Mark Pope says Kentucky's health is 'better than it was a few days ago' after week off from games

Kentucky men’s basketball will have gone a full week between games when the Wildcats hit the hardwood on Saturday in Nashville. The timing of that break couldn’t have been better either. UK has a couple of guys banged up who needed some extra days to rest and recover.

Those guys would be starters Lamont Butler and Andrew Carr, who haven’t missed any SEC games yet despite dealing with various injuries. Butler took a beating, particularly to his non-shooting shoulder, in Kentucky’s win over Texas A&M back on Jan. 14. Meanwhile, Carr has been dealing with a nagging back issue for the last three games. He’s been listed on the SEC’s Availability Report for all three but ultimately played in every one of them. Even Brandon Garrison has been dealing with minor injuries throughout the season.

Ahead of Saturday’s road game against Vanderbilt, Kentucky head coach Mark Pope provided a brief update on the team’s injury situation. He did not say for sure if Butler and Carr would be good to play against the Commodores this weekend, but he did say plenty of progress has been made since last weekend’s loss to Alabama.

“It’s better than it was a few days ago, that’s for sure,” Pope said Thursday of the team’s overall health. “Everybody in the league is going to deal with the same thing and certainly we are too. You’re just scraping away at every single second where you can to try and be as healthy as you can. But everybody is gonna play hurt and play with injured guys. We’re doing better. Really grateful for this week because it at least helps us make some progress.”

The first Availability Report for the Kentucky-Vanderbilt game will be released on Friday night. Don’t be surprised if Butler and/or Carr are listed once again. That hasn’t kept them from playing in previous games so far though. As Pope said, everyone in the SEC is going to play guys who aren’t 100 percent healthy. Butler (13.6 PPG) and Carr (10.9 PPG) have been toughing it out so far.

But what about Kerr Kriisa? Kentucky’s veteran backup point guard hasn’t played since he fractured his foot against Gonzaga back on Dec. 7. Pope did not provide any specific updates Thursday on Kriisa. At the time of Kriisa’s injury, Jeff Goodman from The Field of 68 reported a 3-6 week recovery timeline. It’s now been roughly seven weeks since Kriisa underwent surgery.

It should be noted that UK did not announce an official return timeline for Kriisa either: “Surgery is set to happen in the coming days, and while the injury is not considered to be season-ending, he will be out indefinitely,” the school announced on Dec. 8. Pope said earlier this week that Kriisa is still a “few weeks” away from possibly returning to the lineup.