Lamont Butler is fine, but he's going to be sore tomorrow

If you need further proof of Lamont Butler‘s toughness, just pull up tonight’s game. Kentucky’s starting point guard gave the Big Blue Nation and Mark Pope at least three mini-heart attacks in tonight’s 81-69 win over Texas A&M. Thankfully, none of the injuries seem severe, but he’s going to be sore tomorrow.

“Man, Lamont getting beat up,” Pope said during his postgame conversation with Tom Leach. “He is a tough kid. How many of you were having a little bit of an episode when he went down with the shoulder? Yeah, I was also feeling some stress. I went over there, I was like, ‘Come on, you’re okay, you’re gonna be fine.’ I didn’t know if that was true.”

The first (and biggest) scare came when Butler slipped, fell, and took an inadvertent kick to the face just 18 seconds into the second half. Butler stayed on the court for about a minute holding his shoulder and eventually went to the locker room, but returned and checked back in at the 15:19 mark. Around the eight-minute mark, Butler slipped again and grabbed his knee, but popped back up. The same thing happened with 6:33 left. It was a physical, physical game.

idk how Lamont Butler popped up so fast from that. You could hear the impact. pic.twitter.com/rTjGQPynOA

— Rare Rookies #BBN (@rarerookies) January 15, 2025

Butler finished with 6 points, 7 assists, 6 turnovers, 3 steals, and 2 rebounds in 30 minutes. It was not his best game offensively, but he continues to be the bulldog this team needs in so many other ways.

“Man, what a warrior,” Pope said. “He’s been playing at such an elite level. And he’s so tough, and he’s just helping us win, man. He’s doing everything that we need and he’s brilliant. He was brilliant again tonight.”

Travis Perry continues to shine in backup role

When Butler was out, Travis Perry once again stepped up. The freshman guard hit two big three-pointers to help push Kentucky’s lead back to double digits early in the second half. If not for Otega Oweh’s dunk, those threes might have drawn the biggest roar of the night.

“TP is just like, he’s terrific, isn’t he?” Pope said in his postgame press conference. “Against a really complicated defense. Like, this is not an easy defense to kind of figure out.”

“It was big shots, really big shots, right? They made us feel a whole lot better. He’s got no fear, and he’s just going out to play. And it’s fun. If you chart his trajectory, you just get to see these little steps that he’s taken. We all get to see it. It’s one of the great things about coaching and being fans that are really invested, which is BBN, is you actually get to see the beginning and the middle and the growth, and then we get to prognosticate about where they’re going. And to see these guys grow is special. And TP is definitely doing that. This is a high-pressure game. Is top 10 game against one of the best defenses in the country, and he was terrific.”

We were all worried about backcourt depth when Kerr Kriisa went down, but Perry is quickly proving he can hold his own in a historically strong SEC. You love to see it.

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