemson on Dec. 3. He missed two games with that injury, returned to play through the pain and then suffered the shoulder injury that has now sidelined him for five additional games.
▪ Carr had played in 117 of a possible 118 games over four seasons at Delaware and Wake Forest before coming to UK, and the only one he missed was against a Division III opponent. He said he never had any history of back troubles before things started to feel a little off in the Cats’ win against Brown on Dec. 31. He ultimately missed only one complete game, but he played less than 90 seconds in a win at Tennessee and — until the rout of Vandy on Wednesday night — had looked out of sorts ever since returning. Pope confirmed that Carr hadn’t even been able to participate fully in practice on consecutive days until Monday and Tuesday of this week.
▪ Robinson is the player Pope knew the best coming into this season. He was BYU’s leading scorer under Pope last season. In two previous years with the coach, Robinson played in 66 of a possible 68 games. He missed a blowout win over Bellarmine last season with a sprained ankle. And he was one of three players suspended — for breaking a team rule — in a BYU loss to Saint Mary’s two years ago. He’s now missed three straight games with a wrist injury.
Kriisa was sidelined at both of his previous schools — Arizona and West Virginia — for eligibility reasons, but his injury history isn’t all that extensive. He missed three games in his first full season at Arizona with a sprained ankle and sat out one other game that year with an injury suffered while he was “horsing around” at a pregame meal, according to Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd. Over the previous two seasons, Kriisa played in all 58 games he was eligible for. He’s now missed 17 straight games with a foot injury.
These guys have been battling, too.
Kentucky basketball injury issues
The college basketball world these days is filled with stories of phantom injuries — in some cases, players sitting due to NIL squabbles — but that obviously isn’t the case with any of Kentucky’s ailing Wildcats.
Butler, Carr and Robinson all tried to play additional games after sustaining their original injuries.
Butler was clearly not himself in a loss at Vanderbilt last month and had to shut things down for a couple of weeks, only to reinjure his shoulder while diving for a loose ball in his second game back.
Carr played multiple games as his back injury worsened — he was unable to sit on the bench during breaks in the action for much of that time — and has clearly still been hurting during his most recent return.
Robinson played with a taped wrist less than 24 hours after sustaining a “scary” — Pope’s word — injury during UK’s practice, a scene that shook everyone who saw it happen. In the cases of both Butler and Robinson, the UK coach has implied that neither injury will heal completely this season, even with ample rest.
In Kriisa’s case, he suffered a fractured foot while turning the ball over against Gonzaga and actually limped back on defense to contest the resulting fast-break opportunity instead of going to the floor. The way he reacted in the moment, it looked to be merely a cramp at first sight. He was under the knife a couple of days later.
Injuries aren’t solely a Kentucky problem, of course. Other teams have dealt with them, too.
Just looking around the SEC, the Auburn Tigers won games with Johni Broome — possibly the national player of the year — on the sidelines. Texas beat UK without top forward Arthur Kaluma last weekend. Tennessee knocked off Florida — now the No. 2 team in the country — without Zakai Zeigler, regarded as one of the best players in all of college basketball. No. 4 Alabama — the Cats’ opponent Saturday — lost key contributor Latrell Wrightsell Jr. to a season-ending injury in November. And so on.
But no one has had an ongoing injury report quite like Kentucky, which is also currently in the unenviable position of being without each of its top three options at point guard. For a roster of new teammates who quickly bonded in the offseason, it’s been one blow after another.
“Definitely, it’s pretty frustrating,” Carr said. “I think, at this point, we’re going to be able to do what we can with what we have, and I’m super confident in our abilities with the group that we have. And so, of course, you want to be able to play with everybody. And a lot of us are in our last season of college basketball. And so we really wanted to try to be able to take advantage and play with them. So, of course, I wish that we’d be able to play as a whole group.
“We got to know each other really well, really fast. And so I love those guys and want to be able to play with them. But we’re super excited to try and take on these battles with whatever we have. And hopefully, you know, they’ll be back in no time, and we’ll continue to hit our stride.”
Carr and other veterans have followed Pope’s lead on the subject. No excuses. Don’t dwell on circumstances beyond your control. Kentucky has employed a next-man-up mentality, and young players like Travis Perry, Trent Noah and Collin Chandler have done their best to rise to the occasion, while other veterans have picked up heavier loads in hopes that their teammates will return.
Still, it hurts, especially for a group of players in their final seasons of college basketball.
Butler, Carr, Kriisa and Robinson are all fifth-year college players. It’s possible Kriisa could still receive an extra season of eligibility, though it’s not clear if the Estonian guard would even consider a return, with pro options — either here or, more likely, in his native Europe — awaiting him.
Whatever happens, the bulk of this team was put together for one season only. And while there have been some magical moments — with more likely to come over the next few weeks — they haven’t been able to fully enjoy that one season together.
“I think it’s devastating, actually,” Pope said. “Like, I’m so sad for them, right? I’m sad for me. I’m sad for our team. But I’m sad for the guys. You’re right here. You’re here at Kentucky. Like, we’re in it. You’ve done amazing things this season, and we have so much on the table right now that we can chase this year and that you can be a part of. And then … it’s been taken from several of those guys. I just know how great it is (at Kentucky). It’s what you’ve worked your whole life to have the chance to do this, and then something a little bit beyond your control starts to interfere. And it’s hard.
- But also — these experiences, whether it lasts for one game or whether it lasts for two months or a year — recovering from injury is also a way that we get to be challenged. Like, to our core. And grow and figure things out. But, yeah, in the moment, I’m just — man, it kills me for our guys.”
