Lamont Butler, Jaxson Robinson injury updates: Mark Pope reveals status vs. South Carolina

Both Kentucky guards Jaxson Robinson and Lamont Butler are “genuine game-time decisions” against South Carolina on Saturday, Mark Pope tells ESPN’s Pete Thamel.

Butler has missed the past three games with injury, while Robinson’s injury is new. According to Thamel, Pope said that Robinson had a “brutal collision” during practice on Friday that may keep him out of Saturday’s matchup.

Kentucky is 1-2 since losing Butler, their starting point guard and primary ball-handler. Pope provided a vague update during the week on whether or not he expected Butler to be ready for Saturday’s tip-off.

“Lamont is making progress,” Pope said during his call-in radio show Wednesday evening, via KSR. “It’s a complicated situation, and so it’s gonna continue. We’re just gonna continue to kind of hope for the best.”

Butler (13.2 points per game) and Robinson (13.6) and Kentucky’s second and third-leading scorers on the season, behind Otega Oweh‘s 16.0. Losing them against the Gamecocks would cut out nearly 30 percent of Kentucky’s 87.0 per game scoring average.

It doesn’t help that fellow guard Kerr Kriisa hasn’t played in over two months since injuring his foot against Gonzaga on Dec. 7. He was an ever-present spark off the bench of the Wildcats during the first month of the season, and will be missing him again on Saturday when they take on South Carolina.

Kentucky has had to turn to 6-foot-11 big man Amari Williams to run Mark Pope’s offense in the last gew games as a result. While Williams has been putting up moster numbers for the Wildcats, even logging a triple-double his last time out vs. Ole Miss, but has made UK’s offense somewhat predictable.

Instead of quick deep shots and flashy cuts to the basket, Kentucky has been forced to play deep into the shot clock to run its offense. Strong perimiter defense from Arkansas and Ole Miss kept Kentucky from playing their brand of basketball down the stretch in both matchups. If Robinson is unable to go, it becomes that much harded for the Wildcats to find consistent scoring apart from Oweh and Williams, assuming the latter re-takes the role as point guard.

Regardless of injuries, Kentucky is in desperate need of snapping its two-game skid after losing to John Calipari’s Razorbacks in the former UK coach’s return to Rupp Arena last weekend. They followed that performance up by being outplayed for 40 minutes by Ole Miss on the road on Tuesday.

They’ll look to right those wrongs on Saturday against South Carolina, a team that is still searching for its first win in SEC play.

Tip-off between the Wildcats and Gamecocks is set for Noon ET live on ESPN2.