Kentucky needs more from Jaxson Robinson after his rough night in loss to Georgia

It wasn’t Jaxson Robinson‘s best showing in Kentucky’s 82-69 road loss to Georgia on Tuesday night. In fact, it was arguably his worst of the entire season.

Robinson scored just five points on 1-5 shooting — all shot attempts coming from beyond the arc — to go along with four personal fouls in 27 minutes of action. It was his second-lowest scoring game of the season, the lowest being a one-point effort against Duke all the way back in November. But Kentucky found a way to beat the Blue Devils without a big game from the BYU transfer. He was nowhere to be found against Georgia when his team desperately needed him to step up.

“It’s just the ebb and flow of the game. That’s all it is,” Head coach Mark Pope said of Robinson’s performance against Georgia. “Jaxson’s been doing this for a long time. He’s a shot-maker. The most important thing for Jaxson, for all our guys, is we don’t actually carry that baggage around.”

Robinson all but disappeared for lengthy stretches in Athens. He was turning down layup attempts and getting beat on defense. His body language wasn’t inspiring. Granted, it can be hard to keep a happy face when he’s getting tagged for ticky-tack fouls such as this one in a game that had zero rhythm. But there’s little excuse for his overall play in Kentucky’s first SEC road game of the season. He simply has to play better.

“Jaxson is a vet. He’s been doing this for a long time,” Pope said. “Right now he’s focusing on the things he can control that can affect this game. He’s focusing on making plays for his teammates. He’s focusing on rebounding the ball. He’s focusing on his feet and his assignments on defense. He’s focusing on talking to the team in the huddle. Those are things where he’s got to continue to exert his focus on; shots are going to come and go. We don’t judge makes or misses. We judge performance on the court. He’s been doing this for a long time and he’ll continue to focus on those things.”

Makes and misses aside, Robinson’s overall performance was anything but acceptable. He struggled to do the non-scoring things that Pope mentioned. Even when Robinson finally hit his lone bucket of the game, which came late in the shot clock, it wasn’t enough to wake him up. That shot came with 7:04 left in the second half, ended a nearly five-minute scoring drought for the ‘Cats, and made it a single-digit deficit. He didn’t take another shot attempt the rest of the way.

It’s not like we haven’t seen Robinson produce huge moments for Kentucky this season though. He led the Wildcats’ comeback against Gonzaga up in Seattle as a makeshift point guard. He’s scored 10 or more points in 10 of 15 games played this season. But he hasn’t been the player most expected when he followed Pope to Lexington, the one with NBA aspirations. Robinson is still averaging 12.1 points per game this season but on 40 percent overall shooting with a 29 percent clip from deep. Those numbers have to improve moving forward.

Is a possible move to the bench on the table? Robinson thrived as the Big 12’s Sixth Man of the Year in 2023-24. That could be a bit of an overreaction though. He was productive as a starter against Florida just a few days ago. But if Kentucky wants to compete in the gauntlet that is the SEC, Pope is going to need more from Jaxson Robinson.