The Kentucky Wildcats have lost one of their leaders. While Jaxson Robinson will likely stay heavily involved in the Cats’ day-to-day activities, he won’t be making another appearance on the court for Mark Pope’s squad.
Robinson originally injured his wrist in practice and then attempted to play against the Oklahoma Sooners last week and ended up reaggravating the injury.
At that time, the extent of the injury wasn’t known, but it appears Pope thinks Robinson knew at that time that his season was over.
During his Monday radio show, Pope opened up about the tragic moment Robinson knew his season was over and the beauty that came out of it.
“He (Robinson) came out firing away in the first 10 minutes and then went down and took a really hard fall, landed right on his wrist, and it ended up being the end of his season and his college career,” said Pope.
“He went into halftime and was unbelievably supportive of the guys, then during the second half, during a really remarkable second half. It was a beautiful thing to watch in terms of seeing our guys’ competitive spirit and ability to come back and win that game.
“And Jax was 100% dialed in the whole time. And you only recognize how hard that was for him because we went back in the locker room, everybody’s celebrating like crazy. The celebration breaks, and then Jaxson bursts out into tears, like inconsolable tears.
“What’s really special about him and about this team is Jax, in his heart of hearts, knew the second he went down and really couldn’t…he tried to go back in the game. Just couldn’t really move this wrist and couldn’t catch a ball. Couldn’t do anything, and the pain was pretty excruciating.
“And so he knew before halftime (his season was over), but he wasn’t going to indulge in feeling sorry for himself or sad at all. He was going to be totally focused on this team for the next hour through this incredibly emotional comeback where we needed every ounce of energy that everybody had, and then you just saw it come spilling out of him after, and he’s just a really special human being.”
Here’s to hoping for a speedy recovery for Robinson, who clearly gave this team everything he had until the very end.
