Saturday will be a spectacle inside Rupp Arena. No. 1 Auburn (26-2 overall and 14-1 in SEC games) is set to visit No. 17 Kentucky (19-9, 8-7) in a highly anticipated afternoon showdown as the SEC regular season winds to a close.
The Tigers haven’t won in Lexington since January 1988, but Bruce Pearl’s group is having a historically good season and is closing in on the conference’s regular-season championship.
A win over Mark Pope’s Wildcats on Saturday would go a long way toward confirming that crown. On the other side, Kentucky is in search of its 10th Quad 1 victory of the season and hoping to find some consistency on the court as the postseason nears.
UK is currently in a race to secure a top-eight seed in the SEC Tournament, which would mean the Cats wouldn’t have to play until the second round of the event.
Wednesday’s last-second win over Oklahoma was a positive step in this pursuit. A win against Auburn would be monumental leap in this direction. As preparation continues for Saturday’s showdown between Auburn and Kentucky, some major news arrived Friday night with the release of the SEC injury report. That report was updated Saturday morning, before tipoff.
Pope’s team has plenty of injury news to dive into, with fifth-year guards Lamont Butler and Jaxson Robinson at the top of that list.
On UK’s injury report, fifth-year guards Kerr Kriisa and Jaxson Robinson are both listed as out.
This means Butler will play against Auburn. Butler, a fifth-year guard who previously was a standout player at San Diego State, made his return to the Kentucky lineup during Wednesday night’s win at Oklahoma. Back on Jan. 14, Butler suffered a left shoulder injury during UK’s home win over Texas A&M. He missed three straight games with that injury, returned for Kentucky, then reinjured his left shoulder in Kentucky’s home win over Tennessee on Feb. 1. After missing three more consecutive games due to that shoulder injury, Butler was back against the Sooners.
Butler played 20 minutes against Oklahoma and had seven points, six assists, four rebounds and three turnovers. He fouled out of the game with 4:16 remaining, which marked the third time this season that Butler fouled out for the Wildcats. Butler led all players in the Oklahoma game with an individual plus-10 mark, which was achieved while he wore a significant brace on his left shoulder. “I think Lamont is OK,” Pope said after the game Wednesday night. “We’ll see. For us moving forward, it’s always the morning after that we’re going to know a lot more.”
