Down to its fourth option at point guard, No. 17 Kentucky is searching for some consistency overall when it hosts Vanderbilt on Tuesday night in Lexington, Ky.
In his first start of the season, an 82-78 loss at Texas on Saturday, freshman Travis Perry finished with six points and three assists in 28 minutes, and coach Mark Pope’s updates on the first three options Monday were not optimistic.
Lamont Butler is averaging 12.5 points, 4.6 assists and 2.8 rebounds per game but gave way to ongoing shoulder pain on Feb. 11. He has not returned to live practices, Pope said.
Jaxson Robinson (13.3 ppg, 3.7 rpg, 1.7 apg) is not even using his injured right hand/wrist yet, the coach said.
Finally, Arizona transfer Kerr Kriisa was initially expected to return by now after foot surgery, but Pope acknowledged the possibility of Kriisa taking a medical redshirt season.
“Right now, he’s anxiously trying to get back into this thing, and the recovery has probably been a little slower than any of us would like,” Pope said.
The Wildcats knocked off then-No. 5 Tennessee before falling to Texas. They have lost five of their last eight games in the rough-and-tumble Southeastern Conference.
Kentucky (17-8, 6-6 SEC) held a five-point lead over Texas with less than four minutes to play but allowed a 14-1 run. Leading scorer Otega Oweh had 20 points and forward Amari Williams added 18 points and 12 boards, but a lack of backcourt depth and focus wore down the Wildcats.
“One of the things that’s been really special about our team is we’ve done a great job of kind of being in the moment, being onto the next play,” Pope said.
“It’s been a really good characteristic of our team. We just weren’t our normal selves in that aspect of the game in the last three minutes and 45 seconds.”
Vanderbilt (17-8, 5-7) comes in after its own frustrating loss. The Commodores led host Tennessee 44-31 at halftime but stumbled late in an 81-76 defeat.
Junior Jason Edwards had 24 points to pace the Commodores, including 6-for-10 shooting on 3-point attempts, but Vanderbilt allowed the Volunteers to shoot 55.8 percent from the floor, and 65.4 percent in the second half. On its home floor, Vanderbilt had beaten Tennessee 76-75 on Jan. 18.
“We’ve got some things to fix, but at the same time, I want to make sure that people know how good Tennessee is,” Vanderbilt coach Mark Byington said. “You can play really well and lose in this league. … We’re trying to get every one of them, but a lot of our losses this year, we haven’t played poorly.”
Edwards has been particularly impressive. The North Texas transfer is averaging 17.6 points per game and has scored in double digits in all but one of his 25 games this season.
Vanderbilt defeated visiting Kentucky 74-69 on Jan. 25. The Wildcats lost despite controlling the boards 43-30 and seeing the Commodores shoot just 4-for-11 from the foul line.
–Field Level Media
