For the first time this season, Kentucky men’s basketball is set to take on a repeat opponent.
Tuesday night’s highly anticipated SEC matchup between No. 15 Kentucky (16-7 overall, 5-5 SEC) and No. 5 Tennessee (20-4, 7-4) will offer the Volunteers a chance for revenge in Rupp Arena.
That’s because just two weeks ago UK rolled into Knoxville and knocked off Tennessee 78-73.
Mark Pope’s Kentucky team won that game without point guard Lamont Butler and effectively without forward Andrew Carr, who played less than 90 seconds. Butler and Carr are now both back in the UK rotation, and played significant minutes in Saturday’s bounce-back home win over South Carolina. But, Kentucky now has another injury issue. Fifth-year guard Jaxson Robinson won’t play for UK on Tuesday due to a right wrist injury.
The current injury news for both the Wildcats and Volunteers was revealed Monday night, when the SEC injury report was released for both UK and Tennessee ahead of the marquee conference showdown.
The injury report will be updated again Tuesday evening, prior to tipoff.
The probable designation means Butler has a 75% chance to play. Robinson — the fifth-year guard who is in his third season playing for Pope — suffered a right wrist injury during UK’s practice Friday. On Saturday, Pope described the practice collision that caused Robinson’s injury as “scary,” although X-ray imaging done on Robinson’s right wrist came back clean for UK. Despite initially being listed as questionable for the South Carolina game, Robinson started as normal and played 20 minutes against the Gamecocks. Robinson had six points, five rebounds and four assists.
On his weekly radio show Monday night, Pope addressed the subject of Robinson’s injury several times. First, Pope indicated that it’s unlikely that Robinson will play against Tennessee. “Looks like we’re not going to have Jaxson Robinson, but we’ll kind of see how things pan out tomorrow (at) game time,” Pope said. Then, Pope circled back and clarified, to an extent, his previous comments about Robinson, who has started all 23 of UK’s games so far this season.
“Jax and Lamont are just a patchwork every single day,” Pope said. “We’re seeing how good a tape job we can give them and how much treatment and therapy we can give them, and roll them out there and see where we get… I think there’s a solid chance, at least, I’m hopeful, that we’ll see Lamont again tomorrow.
I think there’s equally… A chance to get Jax on the floor, but I also believe in miracles. So we’ll see how it goes with Jax. It’s going to be touch and go with those guys for the next few weeks.”
For Tuesday at least, Robinson — who is averaging 13.3 points, 3.7 rebounds and 1.7 assists per game this season — won’t be able to go for the Wildcats. Butler — the fifth-year guard who previously played four seasons at San Diego State — was included on Kentucky’s injury report Monday, but signs appear good that he will play against the Volunteers.
Butler returned from a three-game injury absence to start for UK on Saturday against South Carolina.
Butler injured his left shoulder during a Jan. 14 home win against Texas A&M. He played in UK’s next two games following that injury, before then missing three straight contests, prior to returning Saturday.
“It’s feeling all right,” Butler said Monday when asked about his shoulder. “I’m ready to go for this game tomorrow, but it’s feeling all right.” Butler logged 23 minutes in Saturday’s game, scoring eight points and recording three assists and turnovers each, while also providing important on-ball defense for the Wildcats.
“I just want to be a defender like him,” UK freshman Trent Noah said of Butler. “Whenever he’s guarding you, you might as well just give it up because he’ll probably take your ball.
Whenever he’s guarding the ball, the rim protection, you don’t even really need it because he can guard one-on-one with anybody. He’s really one of the best defenders I’ve seen.”
On the season, Butler is averaging 12.9 points and 4.7 assists per game, while shooting 40% from 3-point range. With Butler back in his role as Kentucky’s key defensive difference-maker, the Wildcats surrendered their second-lowest scoring total of the season to South Carolina.
Kriisa — the fifth-year guard who previously played at Arizona and West Virginia — remains sidelined for the Wildcats. He hasn’t played for UK since early December.
Kriisa injured his foot during the second half of Kentucky’s overtime win over Gonzaga in Seattle on Dec. 7. The 6-foot-3 guard from Estonia had surgery on his foot a few days after that game. Last week, Pope provided an extensive injury update on Kriisa. “He’s not doing anything active on the court yet,” Pope said of Kriisa.
“But he’s doing much more active stuff in the weight room and in the training room, and so the next step is just to see what that response is like. It’s a matter of how quickly and if you can get over the soreness in that step.”
“He’s still limited to the training room and the weight room,” Pope added. “And at some point, when he meets those pain-threshold benchmarks, he’ll move onto the court and start a light process there.” On his radio show Monday night, Pope said Kriisa “is still a ways away” from returning to practice for UK.
In nine games played for Kentucky this season, Kriisa has averaged 3.8 assists.
Two players are on the Tennessee injury report. Sophomore forward J.P. Estrella is out and junior forward Felix Okpara is probable to play. That probable designation means Okpara has a 75% chance of playing against the Wildcats.
Estrella is out for the season for Tennessee after undergoing foot surgery in November. The second-year forward — who was a four-star recruit in the 2023 high school class — only played in three games this season before having surgery.
Okpara has started all 24 games for Tennessee this season, with per-game averages of 7.6 points, 6.4 rebounds and 1.9 blocks. Estrella was the only player on Tennessee’s injury report two weeks ago ahead of the Volunteers’ first game against Kentucky.
But during that contest, standout senior guard Zakai Zeigler suffered a knee injury.
Zeigler then missed Tennessee’s next game, a surprise home win over then-No. 5 Florida on Feb. 1.
Zeigler has been back to full action for Tennessee’s two most recent games, a home win over then-No. 15 Missouri and Saturday’s dominant road win at Oklahoma.
“He’s a really good guard … great playmaker,” Butler said of Zeigler, who averages more than two steals per game for Tennessee. “He’s been really good for them all year.”