Mark Pope expects Kerr Kriisa back 'sooner rather than later' for Kentucky

Fans got to witness something pretty special when the Kentucky Wildcats took on the Gonzaga Bulldogs in Seattle. No, not the 18-point comeback or the push in overtime to close out Mark Pope‘s second consecutive top-10 victory to begin his time in Lexington — the first coach since Adolph Rupp to do so.

It was actually at the 8:41 mark in the second half coming off a Ryan Nembhard layup in transition. That was the sequence when Kerr Kriisa broke his foot, an injury that will keep him out indefinitely.

The fifth-year senior caught a pass from Koby Brea at mid-court and came up in clear discomfort before quickly tossing the ball away. That turnover led to a two-on-one situation for the Bulldogs with Dusty Stromer and Nembhard, Kriisa doing his best to slow down the scoring opportunity down the floor. As Nembhard lifted for the bucket, the Wildcat guard jumped to meet him at the rim, contesting the attempt about as well as you can for a healthy player — let alone someone with an injury set to be surgically repaired in the coming days.

Pope was asked about Kriisa’s health status during his call-in radio show, a moment that left the Kentucky head coach somewhat emotional as he gathered his thoughts.

“One of the great things about athletics is it rips you open and shows the whole world your heart, right? It just does,” Pope said. “For so many things in our life we get to prepare and we get to script them, and we get to think through them and find the ideal response and the correct answer in all the things we want to do. In this moment — we watched it on film together as a team — Kerr lands, breaks his foot, falls to the ground, and immediately jumps up, hobbles back as fast as he can, and goes straight vertical trying to trying to save a transition defense possession.

“And just in that moment, you got to see Kerr Kriisa. You got to see him ripped open, unscripted, just how he’s built and what he’s made of and how much he cares about his team, how much he cares about winning and how much he cares about competing. He didn’t have time to prep for that or think it through or do whatever it was, just his guts.”

The team watched that sequence back on a loop during the postgame film breakdown, understanding the gravity of Kriisa’s single shot contest — even with Gonzaga earning two points in that moment. It was the total buy-in and desire to put the team before himself, just as Pope has been stressing since the day he took the job back in April.

That was understanding the assignment. The hope is Kriisa will be back to understanding the assignment as an active player in the very near future — a reported three-to-six-week timeline for return.

“It was a really, really special moment for everybody on our team as we watched it over and over. It was a little bit emotional,” Pope said. “We’ll be excited to get him back. He’s dealing with the best doctors and performance team in the country, and so we’re expecting him back sooner rather than later.”

Until then, Kriisa will be Kentucky’s ultimate hype man from the bench while likely shouting expletives about how badly he wants to get back out on the floor — just as he did ahead of the team’s upset win over Gonzaga, giving a pregame speech that cannot be repeated.

“The words that he uttered will never be repeated again, but it was effective and great. It was vintage Kerr Kriisa,” Pope said. “So now it sounds like we’re going to have him as the full-time pregame speech guy at least while he’s recovering from this injury.”