Kentucky moves past Jaxson Robinson news with convincing win over LSU

Kentucky desperately needed to get back on track tonight vs. LSU. The news that Jaxson Robinson is out of the season after falling on his injured wrist at Oklahoma was a devastating blow, the emotions of which rolled into Saturday’s blowout loss to Auburn. After a chance to catch their breath and regroup, the Cats rebounded spectacularly on Senior Night, beating LSU 95-64 at Rupp Arena.

After the final home game of his first season at Kentucky, Mark Pope looked as though a weight had been taken off his shoulders. He opened up on what has been a trying week for his staff and players, admitting that as upsetting as the news about Robinson was, his team can now focus on what they have instead of treading water waiting for injured players to rejoin the fold as they have for the majority of the season.

“It was a super tumultuous time,” Pope said of the past week in his postgame press conference. “I think the guys are devastated for [Jaxson] and really sad for us because he’s such a massive part of this team. And, at the same time, [we’re] resolved that we know what we have today, and we’re gonna go try and find a way to win with what we have today. But these guys love Jax so much. Jax loves these guys so much. They’ve been on an epic journey together. It’s just hard to make sense of why he doesn’t get a chance to finish this with these guys. It’s really brutal.”

There are no silver linings in losing a player like Jaxson Robinson, whose impact on this squad was undeniable; however, Pope said that the closure of knowing that Robinson is done for the season forced his players to reset and look at what’s right in front of them. LSU is really struggling this season, but tonight’s game was the perfect runway for this group to find their footing again.

“It’s funny how the gravity of the season gets to you, right?” Pope said. “So, we’ve been patchworking so much that we’ve lost a couple of things over the last six weeks. We lost this desperate hunger to get better because we were just trying to stay afloat, right? And by staying afloat, in some ways, I think we did get better, but there were so many distractions going on, and then, we kind of lost the pace of the game, because we’re just trying to stay afloat. We’re just trying to, like, get enough live bodies to function.”

That pace was back in force tonight, with Kentucky totaling 29 fast-break points to LSU’s 11, and hitting 12-32 threes, the latter figure near Pope’s goal of 35 three-point attempts per game. The Cats’ points per possession was 1.267, the best since the Vanderbilt win on Feb. 19. Kentucky had 22 assists on 36 made baskets, 13 steals, and just eight turnovers.

“You think about Otega’s pass but there was a lot of that tonight. There was a lot of pace against a really good transition defensive team. LSU has been a really solid transition defensive team. They only give up 50% of their possessions in transition. And so those two things, I think we’re on the uptick.”

With all due respect to LSU, the road gets much tougher from here. On Saturday, Kentucky plays No. 15 Missouri in Columbia. The Tigers have lost two of their last three, falling at Vanderbilt and Arkansas, but they’re 18-1 at home this season and will be eager to get a win on their own Senior Day. After that, it’s win-or-go-home at the SEC Tournament in Nashville and wherever the Cats end up in the NCAA Tournament. For now, Pope is just grateful his team made a convincing first step after losing Robinson.

“I think we kind of have a vibe for the first time, it feels like we’re going to have the same guys out on the floor Saturday as we did tonight, as we did last Saturday, which we haven’t had that in almost two months. And so we’re really excited about that, and we’re really excited about getting back focused in this late stretch, to continue getting better and continue bringing pace to the game. Those are really important to us.”

There are some flies in the ointment, of course. No Jaxson Robinson means one fewer body and more lineup configurations. Pope admitted that he’s forced to play some odd combinations, which is still a work in progress for him and his staff.

“We don’t have a ton of lineup flexibility right now, for us to put a really good group on the floor,” Pope said. “All of our guys can go be great on the floor, but they have to be with the right other group, some of our guys, to be really effective and functional. So, you take that as one example about, man, we’re still trying to figure that out. But on Saturday, we have our third straight game where we get to kind of explore this group of pieces and we’ll figure it out.”

After tonight, how can you not be excited to watch them try?

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