Mark Pope on the emotional moment Jaxson Robinson knew his season was over

Jaxson Robinson will be recognized tonight at Rupp Arena alongside five other Kentucky graduate students and seniors. It will be a special Senior Night, the first of the Mark Pope era, but an especially emotional one for Robinson, who will undergo surgery on his right wrist on Wednesday.

Last night on his call-in show, Mark Pope talked about Robinson’s attempted return to the court last week and the crushing moment when he realized his season, and college career, were over. Robinson initially injured his wrist on Feb. 10, the day before Kentucky’s game vs. Tennessee at home, during a collision with Brandon Garrison in practice. Pope said that at the time, doctors recommended surgery but also gave Robinson the option of rehabbing his wrist in hopes of being able to return to the court this season.

“Man, it’s just one of the worst parts of basketball,” Pope said. “Jax has worked so hard, and he’s been such a huge part of this team and was playing so well, and in league, was just having an unbelievable SEC run. And he’s clearly a huge part of what we do. And, you know, it was recommended to him a month ago that he go have surgery, but the doctor also gave him permission to take one last swing at it. And it just couldn’t work.”

Pope said Robinson is now serving as Associate Head Coach Alvin Brooks III’s assistant and joked that he’s “demanding an increase in salary” for all the scout work he’s been doing. Yesterday, Kentucky held its final scheduled practice in Rupp Arena (although Pope might “force the doors to Rupp open” a few more times before the postseason). Pope said you could tell it was “killing” Robinson not to be out there with his teammates, but it was nothing compared to the emotions he went through last week at Oklahoma.

“I’ll share a little bit about Jax — he’d probably be mad at me for this, but he gets mad at me all the time, so I can share it. So Jaxson Robinson is a consummate team player. He was so excited to go back to Oklahoma for a bunch of reasons. One is because it was his first game back healthy. Two, he was really hoping that this was going to work, that he was going to get through this wrist injury, and that it was going to rehab and be okay, and he was making good progress, and it’s his [home state]. So, for all those reasons, he was so excited to get back.”

Robinson’s return was going well, with the graduate student connecting on 3-7 shots for seven points in the first half vs. the Sooners, before he fell on his right wrist. Although Pope said that deep down, Robinson knew his season and college career were over, he shelved his emotions and put his teammates first.

“He 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. And he went into halftime and was unbelievably support of the guys and then all during the second half, during a really remarkable second half. I mean, 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.

“And what’s really special about him and about this team is, Jax really, 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, 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 need 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.”

Robinson is expected to make a full recovery in three months, which puts him on track to explore his pro options this summer. He pulled out of the NBA Draft last summer to follow Mark Pope to Kentucky for one more ride. Sadly, that run was cut short for Robinson, but Pope said his journey is far from over.

“I’m telling you, when God puts little detours like this in your life, there’s a reason. A lot of times, we don’t know the reason for a while, but I’m sure that it’s gonna grow him into something even more than he ever could have imagined.”

For an in-depth look at Jaxson Robinson’s story and his relationship with Mark Pope, I’ll direct you to the feature story I wrote on him in December.

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