Mark Pope gave a not-so-promising Andrew Carr update after the Vandy loss

Andrew Carr did not play today vs. Vanderbilt, his back still giving him issues despite a week of rest between games. Kentucky missed its reliable big man, but Mark Pope refused to say it was one of the reasons why his team lost its second straight game.

“It doesn’t — you know, we have really good players,” Pope told reporters after the 74-69 loss to the Commodores. “And I thought Ansley [Almonor] was terrific tonight. I thought Trent Noah was a real burst. And so we have players good enough to win.”

One of the reasons Pope took that approach is because Kentucky may be without Carr for a bit. A few minutes later, he gave a concerning update on Carr’s health.

“You know, I probably have done a bad job with Drew. He wants to play so bad, and we’re just kind of seeing a decline in his performance because there’s just so much you can’t do with this back. And so we were trending in the wrong direction.”

After struggling against Alabama a week ago, Carr spent the week focused solely on recovery, “undergoing every treatment under the sun,” according to Pope last Monday. He was listed as questionable on Kentucky’s initial availability report last night, but most expected him to play. Pope said it was a tough call to hold him out today, but the staff really wants to get to a place where Carr can feel comfortable in practice again before returning to game action.

“Injuries are hard. Like, these calls are really hard. And so what we’re hoping is that we can get to a space sometime in the next few weeks, next few days, somewhere where we have enough confidence that — you know, he hasn’t practiced in a couple of weeks, and every game is like, he just gets beat up so bad, it’s back to square one, where it’s hard for him to walk essentially, and so we’re hoping that with more time, we can get him to some sustainable place where we can endure a practice and endure a game and not be back to zero but we’ll see if that actually happens.”

The “next few weeks, next few days” comment may have been a Freudian slip, but if Carr is unable to go for a few weeks, the Cats will have to adjust. As Pope said, Ansley Almonor performed well today, scoring 12 points on 4-5 from the floor, and Trent Noah made the most of his first minutes of SEC play; however, the road’s about to get even tougher, with a trip to No. 6 Tennessee coming up on Tuesday.

“It’s complicated,” Pope said. “You’re dealing in percentages. You’re not dealing in guarantees. And so we just thought, we take a swing at this, and we’ll kind of gauge him tomorrow and gauge him Monday, and just kind of be with him for sure.”

Get well soon, Team Dad.

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