Kentucky's Kerr Kriisa will miss the remainder of the season

Kerr Kriisa‘s time in a Kentucky uniform is over — this season, with certainty, anyway.

The fifth-year guard, who underwent surgery on a broken foot back in early December, will not return for the Wildcats in 2024-25, Mark Pope announced Thursday.

Last suiting up in blue and white in UK’s win over Gonzaga back on December 7, Kriisa has not met the recovery benchmarks required to return this season, a ‘stubborn healing process,’ as Pope describes it.

“We’re past the window now where he could actually get back,” Pope said. “It’s been little bit of a stubborn healing process and he just hasn’t reached the benchmarks he’s needed to get to in terms of that healing process.”

Pope previously announced Kriisa is eligible for a medical redshirt, opening the door to a potential sixth season of college basketball in 2025-26.

“Kerr could get a medical redshirt because he meets qualifications,” Pope said in February. “The two qualifications are less than 30 percent of the games played — he’s barely under 30 percent — and not played past the mid-point. So that is a possibility.”

The possibility of a medical redshirt was initially seen as a back-pocket situation with Kriisa  ‘anxiously trying to get back into this thing’ before the end of the season.

“If we can find a way for him to play, he’s going to come help us play if he can,” Pope added.

With just one regular season game to go and Kentucky’s postseason run set to begin exactly one week from today, Pope is ready to shut down Kriisa the rest of the way.

The Estonian guard, who made previous stops at Arizona and West Virginia, will finish the season averaging 4.4 points, 3.8 assists and 2.4 rebounds in 17.3 minutes per contest across nine games at Kentucky.